Make a right onto Sandpiper Lane from Ocean Boulevard, and nobody would blame you for missing your destination. Gypsea Rose, owned by Elizabeth and Brian Newman, stands directly between you and the beach, but it’s barely visible. A flat roofline just breaks the plane of scraggly shrubs and wind-blown loblolly pines, tucking the house into the surrounding landscape. Only in patches does the weathered, but still cheerful, yellow siding peek through.

Among a sea of grand beach houses in the Southern Shores community, Gypsea Rose prevails as a living legend — one of 25 or so flat-top houses still standing.

In 1946, when artist-turned-speculator Frank Stick purchased 2,700 acres of empty property stretching from the oceanfront to Currituck Sound, he unwittingly changed the town’s history. Unlike its neighbors, Nags Head and Kill Devil Hills, the land that Stick and his business partners acquired just north of Kitty Hawk and named Southern Shores remained rugged and undeveloped.

Rather than peering down on nature, flat-top residents embrace it.

At first, Stick’s subdivided lots proved a hard sell. Then he had an idea. Emulating a Florida architectural style that he admired, Stick adorned each lot with a flat-top house. As his new vacation homes and lots sold, the flat-top trend spread along the Outer Banks.

In contrast to the familiar OBX-style houses constructed on stilts, flat-tops are built directly on the ground. Rather than peering down on nature, flat-top residents embrace it. Sea oats sticking out from surrounding dunes graze the windows; waves crash at eye level. Deer and other wildlife tiptoe past, just a few feet away.

Some flat-tops boast juniper-paneled walls and ceilings, walls of windows, and exposed beams. Others seem more like concrete boxes. On almost all, flat tar-and-gravel roofs extend past the exterior walls, protecting dwellers from the sun’s hot rays.

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Brian newman purchased his first Outer Banks property in his early 20s. When he and Elizabeth married in 1987, his small business — part builder, part developer — became a family affair. “We’d live in whichever property was least rentable at the time,” Elizabeth remembers. “For a while, we had a miniature golf course, and we lived there so we could run the business. We joked that our kids’ friends thought we were part of the witness protection program. Every time they came over, we’d be in a new house!”

The Newman children were 10, 8, and 6 when Brian bought the family’s first flat-top. The bare-bones cinder-block structure was wedged between a motel and condos in Kill Devil Hills. “It was called the Doodlebug,” Elizabeth says with a laugh. “It needed lots of work. It didn’t have AC. The stove didn’t work. We had intermittent electricity. We loved it.”

Elizabeth & Brian Newman photograph by Stacey Van Berkel

For many families, the tiny house was an unrealistic place to raise children, but its “unrentable” status meant that the Newmans could settle in. The Doodlebug changed the way their family approached coastal life. “It’s an ordeal to get small children to the beach,” Elizabeth says. “At the Doodlebug, we were right there on the ocean. We went all the time. We ate our meals outside.”

Brian loved it, too. “Some nights it was so hot, our youngest daughter, Holly, and I would go sit on the beach up on the dunes and watch the small planes go over and sleep right out there,” he remembers.

In September of 2003, Hurricane Isabel pummeled the Outer Banks and left the Doodlebug in shambles. As Elizabeth and Brian evaluated their housing options, there was only one way forward.

• • •

Every beach house worth its salt needs a name, and this one came easy.

Gypsea Rose, the flat-top that Elizabeth and Brian bought in Southern Shores, gave the Newmans a sense of stability. “Our kids were over the moon,” Elizabeth says. “They wanted to come back to the flat-top. They wanted the simple life.”

In the living room, pine paneling wraps around the walls and ceiling, creating a cozy, cocoon-like nest for reading and board games. Light streams through the sliding doors and large windows overlooking the ocean in the adjacent dining room. Sunlight warms the room in winter months; during the summer, the Newmans open the windows to capture cool prevailing southwest winds.

The casual interior of Gypsea Rose, the second flat-top that Brian and Elizabeth Newman have owned and renovated, complements the home’s beachy surroundings. photograph by Stacey Van Berkel

Always on the lookout for dolphins, the Newmans kept a collection of kayaks propped against the house. “Anytime the dolphins were out there, we would paddle out to see them,” Brian says.

Today, the Newman children are grown and live in their own homes. Elizabeth credits her family’s passion for reading and nature to life in the flat-top. “Our daughter’s family has a campfire every day,” she says. “That’s how we raised our children — it all started at the Doodlebug and continued at Gypsea Rose. It has made us all who we are.”