By the Beautiful Sea...

Kathy and Robert Barnes thought they were well on their way to a new home. They'd bought a lot in a high-end, gated community west of the Intracoastal Waterway. Plans had been completed, permits had been gathered and the builder was ready to begin moving dirt.

Then Kathy saw a for-sale sign on Beach Avenue in Atlantic Beach.

"I found this and said, 'Never mind,'" she recalls. Atlantic Beach was where the jewelry-store owner had spent her teenage years basking in the sun. "So it was natural for me to want to come back here."

The Barneses-he's a pathologist at Memorial Hospital Jacksonville-sold their lot, bought the small bungalow and razed it to build a three-story, Mediterranean-style beachfront beauty.

It's a phenomenon taking place all over The Beaches-replacing aging, single-story homes with spectacular new ones that rise two and three stories.

During the last three years in Neptune Beach, the smallest of the Beaches communities, 11 single-family homes were demolished. In Atlantic Beach, the trend is accelerating-from 18 residential teardowns in 2005 to 18 so far in 2006.

"You don't do teardowns until the land is gone," says Brad Negaard, president of GBN Construction in Jacksonville. "The concept of living in Florida is living at the beach, and there's only so much land."

The beachside teardown trend started about six years ago and really took off around 2004, builders and real estate agents say.

"The oceanfront is changing from second homes to permanent homes," says Elizabeth Hudgins, an agent with Prudential Network Realty in Jacksonville.

And the people building by the ocean want their homes to have all the amenities-and all the square footage-that homes elsewhere have, even though the lots are usually smaller than those found in typical inland subdivisions.

"The land is far more valuable than the building that's on it," says Steve Williams, owner of Edgewater Companies in Jacksonville Beach. "These homes are so far outdated that by the time you gutted them, there'd be virtually nothing left to save. These buildings are 40 to 60 years old, and were built in an era when many of them were just second homes used from Memorial Day through Labor Day."

But building a house that suits today's standards on a lot that's only 50-by-100 or 50-by-130 can be tricky. It's a given, of course, that every square inch of property allowable will be taken up by the structure.

"We have no yard," says Kathy Barnes-but she isn't complaining.

Indeed, Negaard says, most buyers transforming bungalows near the beach are baby boomers whose kids have left home. They don't want a yard; they want a life.

"They're trying to do a maintenance-free home," Negaard says. "They want a home where they can entertain friends, close the door, lock it and go travel."

Living yard-free is one thing; exceeding the original footprint of the lot is another, and it's led to debate in some beach towns. Typically the older homes are only 1,200 to 1,500 square feet, while the new homes replacing them may be twice as large or larger.

"In most of these cases, the bungalows were built farther back than the minimum zoning setback of 20 feet," says Jim Hanson, city manager of Atlantic Beach. Some new owners, to accommodate larger homes, are building right up to the 20-foot setback lines, he adds.

Sometimes, Hanson says, new homes are so much bigger than the surrounding homes that they seem out of place, prompting complaints from neighbors.

As a result, Atlantic Beach officials are considering additional restrictions on the size and bulk of new construction. However, at press time, no vote on a specific proposal had taken place.

The goal is to balance the rights of property owners on both sides of the issue, Hanson notes. After all, he adds, people who are building new homes are reinvesting in the community-something the city wants to encourage.

"Still, we're trying to retain the character of Atlantic Beach," Hanson says.

There are builders and architects striving to do that as well. Williams, for example, says his company has done some teardowns and rebuilds on spec-but always with neighborhood ambiance in mind.

"Since I'm born and raised in this town, I'm sensitive to what my fellow citizens are feeling," Williams says. "We're trying to build new properties that still have the look and feel of beach homes."

Al Arena, an architectural designer with Residential Designs by Kevin Gray, says metal roofs are especially popular because they wear well and have a funky, beachy look.

"They don't fade like shingles," Arena says, "and they're not as high-maintenance as tile roofs."

Still, new homes going up near the beach are eclectic, Arena says. "Mediterranean had been popular for years along the coast, but lately we've seen a shift into other looks, such as Italianate-style homes-and coastal cottages have become very big sellers."

"Coastal cottages," a term coined by architects and designers for beach-themed homes, typically feature shake or lap siding mixed with other materials, such as brick or stone.

Most of Arena's clients know what they're looking for, he says. "They've seen something somewhere in South Florida, or on an island, and come in with a preconceived notion of what they want."

But mostly what they want is the beachside lifestyle.

Els Robert, for example, is buying a three-story home in Jacksonville Beach that, at 2,500 square feet, is actually a bit smaller than the one she had in St. Augustine.

"But now I'm really [within] walking distance to the beach," Robert says, "and the atmosphere is more eclectic, younger, older-you have a mixture of people."

That atmosphere is what drew the Barnes family to Atlantic Beach.

"From five in the morning on, there are people out on the street, walking, running, strolling their children, riding bikes," says Kathy Barnes. "It becomes this little haven. And the sound of the ocean at night when you leave your windows open is really wonderful."

Despite its substantial size-more than 5,400 square feet-the Barneses wanted their home to blend into the neighborhood. For example, the builder added a special stucco finish that made the exterior appear to be older.

And the couple also made certain that their home will stand the test of time-and tide.

"We have steel beams," Barnes says. "The house is totally hurricane-proof. The windows are rated to 190-mph winds. We worked hard to make sure it'll be here a long time."

And with good reason: "I love this house," she says. "It's my dream home."