Alys Beach Homes for Sale

Living in Alys Beach

Alys Beach was planned by Duany Plater-Zyberk, the town planning firm behind several of 30A's new towns, with Marieanne Khoury-Vogt and Erik Vogt as town architects. It draws its exterior character from Moorish and Mediterranean villages and from the architectural styles of Bermuda, with the courtyards themselves taking after houses in Antigua and Guatemala. The town covers 158 developable acres with a further 20 acres set aside for wetland preservation, and its houses carry masonry roofs and are colored the same sugar-white as the beach they are built on, which the planning record credits with letting the buildings reflect the sun and keep the town cooler, arranged around private courtyards along pedestrian paths, green squares and cobblestone streets hand-set into deep gravel. The construction standard is not cosmetic: the community is constructed following Fortified for Safer Living, and the planning record adds that this was the first community in the world to require every home to be certified. What holds the streetscape uniform is a separate requirement, that all of the houses be white, so the street reads as one wall of white even where two houses share nothing inside. The sources that record both requirements name neither instrument, so the recorded document behind them, and which certification a particular house actually carries, belong on the diligence list rather than being read off the streetscape. The courtyard layout puts each home's outdoor living space behind its walls rather than facing the street, trading a visible yard for an enclosed one. Fonville Press was created as a central gathering place, serving coffee or cocktails on the plaza, and Caliza is a restaurant serving around a pool; Caliza is open to Alys Beach homeowners and to vacation rental guests, a narrower door than a public restaurant and worth understanding before counting it as an amenity. At the south end the Gulf Green is the town's beachfront green, and the beach forms the town's southern border. The 20 acre Neighborhood Nature Preserve occupies the north side of town, where the Alys Beach Nature Trail runs past slash pines, cypress trees and carnivorous pitcher plants. The plan fills in block by block on the public record: Walton County's technical review committee took a minor development order in April 2022 for Block EE, 21 single family lots on about 3.21 acres north of County Road 30A under Traditional Neighborhood Development zoning. A buyer looking at a north-side street should read the county's current file for that block rather than assume the block next door is finished.

• Courtyard homes and walled compounds
• Caliza restaurant and pool
• Fonville Press on the plaza
• Alys Beach Amphitheatre and the Gulf Green