Cottage Confidential

A thoughtful renovation helps a 1970s Atlantic Avenue beach house capture the quintessential charm of a classic Sullivan’s Island cottage.

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This charming Sullivan’s Island cottage has a secret to share. Nestled ocean side along Atlantic Avenue, its white cedar shingles, pecky cypress paneling, and 100-year-old heart of pine floors hark back to “old school Sullivan’s.” However, the house at 2407 Atlantic has not experienced generations of barefoot kids running through its hallways. It’s not even made the half-a-century mark. Constructed in 1974, when this strip of the beachfront road was first developed, the house speaks to a simpler time – one of beach shacks characterized by peeling paint, battered porches, slamming screen doors, and sea breezes serving as air conditioning. 

A recent careful and considered renovation overseen by owners Stephen and Alisoun Brewster stripped the ‘70s beach babe down to her bones and rebuilt her stronger and more beautiful than before. Today, the patinaed look and classic style cleverly disguise the fact that this home is, for all intents and purposes, thoroughly modern. 

Initially built by the Crawford family, 30 years and one Hurricane Hugo later, it was sold to Sam and Hazel Boyd, who kept it until 2016. It was then, as so many of its like, bought, renovated, and put back on the market before the Brewsters finally claimed it. “We fell in love with the home the first moment we stepped inside,” says Alisoun. So began an almost three-year renovation that transformed the house from a sprawling contemporary beach home to a charming yet timeless seaside cottage.

The vision was to take a house that had a bunch of interesting architectural elements and a quirky series of additions and turn it into a cohesive home." 

-Stephen Brewster

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Julia Lynn Photography

Julia Lynn ©Julia Lynn

Julia Lynn Photography

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Julia Lynn Photography

Julia Lynn ©Julia Lynn

Julia Lynn Photography

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Julia Lynn Photography

Julia Lynn ©Julia Lynn

Julia Lynn Photography

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Julia Lynn Photography

Julia Lynn ©Julia Lynn

Julia Lynn Photography

Begin again?

This renovation story isn’t unique, but its outcome is one anyone building or remodeling a home on the islands should take note of. An old Sullivan’s Island house fixed up and added to many times over the years presents a dilemma to new owners. Do you tear down the (nonhistoric) home and build fresh, or do you work with what you have? The latter turned out to be the path of least resistance for the Brewsters, who were drawn to the idea of working within the existing footprint to create something timeless that felt like it had always been there – like it belonged.

The couple’s first home in the Charleston area was on Kiawah, which Alisoun discovered when she played tennis at the resort. Returning home to Chicago, she told Stephen they had to buy a house on that idyllic island to escape the frigid Illinois winters. Originally from Detroit (her) and Cincinnati (him), they had lived in the Windy City since the ‘80s, raising their three children there. But warmer climes beckoned. After a few years of vacationing on Kiawah, they decided to make the Charleston area home but

wanted to move closer to downtown. They bought a house at 2608 Atlantic Avenue in 2016 as a vacation home, with a view to becoming permanent. “We just fell in love with Sullivan’s,” says Alisoun. “It was time to plant some roots.” 

At that time, 2407 Atlantic was also for sale. While they missed the opportunity, they had a decision to make when it came back on the market less than a year later. “Whether to buy 2407 and do a modest renovation,” recalls Stephen. “Or tear down 2608 Atlantic and build something new.” The quirky ‘70s beach house won, and they embarked on what Stephen recalls was originally going to be “just some minor updates.” 

The idea had been to rework the floor plan to incorporate at least five bedrooms for when their grown children and grandchildren visited but also to feel manageable for when they were home alone. But as with so many best-laid plans, things changed. After finding some issues with the structural integrity of the home and being inspired by the vision of architects John Young and Philip Dufford, the Brewsters went all in on a full renovation, finally moving into their “forever home” in March 2020.

“The objective was to keep the old classic understated beach look,” says builder Rus Sheppard of Sheppard Construction. To achieve that, the builder and architect worked to give the home a timeless feel. “You have to maintain a certain simplicity. It’s purity in the form that gives it a historic feel,” says Young. From small details such as modeling the handrails out front on those found on older island cottages to larger projects such as removing all the tongue-and-groove pecky cypress from the house that had been painted white, and painstakingly restoring it to its original form. “Saving the antique heart pine floors in the house and restoring them was a very exciting part of the project,” recalls Sheppard.

