A comfortable craft room sits over the piano area, with a stately ship’s ladder leading up to a loft with a nearly panoramic view of the bay.
“We come up here and watch snowstorms, good thunder and lightning storms, fireworks, and we watch the air show which is visible right across from us on 17th Street,” Dashiell said.
The master bedroom is an enormous space with 15-foot ceilings and yet another stunning view of the bay. The room includes three large walk-in closets and a master bath crafted in Carrara Marble and Negro Marquina Marble, along with a slipper tub and a massive walk-in shower.
A separate guest quarters, in-ground saltwater pool with outdoor shower area and pool house with half-bath highlight the additional space.
“The house is big, but I don’t think it feels big,” Dashiell insisted. “Downstairs, if you think about it, is just four rooms. It’s not intimidating at all; it’s kind of cozy, I think. I had a little bit of a struggle with the architect—I kept saying, ‘no, no, no! It’s too big! It’s too big!’—but once we got it all together, it didn’t feel that big; It’s just right.”
Joe and Michelle Dashiell’s stately West Ocean City home may look like a palace, but to the couple and their two daughters, it simply feels like home.
The 5,500-square-foot residence was designed by the couple along with Christopher Pattey from the Becker Morgan Group to look like something from another age. Marble floors, high ceilings and imported fixtures are utilized throughout the house to create a regal-but-lived-in appearance that conjures up images of Old Hollywood, or a slightly toned-down Gatsby.
The bayside abode positively swims in natural light, which flows through the great room and its coffered ceilings with ease. The adjacent kitchen counters are all Calcutta Gold Marble, a surface which is distinguished by the golden lines that make it appear downright topographic. Viking appliances, 10-foot ceilings and a massive Dutch door also highlight the space.
A hand-carved fireplace mantel flown over from England adds just the right old-world touch, while the programmable lighting positioned throughout the home allow for custom scenes to shift effortlessly from bright, welcoming dinner party motifs to intimate romantic twilight.
Dashiell decorated much of the space with abstracted landscapes created by noted local painter Kevin Fitzgerald, adding a sophisticated arty vibe brought home by a sunroom which was custom-designed to suit the acoustics of a baby grand piano.
The staircase, with three uniquely twisting spindles, was replicated from the movie “Wedding Crashers.”
“I was watching the movie when we were designing the house, and I saw the banister and the window at the end and I kept stopping it,” Dashiell said. “So, I called our architect and I said, ‘Chris you have to see this!’
“We called the people we work with out of Easton, and the way we mixed those three different spindles is from the Inn at Perry Cabin, which is where that movie was shot!”
Upstairs, the cozy majesty of the study hinges on a custom J. Conn Scott bookshelf which the room was built around. The entire home is wired for theater sound, but only the study is outfitted in true movie theater surround sound, making it the perfect example of an old-meets-new media relaxation zone.
Dashiell’s two little girls share a sparklingly spacious bedroom with painted oak floors and a private bath.
The house, in total, boasts four full and three half-baths decorated in Basket-weaved Marble, White Marble and Yellow Onyx.