By Steve Plunkett
The first of Bluewater Cove’s two Intracoastal Waterway lots will be home to a single-story 6,343-square-foot Georgian-style residence.
Gulf Stream town commissioners approved the site plan for the house at their Aug. 9 meeting after considering what people on the opposite side of the Intracoastal might say.
“I think this one has a pretty significant impact on the neighbors especially since I received some comments that some of the neighbors thought they were going to be looking at a FIND area for the rest of their lives from the east side,” Vice Mayor Tom Stanley said.
The land that is now Bluewater Cove on the west side of the Intracoastal was previously owned by the Florida Inland Navigation District, which swapped its waterfront acreage with the Gulf Stream Golf Club, which then sold the property to the developer of the street. FIND commonly keeps its land undeveloped to use as storage sites for dredging the waterway.
Before commissioners could approve the house’s plan, they passed an ordinance allowing front-entry features on any one-story home to be 16 feet high instead of 14. The architects for the Bluewater Cove residence said they would have to reduce the slope of the roof, making the overall structure unattractive, poorly scaled and not truly Georgian design, if forced to build at the lower level.
The new home will have four bedrooms, a club room, a three-vehicle garage opening to the side, and in another first for the street, a circular driveway to the front door. The house faces a turning circle at the end of the cul-de-sac.
Commissioner Michael Greene questioned the amount of hardscape at the front of the house. “It just seems like it could be more greenery in the front of the property,” he said.
Landscape architect Louis Vlahos said some of the plan’s drawings omitted plantings to show more of the house, and that the specimen tree shown in the driveway island will grow to be 18 to 20 feet tall, “almost twice the size.”
The drawing also lacked two large oaks at the front, he said.
“I think it’s attractive,” Mayor Scott Morgan said. “Our main concern is the view from the east, and I think by maintaining a single-story home with a large portico for the setback of your glass doors, I think you’ve achieved that.”
Also approved was a variance for 555 Pelican Lane allowing a dock into the Intracoastal to be rebuilt at an angle to the sea wall instead of parallel. The original dock dated to 1951 and needed to be replaced after the equally old sea wall was redone. It also was 4 inches wider than the maximum allowed 5 feet.
Lawyer Tom Murphy, representing property owner Susannah Scott-Barnes, said the dock cannot be seen by any other member of the community.
“This is really not a variance for relief in order to therefore do something new but rather a variance to preserve what is old, and … what is old in Gulf Stream is good,” Murphy said.
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