The seating end of the great room looking out through tall picture windows and a triangular gable window to the deck, where orange Adirondack chairs face the dune grass. A built-in window seat runs beneath the glass.

Gallery

30 photographs, every one of them this house.

Every photograph here is of Nostos itself: the whole house, the yard, and the beach at the end of the access trail. What you see is what you walk into.

Manzanita Beach on a clear day: wind-rippled dry sand in the foreground, a broad wet tideline, and the forested headland of Neahkahnie Mountain rising to the north. Three small figures and a dog walk at the waterline.

Chapter 01 / 05 · 6 photographs

The coast

Thirty yards from the door to the access trail, then seven miles of open sand. Every one of these was taken within a few minutes' walk of the house.

The front of Nostos at sunset: a cedar-shingled beach house with a wide second-story deck, an open-gabled roof over tall picture windows, and an exterior staircase down to a paved driveway edged with shore pine and clipped hedge.

Chapter 02 / 05 · 7 photographs

Outside the house

A deck across the whole front, a fenced yard behind it, and a hot tub open from 10:00 AM until 10:00 PM.

The great room under a whitewashed plank cathedral ceiling with white beams: a large pale linen sectional around a round wood coffee table, an iron ring chandelier, and the kitchen and dining table visible beyond.

Chapter 03 / 05 · 8 photographs

The gathering room

One room under a whitewashed plank ceiling: the kitchen at one end, the stone fireplace at the other, and the round table where the two meet.

The Master Suite: a king bed with a wooden headboard and blue-gray striped linen, a row of framed prints above it, a ceiling fan, a wide dresser, and a glazed door out to the deck.

Chapter 04 / 05 · 7 photographs

Bedrooms and baths

Four bedrooms: one king, two queens, and one double. Two bathrooms, both shower-only, one on each level.

The mud room and entry hall: a white door with a window, a wall rack of coat hooks with a bag hanging from it, two framed beach prints, and a runner over the floor leading into the house.

Chapter 05 / 05 · 2 photographs

The dull, decisive things

Where the beach chairs live and where the towels get dried. The parts of a week nobody photographs and everybody needs.