Skip to content
Business
Link copied to clipboard

Tiny cottage to 'Italian villa'

The once-cramped beach house now surrounds a pool, with sliding glass doors all around.

Jack and Maryanne Guinan rebuilt a summer cottage at the Shore into a warm, fun home they call their "Tuscan Villa." (Akira Suwa / Staff Photographer)
Jack and Maryanne Guinan rebuilt a summer cottage at the Shore into a warm, fun home they call their "Tuscan Villa." (Akira Suwa / Staff Photographer)Read more

In 1971, Maryanne McGuckin-Guinan took her father's advice and invested in real estate. Right after she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, she bought a tiny two-bedroom cottage with a view of the bay in Wildwood Crest for $19,000.

Though it seemed an odd choice for a then-single self-described city girl, it was based on the special place Wildwood Crest held in her family's hearts.

"My grandmother and mother always rented here," says McGuckin-Guinan, 62, who grew up in Philadelphia and is president of McGuckin Methods International, a health-services company that works with hospital infection control.

Ten years and a doctorate in epidemiology later, she put a personal ad in Philadelphia magazine. She received 82 responses. Jack Guinan was No. 27.

"You only cost me $32," McGuckin-Guinan joked to him as they sat on a couch in the home's living area.

They soon married and started a family. The quaint cottage became increasingly cramped as John, now 26, Maryellen, now 24, and a golden retriever named Buddy were added to the space.

"My daughter slept in the utility closet," she says.

The couple, whose primary home is in Ardmore, considered selling the cottage and buying a newer house up the street and closer to the water. But they decided they didn't want to deal with maintaining bulkheads, and son John suggested that they "bring the water to us."

So instead, they expanded the house across two lots (the cottage sat on a double lot). And, as their son suggested, they brought the water closer.

Instead of a two-bedroom cottage, the place has been transformed into a five-bedroom, three-bath, U-shaped structure that surrounds a 5-foot-deep in-ground pool, with sliding glass doors on all sides.

"No matter where you are, you feel like you're outside," McGuckin-Guinan says.

Jack Guinan, 65, is an architectural designer and makes custom kitchens, so he helmed the project. He did much of the work himself, with some help from the family - a project that took 31/2 years.

The only spaces he retained from the original cottage were a front room and a bathroom. He tore down everything else and added the pool, which now bisects the house.

Guinan expanded back from those original rooms, installing a kitchen and a sitting room that coexist, but are kept separate by an island and a strong blue theme in the kitchen area only.

He used cobalt-blue lighting fixtures in the kitchen to match the glass panes in the island, and even kept the cottage's blue kitchen table.

In the living room, Guinan kept one wall windowless: He wanted the focus outside to be on the pool area and the backyard, and to maintain some privacy for a house that was largely open.

That portion of the addition was kept to one story, though Guinan opted for high-arched ceilings.

On the opposite side of the pool, he built more house, connected to the kitchen and living area through a sitting room at the front of the house. It gives the structure, which Maryanne McGuckin-Guinan now calls her Italian villa, its U-shape. This part of the "U" includes an office and master bedroom and bath.

The addition gave their children a bedroom each (plus a guest room), and what they call a great room - an upstairs sitting area with sliding-glass doors on both sides: one to a small porch that overlooks the pool, the other to a wider porch overlooking the street and the front of the house.

The great room also has a wet bar and a separate sink area for when they entertain, as well as a bathroom with a counter cut in the shape of a wave.

"My daughter, who was in the utility closet, got the room with all the windows," McGuckin-Guinan said.

In fact, her husband reused the bay window from the original cottage for that sunny space.

To complete the look, the couple changed the house's exterior hue from green to bright yellow.

Family memorabilia is sprinkled throughout the house. Jack Guinan modeled as a child, and a poster for Swift Parade Dog Food, young Jack's face front and center, hangs at the foot of the stairs.

A sailfish that Maryanne's aunt caught on her honeymoon in Cuba hangs at the top of the stairs, along with a photo of Aunt Mary with the big catch still on the line.

The project was not without its mishaps. As Guinan was adding onto the kitchen and sitting area, the Shore was hit with a snowstorm that dumped 20 inches into the unfinished expansion. He also fell off the roof and had to be helicoptered to Philadelphia for treatment of head trauma.

The house has become more than just a summer home. The Guinans celebrate Thanksgiving there and use the property through the year.

For the younger Guinans, the house has become a space for hosting friends who might be more familiar with other Shore points, like Stone Harbor and Avalon. John and Maryellen also work in nearby Cape May during the summer.

The renovation was something of a group project. Son John framed part of the house, and daughter Maryellen laid copper.

"We all learned how to do things we never thought we'd do," says McGuckin-Guinan.

The only part of the house that went untouched is the backyard, and it will probably stay that way. "It makes a racetrack for Buddy, so he can dig and run," says McGuckin-Guinan.

She still likes the city, but "but this is great in the summer."

Her husband goes a little further.

"We get a good six months a year here."

Is Your House a Haven?

Tell us about your haven by e-mail (and send some digital photos) at properties@phillynews.com