While living in the house next door, Courtney purchased this one intending to flip it. Prospective buyers expressed interest, but asked to see Courtney’s renovated home—and they fell in love with that one. “They asked if I would be interested in selling my house, which I’d never considered,” Courtney remembers. “I did some number-crunching, and it turned out to be profitable.” She happily agreed to the deal.

For this project, “I got to use all the tweaks that I wanted to make to my own home and all the tricks I’d already learned during the first restoration,” Courtney says. She turned an old trunk room upstairs into the master bath, and completely rebuilt the kitchen. She converted the attic into a guest room and sitting area, cutting into the roof to add a balcony overlooking the ocean. Throughout the process, she reused original pieces, such as pressed-tin ceilings and fine interior doors.

Working with Mike, she chose neutral paint colors for crisp, clean finished spaces. “Sometimes with a beach house, people go for coral, but we wanted to keep it muted without being bland,” Courtney says. Rather than splashing the walls with bright hues, they allowed the historical architecture to speak for itself, calling attention to handsome molding and other details with bright white paint.

Though they hold no military rank, Courtney and Mike agree that it’s an honor to live on Tybee’s Officer’s Row. And you can’t beat the location overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. “It just doesn’t get any better,” Courtney says with a smile. “As kids, we were both used to coming home from school and playing on the beach until we were exhausted. It’s great to be able to do that again.”

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