Completed by DPZ CoDesign, Jeff Speck Project Manager and lead designer.

The single design project to which Jeff Speck devoted more hours than any other is the community that many visitors consider their favorite town built in the modern era. In 1995, investors approached DPZ with the goal of repeating the success of Seaside, begun fifteen years earlier and seven miles to the west, on a similar beachfront property. The design team asked how Seaside could be improved and identified three main opportunities:

• The lack of rear lanes at Seaside placed cars at the front of most dwellings;

• Seaside lacked civic spaces against the ocean, and the most popular such space, Ruskin Square, was more intimate in its proportions than the Central Square;

• The team’s favorite trajectories across Seaside were small pedestrian corridors rather than vehicular streets.

These lessons led to a plan with rear lanes behind each dwelling, two intimate public squares against the beach, and a comprehensive network of boardwalks. These provide car-free access throughout the town, even as all vehicular streets are carefully calmed; even State Highway 30A, lined by live oaks, is accommodating to pedestrians.

Rosemary Beach still shares many qualities with Seaside, perhaps most significantly that it is a place where children are typically granted tremendous independence.