Dale and Susan Hamilton found their wonderful waterfront home on Anchor Drive by accident.
“Some friends were looking at the house and they asked us to go along,” says Susan, a charming woman who with her husband operates a small hotel chain on Nantucket Island when not in Vero Beach. “They weren’t interested it, but we both liked it.”
The Hamiltons, whom Susan describes as “typical Northeasterners,” owned a condo in Sea Oaks but found themselves spending more and more time in Vero as they approached retirement age.
“It felt like it was time to have a house,” Susan says.
They bought the 4-bedroom, 6-bath, 4,900-square-foot home at 160 Anchor Drive in 2011 and found it even more perfect for their needs than they first imagined.
The home’s foremost virtue is its location at the tip of peninsula on the shore of Porpoise Bay, which affords the occupants wide water views and a natural vista, with The Moorings golf course on the far shore instead of houses.
“We get sunrise and sunset views, which is amazing,” Susan says. “Every room in the house but one has a water view. We see manatee and dolphins every day. There is a lush seagrass bed out in the bay that attracts fish and all kinds of sea life. There are lots of pelicans and osprey, too. It is incredible!”
The home has an L-shaped, ipe-wood dock large enough for a 70-foot boat, with a boat lift for a smaller craft.
“We have an 18-foot boat and a lot of times we will take it over to The Moorings Country Club to play tennis or use the fitness center,” Susan says. “The grandkids love hopping on the boat with their grandpa and cruising over to the club to have lunch and swim in the big pool with all the other kids.”
The outdoor living space that occupies the area between the back of the house and seawall is beautifully landscaped, multi-leveled and charming in every way.
There is a sparkling lap pool right on the shore of the lagoon, a spa, a summer kitchen, a roomy covered veranda and several additional small patios on different levels that provide space for sunbathing, seating and even fishing, if one is inclined to drop a line in the teeming waters.
“I am an outdoor sort of girl,” Susan says. “I sit out on the covered porch on 90-degree days.”
The house was built in 2003. Architecturally, it takes most of its inspiration from various Mediterranean styles, but the interpretation is modern and playful.
For example, paving in the front motor court and rear patios is concrete trimmed with Chicago brick. In front, the brink is used to create a decorative circle in the pavement that echoes a grand round window in the front facade.
“The man who built this had been careful with his money all his life but after he sold his business and came here he decided to spare no expense and build the house exactly as he and his wife wanted it,” Susan says.
“When we moved in, we didn’t find a single thing that needed to be changed. Everything was perfect.”
The home is filled with light, has open, flowing public space and offers organic elements and surprising architectural details that Susan loves, including a series of arches that draw a visitor into the home and then out into the natural world.
The series starts with an arched opening onto the porch and continues with an a round-top mahogany door with surrounding side-and top-light and a wide arched entry into the two-story living room, culminating with a magnificent two-story Palladian window that seems to encompass the whole outdoors.
The window would fit fine in the lobby of a Ritz Carlton or St. Regis hotel situated in a scenic location, but does not overwhelm the living room, which has a 22-foot-high ceiling.
Organic elements include real bamboo wainscoting in the foyer, bead-board ceilings in the living room and other public areas, and a carefully crafted mahogany fireplace surround.
The wood-burning fireplace, which can also operate on gas, is also an example of the home’s pleasing architectural surprises. It has a built-in entertainment center above for the contemporary-minded owner but that feature can be disguised by closing several unobtrusive cabinet doors, restoring the look of formal paneling.
Flooring is marble in public areas on the first floor and hardwood on the second floor, with luxurious wool carpet in the bedrooms. The carpet is woven to resemble sisal, a tropical grass mat material, adding another organic sensation.
To the left of the soaring living room is a breakfast room, a formal dining room and an expansive gourmet kitchen filled with blond wood cabinets, light-colored granite and high-end appliances. All of the rooms are wholly open to each other in the style the Hamiltons prefer. Space is defined by columns, differing ceiling heights and treatments, and other subtle distinctions in material and design.
Beyond the kitchen is a guest suite with handicap-accessible bathroom and sliding door to the patio area, a large laundry room, and the back entrance that lead to the porte cochere and garage.
Going left from the foyer is a hallway that leads to the main staircase, a full hall bath with an outside door that allows it function as the cabana bath, and an impressive master suite with an outer door that closes the entire area off from the rest of the house.
The suite includes a kitchenette, a wood-paneled office, a large bedroom with elaborately coffered ceiling and sliding doors that lead to the covered veranda, two walk-in closets equipped with built-in bureaus and shelves, and two luxurious his-and-hers bathrooms, one nicer than the other.
“I thought it was silly when we first moved in to have two bathrooms,” says Susan. “We have lived in smaller places in Nantucket – when you own a B&B, your personal space tends to be cramped – so I didn’t think we needed this. But I wasn’t here half an hour before I fell in love with the setup! I don’t know how I would live without it, now!”
At the top of the stairs on the second floor is a wide hallway with a sitting area that overlooks the living room and has a view of the motor court and street through the round window.
An exercise room and two bedrooms with full baths and balconies take up the rest of the second-story living space.
“Being in those bedrooms is almost like being on a ship,” Susan says. “Looking out the sliding doors, you don’t see the ground, just the water.”
The shipboard sensation is enhanced by boat traffic in the channel that runs by near shore. “You look out the window and see these really big boats going by that look like they are about 15 feet away!”
Susan says she and her husband are selling the house they love because “we have six kids and they are all getting married and having children and as they come down more and more frequently to visit we decided to get a place with a separate guest cottage to give them more space.
“Our places in life keep changing and we have different needs now.”
Susan says she and Dale will be staying in Vero, where they spend about seven months a year now, gradually transitioning to fulltime Florida living as they turn management of their hotels over to their daughter.
The Hamiltons own the Veranda House and Chapman House hotels in downtown Nantucket and operate them along with a third property, Arbor Cottage, under the umbrella of the Veranda House Hotel Collection.
The historic 19th century properties have been renovated in a retro-chic style and offer sweeping views of Nantucket Bay. Frequently written up in travel and leisure magazines and the Boston Globe, the boutique hotels have been included on numerous “best of” lists in regional and national publications.
