Dreamland Heights, built from 1985 to 1989 designed by Steven Holl
Like small towns across the country have courthouse squares, Seaside has its own Central Square. With shops and places to grab a bite to eat lining the square, commercial offices and residential space, the cornerstone buildings in Central Square are multi-use buildings.
One is designed architect Steven Holl, known as Dreamland Heights, built from 1985 to 1989 and undergoing restoration now. Seaside founder Robert Davis met Holl at the Progressive Architecture Awards ceremony, where Davis was receiving a Citation for Urban Design for Seaside, while Holl was awarded for his design of a house in Martha’s Vineyard. Davis was impressed Holl was able to design a house within a strict code and invited him to design the Dreamland Heights building. This would be Holl’s first multi-floor project.
As described in “Visions of Seaside” by Dhiru Thadani; the building is dubbed a hybrid-type, and envelops the prescribed morphology of the code.
The four-story Holl Building has penthouse units on the upper floors, office space on the second floor, and retail space on the ground level. Holl is named Dreamland Heights in honor of Seaside’s inspiration, J.S. Smolian, Davis’ grandfather.
The restoration of the Holl Building began in November. The scope of the project will include replacement of the third floor courtyard, replacement of windows and doors, repairing the building leaks, and waterproofing and painting the building.