You have to maintain a certain simplicity. It’s purity in the form that gives it a historic feel,”

-John Young.

Over the years, the home had gained extra rooms where previously there were porches, giving it a wide, rambling feel.

The additions had also extended the roof downward, resulting in an odd juxtaposition of soaring vaulted ceilings inside and a low, 7-foot roofline outside. During an early site visit, the architectural team hopped on top of the roof, where they had an “aha!” moment. They could solve the problem of the low roofline and the puzzle of squeezing in five bedrooms by going up.

“Fitting in five beds was the challenge, and, aesthetically, the roof profile was a challenge,” says Dufford. “When we went up on the roof, we realized that making the jump to create the second floor would get the space we needed and change the aesthetic of the house to be more closely proportioned to the historic island vernacular." That decision turned out to be the key to the whole project, freeing the downstairs space from the burden of five bedrooms and allowing for a primary bedroom suite with views of the Maritime Forest, an office, a large laundry room, and a sitting room in addition to an open-plan living room, dining room, and kitchen. 

The old porches were reinstated, and the new second story became a long hallway with four bedrooms and bathrooms. Here Sheppard put the reclaimed pecky cypress to use, paneling the walls with the classic beach house material and even making custom doors and built-in wardrobes with it. Stephen’s mother’s quilt collection and children’s picture books framed as art all lend to the summer camp-style feel of a century-old cottage. “It really feels like an old family beach house up there,” says Young.

“Ultimately, we kept the integrity of the footprint, which was the real benefit because it gave us a broad house with many rooms and views. And we could get in bedrooms above, so rather than all of these spaces being bedrooms, they became more living spaces,” says Alisoun. With more space, they could configure a layout that suited their lifestyle. “When houses are added on to over time, it can result in an interesting layout – a quirky personality. But when you can reset and start out again, you can get all the proportions right,” says Stephen. 

The new floor plan allows for an easy flow for everyday living as well as ample space for friends and family to gather: from the large kitchen/dining room ━ with distressed cabinets that feel like they’ve been around for decades ━ to a cozy yet open living room that can expand to the large deck and screened-in porch. 

Home again

As you enter the home through the wide doorway, you arrive in a foyer that runs the length of the front porch. The flooring is salvaged heart of pine installed by a previous owner. “It goes a long way to giving the house that old soul integrity,” says Alisoun. Just beyond the foyer, two doorways lead into a welcoming sitting room, where large windows look onto a deck and pool and beyond to the Maritime Forest. To the left is an office sitting in the “filled in” portion of the porch, and, to the right, the open-plan kitchen leads to a laundry room that mirrors the office. 

Despite the tall ceilings, the architects designed the doorways to a more traditional scale, filling the space with glass transoms. This gives the large rooms a more modest scale, and the wide casements of the doorways help carry you from one room to the next, creating the feel of cottage-like passageways. A new stairwell for the second-story addition allowed for the design of a beautiful banister, placed strategically in view from the living room. The piece, finished with a similar distressed look to the kitchen cabinets, looks like it's seen generations of tiny hands spinning around it.

Local designer Melissa Ervin created the home's interiors, working with the Brewsters to integrate the couple’s extensive art collection and many family heirlooms. She created a classic beach house look ━ comfortable and elegant – that feels like it’s always been part of the family. Blue and green fabrics in linens and texture tipped with grosgrain ribbon on a white and wood palette add elegance to the living spaces. A mix of antiques and vintage pieces, along with the layering of rugs over sisal, create the feel of a loved and lived-in space. The bold colors continue into the family room, where green lacquered walls in Farrow & Ball “Bancha” draw your eye, and the powder room, where a brilliant ocean blue paint envelopes the small space. “There’s a lot of furniture here that has a lot of history for us,” says Stephen. “So it feels like home, even though it’s new.” 

And Sullivan’s feels like home to the couple now, too. One of their daughters has relocated to Mount Pleasant, and the family has fully embraced island living. “There’s such a wonderful multi-generational community here,” says Stephen. “I love the eclectic feel of Sullivan’s.”

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