Rosemary Beach
How a 107-acre tract east of Inlet Beach became a Dutch West Indies–inspired town, designed by the planners who launched American New Urbanism.
History
How three planned towns shaped 30A.
The south side of Scenic Highway 30A holds a remarkable concentration of deliberately-designed beach towns. Each one was master-planned, code-bound, and built from a written architectural rulebook — and each one tells a different story about how Americans tried to remember how to build a town in the late twentieth century. This series traces those stories, one town at a time.
01 Read → 02 Read → 03 Read →
Alys Beach
The all-white Bermudian and Antiguan town funded by EBSCO Industries — and the only community in the country built entirely to a Category 5 hurricane standard.
Seaside
The original 30A town. Robert Davis inherited 80 acres from his grandfather in 1978; the master plan he drew with Duany Plater-Zyberk launched American New Urbanism.