Seaside Interfaith Chapel
Seaside, Fla.
Merrill and Pastor Architects

Merrill and Pastor has combined an austerity drawn from local traditions with a civic presence suited to a prominent site

© Steven Brooke

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By James S. Russell, AIA

Long before there was a celebrated holiday town called Seaside, its planners, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, set aside a place for a church. By the time the town was ready to build one, some 20 years later, Seaside had become famous as the place where New Urbanism was seeded and tested. Its architecture had also considerably evolved from modest beach cottages and shotgun shacks inspired by local prototypes to elaborate confections of columns and cupolas.

Although a Sunday beach service was held during the summer, potential congregants were too few, too transient, and too seasonal to support a full-time church until recently. Finally, in 1999 a group of residents set out to build an interfaith chapel, and Robert Davis, Seaside’s developer, agreed to donate the land. “The first problem,” said architect Scott Merrill, “was that it had to look like a church without reflecting any specific church tradition.”

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Formal name of Project:
Seaside Interfaith Chapel

Location:
Seaside, Fla.

Gross square footage:
3,300 sq. ft.

Total construction cost:
$1.5 million

Owner:
Seaside Interfaith Chapel Board

Architect:
Merrill and Pastor Architects, P.A.
505 Beachland Blvd., Suite 9
Vero Beach, FL 32963
772.492.1983 phone
772.492.1986 fax
www.merrillpastor.com