Seaside Sign Of The Times

[Kurt]

25 years ago, husband-and-wife architects Andr?s Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk stood on a deserted white stretch of Floridian beach.


They'd been asked to create a new beach resort named Seaside that would recapture everything that was good about smalltown America. Today people come from all over the world to share in the good life at Seaside, a naive precursor to the enormous man-made holiday resorts springing up today in places such as Dubai and Tunisia.


Seaside is so famous that it has its own shop, The Seaside Store, which sells T-shirts, pencils and towels all emblazoned with the blue-and-white Seaside logo. Standing on the smooth, narrow beach, two things strike me.


Firstly, everything conforms to the Seaside colour scheme: the sky, the Gulf of Mexico and the beach parasols that line it are bright blue, while the sand, the lofty clapboard houses and the shops are all white.


Secondly, after 10 days in Florida - a state where the only way to cross a street is to hire a car and drive - it is a relief to be in a town where you can walk around. But it's not just the lack of cars, it's the absence of billboards and skyscraper hotels that makes Seaside remarkable.


When Duany and Plater-Zyberk were brought here in 1980 their brief was specific. Landowner Robert Davis had been reading Leon Krier, the urban theorist who inspired Prince Charles to build Poundbury in Dorset.


Krier believed that the ideal size for a small town was based on the distance a person might comfortably walk around in a day: 80 acres. The architects were commissioned to build a resort and 'ideal holiday community'. All rather Orwellian, Seaside was to be a physical realisation of the American Dream. Davis didn't want Poundbury's pastiche, though.



The architects were given a free hand, which is why, as well as leafy lanes and traditional picket-fence housing, tin roofs and wraparound verandahs, Seaside also has imaginative homes that rework the Victorian gingerbread woodwork of Florida's Gilded Age into something more chic and minimalist. Seaside is not without its critics, who feel as if Big Brother has imposed something repressively squeaky clean and uniform.


It's not surprising that, in 1998, Seaside was chosen as the location for the sinister soap opera utopia in the film The Truman Show, starring Jim Carrey. But time has been kind to Davis's idealised community and individuality has crept in.


Like a true resident, I stroll round the town's square, buy coffee at Sundog Books, ice cream at Frost Bites, browse the open-air market and take a leisurely lunch at Shades.


Eating on the verandah, I realise that for the first time in days I'm watching real people walking, talking and shopping. That may sound unremarkable but at Seaside, Duany and Plater-Zyberk (now called DPZ) haven't just recreated the appearance of a bygone age, but reintroduced the idea that human beings are residents and not just consumers.


Yes, this social experimentation can be eerie, but when you look at Panama City Beach, on the other side of the bridge, it seems like a fine idea.


Panama City is a 10-mile strip of garish restaurants, towering hotels and noisy entertainment. It has no centre, no pavements, no real shops and very few real people. Seaside managed to coin a new concept in modern architecture called 'Urban Renewal' and DPZ have become major players in modern design. A mighty coffee table book about their work comes out this summer and the company has received the Thomas Jefferson memorial medal of architecture. Since 1980, DPZ has designed more than 140 similar communities.


Ironically for an ideal community, most of Seaside's property is now rented out to holiday-makers keen to buy a slice of nostalgia one week at a time. The American Dream has become a holiday destination.

Read more: The American dream holiday? | Mail Online​

 

[walk the walk]

Read more: The American dream holiday? | Mail Online​

I wondered at first who wrote this article - then I see by your references that a travel writer from England must have written it. It is the same perspective that has been published about Seaside a million times. Seaside is a manufactured version of a classic American town - it is a vacation resort for the wealthy. Creative retailers are its best asset.

Step off 30-A and the rest of the county is a vast offering of hodgepodge - much like Panana City Beach. The writer should not be so hasty to judge PCBeach and special places like historic St. Andrews in Panama City that still mimics the quaint fishing village Destin used to be. There are lots of "real people" who love to fish, boat and recreate in these pristine waters.
Many make their living, too, in these waters.

One has to take this article with a grain of salt, really. Those of us who live here - and I've lived on 30-A and in Panama City Beach - might get a chuckle about this outsider's viewpoint of who the "real people" are.


To each his own - but east of the Walton County line there are four fantastic counties also located on the gulf that offer some real old Florida experiences with real history that hasn't been tampered with
or manufactured and, hopefully, never will be.

 

[Matt J]

Are you serious about St. Andrews? How long as Ye Olde Titty bar been there? Don't forget to see the fabulous stripped out casino boat.

 

[Douglas the Intrepid]

After seeing the utter monstrosity that front beach road has become and the ghetto PC is becoming, I think I agree with the author's premise a bit more. Makes me appreciate this small slice of heaven we live on...

 

[walk the walk]

Are you serious about St. Andrews? How long as Ye Olde Titty bar been there? Don't forget to see the fabulous stripped out casino boat.

Yes,you are corect SWGB,the ye old tittie bar is still there and the ye old gay bar is still on Harrison Avenue as well,which I am sure you already knew.Maybe your wish will come true and the drag show comes to 30-A.


FABULOUS!

 

[Matt J]

Yes,you are corect SWGB,the ye old tittie bar is still there and the ye old gay bar is still on Harrison Avenue as well,which I am sure you already knew.Maybe your wish will come true and the drag show comes to 30-A.


FABULOUS!

The titty bar is located in St. Andrews, the gay bar is located in Panama City. Two completely separate neighborhoods and quite frankly downtown Panama City is much more appealing than St. Andrews.

Why are we stopping there though, historic Vernon is going through a face lift thanks to the FDOT. Why not compare the two? :roll:

 

[walk the walk]

After seeing the utter monstrosity that front beach road has become and the ghetto PC is becoming, I think I agree with the author's premise a bit more. Makes me appreciate this small slice of heaven we live on...

Do we really want to go and call others neighborhoods ghetto? I mean,I can go and show you several places in SoWal that are extremely run down and questionable.I am sure the travel writer did not see these areas and for the prestige of 30-A,that would have been a very bad public relations move.Do not cast stones trepid,it tends to fall upon you...Be thankful you live where you do but do not be judgemental of others choices of residences,it is very shallow of you.
I lived on 30-A for years but chose to live in PCB for closer proximity to the water and activities and surrounding beauty of St.Andrew Bay.

I do agree,the condo "Wall of Panama" is very undesireable and very unfortunate.

 

[scooterbug44]

There is no denying that Panama City can be quite tacky and rundown - no comparison whatsoever to Seaside or 30-a.

I don't see how calling a spade a spade and saying it makes you appreciate other things more qualifies as "throwing stones." :roll:

 

[walk the walk]

There is no denying that Panama City can be quite tacky and rundown - no comparison whatsoever to Seaside or 30-a.

I don't see how calling a spade a spade and saying it makes you appreciate other things more qualifies as "throwing stones." :roll:

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and thank you for sharing yours.

 

[Kurt]

I like Panama City but I have been to places in Panama City where I would not want to be alone at night.

And then there's this - http://www.sowal.com/bb/politics-current-events/51537-panama-city-leads-nation-divorce.html