Again this year, I was asked to compile Ocean Home’s listing of top coastal architects across the United States and the Caribbean.
The magazine calls it “The Who’s Who in Residential Coastal Design,” because it honors the most innovative and inspiring design professionals shaping oceanfront living today. This recognition celebrates architects who blend artistry, sustainability, and a deep respect for the coastal environment to create extraordinary homes along the shores. Each firm on the list exemplifies excellence in design, craftsmanship, and a passion for elevating the experience of life by the sea.
Today we’re posting a few of the architecture firms and images of their work on this prestigious list, with a link to all at the end of the post:
Jeffrey Dungan
Mountain Brook
Known for: Designs deeply rooted in Southern architectural traditions, emphasizing craftsmanship, material authenticity, and a strong connection to nature.
Highlight: The firm’s second book with Rizzoli is slated for release next fall.
Highlight: Expansion of its interior design studio and taking on a growing number of projects across a range of scales and styles.
Highlight: An Alys Beach house honored in the inaugural Ocean Home Awards, recognized for its midcentury modern and Gothic influences.
Highlight: The Architectural Collection, designed with Textures Nashville, won a Luxe RED Award.
Highlight: Completion of a remote cottage on the coast of Nova Scotia.
In the works: A beach home in Puerto Rico that embraces its tropical setting with a strong indoor-outdoor connection.
Opal Architecture
Belfast, Maine
Known for: Resourceful, contemporary interpretations and abstraction of a rich vernacular architectural history on the New England coast, and advanced sustainable design.
Highlight: 2025 AIA National COTE Top Ten.
Highlight: Elemental, a private residence with exceptional energy performance, an assemblage of charred cedar Shugi Ban boxes broken by continuous views.
Highlight: The Collins House dormitory for College of the Atlantic—an all-mass timber building that offers healthy, near-zero emissions living for students in a light-filled, communal environment.
In the works: Two coastal homes that face each other across the mouth of Somes Sound, flanked on either side by Acadia National Park—immersive experiences of place and a unique opportunity to work on either side of a single body of water.
Curtis & Windham Architects
Houston, Texas
Known for: Skillfully blending traditional architectural principles with a keen awareness of modern living and a collaborative, client-focused process that results in spaces that are both contextually appropriate and individually tailored.
Highlight: A new book, Building on Tradition, published by Rizzoli in October.
Highlight: 2025 PaperCity Design Award for “Best in Architecture.”
Highlight: Recently completed projects include new houses in Martha’s Vineyard, Southern California, Houston, Seaside, and England.
In the works: Projects in the Bahamas, the Cotswolds, North Carolina, Texas, and elsewhere around the United States.
Kersting Architecture
Wilmington, North Carolina
Known for: A regionally tempered modernism.
Highlight: Celebration of the 30th anniversary for the firm.
Highlight: Completion of “Home@9,” a 4,000-square-foot home in Wrightsville Beach.
Highlight: Completion of the Coral Bay Club, a 35,000-square-foot private beach club in Atlantic Beach. Construction started on several other waterfront homes.
Highlight: Named one of America’s Top 200 Residential Architects by Forbes magazine, plus two AIA design awards.
Highlight: The Edgewater Lane renovation brought new life to a home in a waterfront community; The Commodore Club was a venture into the field of floating architecture.
In the works: An extensive renovation for new owners of a home that the firm designed 20 years ago, plus projects in Wilmington, on Figure Eight Island and Wrightsville Beach—and homes on the Outer Banks and Crystal Coast of North Carolina, and South Carolina,
Leroy Street Studio Architecture
New York
Known for: Emphasizing craft in construction and a collaborative design process that creates authentic designs centered on the human experience.
Highlight: Eight coastal houses started design or construction; Cherry Lane Theatre open to public after renovations; Queens Broadway Library open to public after renovations.
Highlight: Hosted an after-hours event for the Architectural League of New York; 140 Jane Street in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg; Upper West Side Townhouse in Galerie.
Highlight: Two AIANY Interiors Committee Residential Review Finalists; Queens Chamber of Commerce Award; Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Award; SARA National Merit Awards; Interior Design magazine Best of Year Honoree.
In the works: Oceanfront homes in New York, New Jersey, Florida, and California; Condominiums in the West Village; Renovation of a stable into mass-timber townhouse; Penthouse duplex on Central Park; Headhouse, greenhouses in Van Cortlandt Park.
For more, go here.
