I N T R O D U C I N G T H E AUGUST CONDOMINIUMS
But for those who will live here, there are other reasons this building is singular and attractive. The building is on a small block and surrounded on all sides by streets. There are no common property lines between The August and adjacent buildings, and so there are no buildings close by to diminish views or privacy. Owing to the shape of the building, most every residence is a corner unit with two street exposures and an extraordinary amount of exterior walls, bringing in lots of daylight. It is hard to take the measure of this buildings because everything is a little over scaled. Windows that don’t seem that tall from the street turn out to be nearly floor to ceiling and in many rooms, almost fill an outside wall. And once you are inside, there will be little sense of adjacent residences, but there will be every sense of the bigger setting.
Scott Merrill
Founder Merrill Pastor and Colgan Architects
Before this building was known as the August, it was known informally as the Flatiron, a reference to it’s unusual but memorable shape defined by its placement between converging streets. Many cities have sites between converging streets like Alys Beach’s South Somerset Street and Castle Harbor, or Castle Harbor and Sea Garden, and many have buildings known as Flatirons for their similar shapes. The most famous Flatiron building is the one in New York, between Fifth Avenue and Broadway, at Madison Park—similar in length to The August, though narrower. These buildings are almost always thought of fondly or proudly. Like those, The August may be first known and recognized for it’s shape. The August is located in a little precinct near the Beach Club and the Gulf front plaza. There is no other modern neighborhood like this in Florida: an urban setting near an extraordinary beach further distinguished by the unusual views where streets come to the Gulf from the back of the town. The building’s most memorable aspects may be its narrow ends with large round porches, but the convex Juan Bermudez Crescent that faces the rest of the town produces aspects just as nice and just as memorable. Somerset Street, starting on the north side of Alys Beach near the pine woods, is or will be one of the most beautiful streets in Florida. South Somerset descends from 30A and then rises again at the plaza to provide a great path to the water.
