Customer Reviews

Waterfront Homes: 200 Plans for River, Lake or Sea

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There are some exciting and distinguished house plans of all sizes in this book. The written features are succinct and describes characteristic features well. The plans are drawn fairly large and clear. The housplans themselves vary from vacation types of greater than 1200 square feet and more to luxurious residential homes abutting the lakeshore or river over 5,000 square feet. The plans have the front view drawings of the home. If you are looking for a home to build that is a vacation getaway in the Florida Keys or along the eastern intracoastal waterway, this may be your book to look through... its worth a glimpse at the very least!

This is basically a collection of off the shelf house plans. I'd guarantee you that if you pick up another title by the same publisher, you'll find many of these plans repeated there. True, most do have a fair amount of glass on one side, making them suitable for catching views of why you built the house there. They have divided the plans in the categories like, lakefront, riverside, ocean, pier houses, and luxury. The houses listed in the lakefront and riverside chapters have nothing special about them to make them "lakefront" or "riverside". Some of the ocean houses do have more of either a Cape Cod or east coast feel, but not all. Obviously, the pier house are as advertised and the luxury are mostly just big.

If you're beginning your search and gathering starting points, this can be a good book. Quite honestly, you'll probably have better luck if you buy a plan book concentrating more on the features you want in a house not, as this book suggests the site of the house. If you want a one story home, buy plan books that say "ranch" or "one story" in the title, if you want a smaller or retirement home, look for "small" or "retirement" or "empty nester" in the title, if you want fewer but larger rooms, look for "open" in the title. After you've got a book with plans with features that fit your lifestyle, then look for plans with lots of windows to admire the view from. If you're looking for something a bit more unique, spend a little more and go with some of the hardback books on the market.

I cannot imagine using these plans for a seaside house if you want to have a great view of the water. I didn't feel that these homes had specific construction geared to a waterfront home.

This book is my favorite of many home plan books. Lots of interesting design ideas. Though I believe any "canned" plan like the ones in this book needs to be adjusted to the site and to personal tastes by a architect or designer, this has a lot of choices and orientations. I have purchased one of the plans and have a permit to build. I own several ocean view lots and have targeted two other plans in the book that will suit the sites.

The plans are mostly by eastern builders if you buy the plans you will find that some of the specifics are foreign on the west coast.

Though one reviewer mentioned the plans were "cookie-cutter" I did not find them so. I have 6 other home plan books with plans that are much more similar to each other, and much less innovative.

One caveat for would be ocean builders is that in most coastal areas winds are fierce. Houses must be engineered to meet codes for hurricane force winds on both coasts. We had to have an engineer licensed in our state go over our plans and it was fairly expensive. Steel beams had to be added for reinforcement when the window to wall ratio was too low. It appears to me that the architects did their best to retain windows and views while making the houses buildable without spending a fortune, or having the owners replacing oversize windows when the seals break. This may be the reason that many of the plans do not seem overly "view" oriented, as one reviewer mentions.

Overall, I love this book. I lost my last copy and am buying it again. It's the only one I know of that has plans to suit my view lots.