Within two years of moving into the Breeze, we
welcomed two grandbabies to our family, and
suddenly our beloved three-bedroom three-bath
house was becoming a tight squeeze. We began
looking for a larger house
our growing clan, and
happily, in 2013, we
acquired another
old Tybee beach
cottage, just
two-and-a-half
blocks from The
Breeze Inn.
When we
bought the
circa-1932 woodframe
raised cottage
it had been owned by the
same family for three generations. We loved the
space—nearly 4,000 square feet, but wanted to
lighten up the gloomy heart-pine interiors and
for storage. We subsequently painted most of
the interior of the house my favorite shade of
Benjamin Moore Moonlight White, installed a new
kitchen and began the transformation of those
Ralph Lauren red-white-and-blue beach house.
newly-white walls. Then we christened the house
Ebbtide after the house in SUMMER RENTAL and
turned it into our second vacation rental home.
It was subsequently featured in a glorious multipage
article in HGTV Magazine.
In the nearly six years since we bought Ebbtide
a cookbook, THE BEACH HOUSE COOKBOOK,
all books inspired by, or written on Tybee,
including CHRISTMAS BLISS, the fourth in the
Savannah series, SAVE THE DATE, which is about
CLUB, which is set in Savannah and the Georgia
low country. My 26th novel, SUNSET BEACH, will
be out May 7th.
And in the meantime, we’ve continued
transforming Ebbtide, adding a dual master
enclosed entry, and most recently, a brand new
At The Breeze Inn, we recently converted a
twin room into a second master bedroom and
added a beautiful pool and hot tub spa to the
back garden.
After all these years our family still loves
spending time in our island homes-away-from
home. We ride bikes, cook out, and hang out
with our island neighbors. The grandchildren
love crabbing off a friend’s dock. My husband
they cook what they catch. My hobby is what
treasures I don’t keep, I sell at my favorite Tybee
shop, Seaside Sisters, (which is, incidentally,
the only store in the country that I know of that
always carries autographed copies of my two
dozen books still in print.) We love to watch
sunsets at AJ’s, eat shrimp and grits at The
Breakfast Club, or sit at the bar and get dinner at
Sundae Café.
We especially love sharing The Breeze Inn
and Ebbtide with our vacation rental guests,
who leave us sweet notes and little gifts, telling
truth I’ve found is indisputable: if you’re lucky
enough to have a place at the beach, you’re
lucky enough.
“If you’re
lucky enough
to have a place
at the beach,
you’re lucky
enough."
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