The Accidental Beach House
From Dump to Weekend Haven With a Little Help, A Lot of Creativity And a Tight Budget
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Saturday, October 4, 2008
Dan Wittenberg never really wanted a beach house, just a patch of land at the water's edge where he could park his Hobie Cat and sail it at a moment's notice.
As it turns out, he and his wife, Janet, got both the house and the land -- less than two hours from their Bethesda home -- and they got it cheap.
The couple bought a tiny, run-down house in St. Mary's County on 13 wooded acres overlooking the Potomac River for $250,000 a few years ago, then rebuilt it for $157,000.
"That's less than it would have cost us to remodel our kitchen in Bethesda," Dan Wittenberg said.
The task was painstakingly slow and sometimes frustrating. The Wittenbergs designed the house themselves using off-the-shelf software, plenty of research on the Internet and a few local laborers. (The Wittenbergs themselves never swung a hammer on this project.)
Dan Wittenberg, a ship broker, acted as unlicensed architect and lawyer, as well as general contractor, even though he considers himself "the least handy guy in Washington." His wife, an artist, took the lead on furnishings and some of the home's most distinctive features, including glass countertops and backsplashes she made for the kitchen and bathroom.
The endeavor shows how far a dollar can stretch for a family looking to build a house for as little as possible -- even a family that knows almost nothing about construction.
About a quarter of the 1 million single-family homes started last year were built by people who acted as their own contractors or hired someone to do that instead of working through established builders, according to census data.
Lowball
Janet Wittenberg initially resisted buying the property. "One house is enough work," she said.
But Dan insisted.
He became obsessed with the idea about five years ago, after a trip to Lake Champlain, where he rediscovered the thrill of sailing Hobie Cats -- small, fast catamarans.
Soon after, he bought his boat (then another) and began shopping for the perfect parking space. He wanted it about 90 minutes from home on a "wide-open, perpetually windy body of water."
