Playboy Pad: On the Beach

It's no accident that William Morgan lives in a wildly original, highly functional and inescapably beautiful house. None of that was left to chance; he designed it himself. Not that we recommend that course of action indiscriminately: Morgan happens to be a much-honored architect---Harvard grad, former Fulbright scholar---who also teaches in a university and serves as a consultant to an urban-planning firm. It wasn't an easy task; the house spent two years on the drawing board, and Morgan admits that he almost turned the job over to someone else. After trying ten different approaches, however, he came up with this multilevel edifice that blends admirably into its rugged setting on the Florida coast, just minutes from Morgan's office in downtown Jacksonville, and does an equally fine job of catering to his many interests, which include sailing, surfing, hunting and fishing---and giving parties ("Impromptu festivities seem to take place all the time," says a Playboy staffer who spent several days as Morgan's guest). The shape of the house was determined by its site, a long sand dune sloping down to the sea; to Morgan, this suggested a descending staircase with platforms on either side. The roof is tilted at a 45-degree angle to protect against gale-force winds (which also inspired the diagonally laid siding and the predominant use of rough wood). The part of the house that you enter from the land side---which is one of four levels---contains the kitchen, dining and living-room areas and is remarkable open, thanks to its no-wall design, its sliding doors that open onto the sea and the overhead expanse afforded by the 30-feet high ceiling, which gives the visitor as sense of being in something akin to a chatedral (and provides nice acoustics for Morgan's classical records). Bedrooms and study areas are located on the balcony above and also on the lower levels, where boats and other maritime accouterments are stored (the idea comes from the ancient Roman (concluded on page 149) On the Beach (continued from page 133) city of Herculaneum, which had upper and lower levels relating to urban and maritime activities, respectively). They key to the house, in fact, is the way it interacts with its marine setting---not fighting it but not giving in to it, either. Of couse, there's no denying the ocean. You can feel its presence when you're driving up to the house. It dominates your sensibility when you're in the living room. And the capriciousness of the weather there suggest a flexibility of lifestyle that is, in fact, provided for by the house. For instance, Morgan and his guests can dine in any of several places---on the balconies that are reached through the sliding doors, on the terraced oasis between the house and the sea, or, when the weather's inclement or the meal requires more complicated facilities, in the dining area adjacent to the kitchen. There's also the option of enjoying the semicommunal life of the third terrace---there are no walls separating the kitchen, dining and living-rooms areas---or the privacy afforded by the other rooms. As a result, alot of spontaneity is possible---and, as a guest of Morgan's put it after an impromptu beach party at which the host served quail (of his own shooting) and a neighbor brought a salmon that he'd caught: "Nothing ever seems to be complicate."

The sea is also a rought neighbor and its abrasive side is reflected in piles up to 35 feet high on which the house rests and the rugged materials used throughout. Natural cedar forms the exterior walls, the root of shingles and the panels of the main interior walls. The ceilings are Idaho whit pine. Morgan appreciates the beauty of wood in its natural state; he has managed to use it in unexpected places: on the refrigerator door, for instance.

The interior is sparsely furnished and simply decorated, with the accent on the geometrics implicit in the construction. Morgan designed the aluminium tables and chairs and the light fixtures. There are no frills---"There's no way he could have used a lot of electronic gimmicks," opines our colleague, "because salt air is so unking to metal trnsistors"---thought the kitchen does boast a few of the latest laborsaving devices. Storage and seating are built in at various points. All of which serves to flesh out Morgan's opposition to the tendency among many architects to employ "too much technology and not enough humanity." Morgan's house, like the constructions of anicent Rome, achieves maximum seviceability with a minimum of science. But, as we said before, that's just what you might expect from a master builder when he starts building for his personal needs.