Jupiter Island, that slender finger of sand and vegetation that separates the Atlantic from a 10-mile stretch of nature preserves and country clubs just north of Palm Beach, is also home to some of the most expensive property in the U.S.
Homes here routinely fetch eight figures, with celebrities, business leaders and sports figures drawn to its orbit of exclusivity and privacy. This is rarefied real estate on a finite patch of land with limited opportunities for development.
Which is why a plot of undeveloped land that extends westward from the ocean to the intracoastal waterway presented an unusual opportunity for Garrett Harabedian, a director at the design and architectural firm Northworks.
“The clients came to us with a desire to develop the eastern part of the parcel with a single-family home,” Harabedian explains. “One that could evolve over time as a family grows with kids and grandkids.” His vision, with such space to play with, allows for more of an “extended-family compound” of main house, guest house, poolside cabana and garden.
Despite going on the market just weeks after completion (the clients decided to build something else for themselves), the resulting design and build is, however, “definitely not a developer-level spec home,” adds Northworks’ co-founder Bill Bickford. “The clients have had direct involvement in design decisions—there are a lot of details that make it a very personal house.”
There’s no particular Northworks signature look—each project is custom-built to clients’ specifications. Rather, the home at 402 S Beach Road reflects an authentic Florida coastal vernacular, with the core design driven by the living space on the upper floor to look at the ocean to one side and sunsets to other. “It was all about maintaining views and creating views,” says Bickford. And for Harabedian, a LEED-accredited architect whose ethos of sustainability extends beyond materials, this house should also be built to withstand hurricane-force winds and other extreme weather. A legacy home before it’s been occupied.
Knowing the lay of this particular piece of land also played into the design vision. The stretch of South Beach Road is notable, says Harabedian, for a large banyan tree that anchors the corner of an S curve that skirts around the property, allowing glimpses of the house from the shared access road (shared with one other neighbor). “It’s a two-story house that asserts itself,” he says, “but it doesn’t seem oppressively large, it sits back from the road and is partially hidden by that banyan tree and some landscaping.”
Bert Krebs, partner at landscape architectural firm Innocenti & Webel, was involved with the project from the outset—elegant hardscaping and considered planting, including relocating some existing trees, would be integral to the success of the design.
The undeveloped land was populated by “some quality native trees, invasive species and non-native trees, which weren’t great, it was not a pristine site,” Krebs recalls. “There were some vines and invasives in there that were, let’s say, not beneficial.” Unbeneficial plants removed, the planning and planting of an allée of Christmas palms became a central landscape element. An elegant symmetry that reinforces what Krebs describes as the “strong central axis through the architecture”—a green bridge of sorts between the main and guest houses.
Krebs’s design outlook chimes with Harabedian’s forward-looking, sustainable ethos. “We want to make sure that people are happy for the long term,” he says. Which is why he favors natural materials, like stone, which “works well over time. Stone is just such a great building material that’s been used throughout history.”
The most successful design, Krebs believes, “is the one that’s both functional and beautiful. Finding the plants that can take the climate conditions, won’t grow out of scale and will keep their shape guided his design decisions. And while whoever ends up walking the Christmas palm allée will still need to factor in the services of a skilled gardener, the look here is not overly manicured. “They can let it go kind of wild if they want,” Krebs says. “It’ll still work.”
402 S Beach Road is on the market for $35 million with listing agents Jeanne deSanctis and Stephanie Meeker of Illustrated Properties, a member of Forbes Global Properties, the invitation-only network of top-tier brokerages worldwide and the exclusive real estate partner of Forbes
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