Celebrating The Beach & Bay Cottage Tour

Posted by Nick Brandi, Associate Editor

Photo by Charlie Kopay

For as hot as it was the evening of July 21st, that’s also how cool it was inside the palace that Nick & Julie Kypreos call home. They were the hosts of the cocktail party to celebrate next week’s Beach & Bay Cottage Tour, and their incredible space is essentially a cross between a four-star hotel and a museum. With scintillatingly ambient grand-entranceway lighting shafting in from sky-high ceilings, glass-walled second-story balconies, 12-foot palm trees, gallery art and a mermaid-sculpture fountain to top it all off, the Bethany Beach spread basically punches you in the face with opulence from the moment you get past the front door. Funny, I didn’t realize that Four Seasons had a facility in Sussex County.

At any rate, the hosts-with-the-most seem to be getting into the impresario/patron-of-the-arts game, as they will be hosting something they call “yART” on September 3 & 4, Labor Day Weekend, in support of the local artist community. Julie Kypreos tells me that each participating artist will contribute one piece of original art to what I believe she’d said was a Chinese raffle. Supporting artists – especially local ones – is something we’re really big on at Coastal Style, but it would be worth attending the event if for no other reason than to see the Kypreos house.

Meanwhile, it was great to see one of my faves, Joan Gordon, who handles the PR for the Beach & Bay tour. Joan is the sweetest lady, and I never knew until that night that her husband, Jack, is the vice-mayor of Bethany Beach. He’s also a great guy and can hand you a beer, wine or soda with the best of ’em.

Another of my faves are Kathy & David Green, whose beautiful beach house is one of the sites on the tour and one of the properties we featured in our July-August issue of the mag. Should you take the tour – which you should – tell the Greens I asked them to introduce you to “Big Red.” They’ll get a kick out of it, and so will you. I found out that Kathy is actually from Chicago originally (which is probably why she’s so darned genuine and nice) and that David is originally from Texas (which is probably why he’s so big). Anyway, Kathy co-owns this really cool furniture-consignment shop on Atlantic Ave. in Ocean View called Seaquels that I’d stopped at once really fast, but I’m likely going back this Thursday to visit Kathy in her vocational habitat and take a good, long look at all the interesting stuff.

Oh yeah!... for anyone who is a big fan of crab dip – even if you’re not, or even if you’re a crab yourself – ask Joan the caterer’s name that supplied the most amazing crab dip I’ve ever had. OMG, it was like layer cake or something – it was really that good. At first I thought maybe it was just me, but I looked around at one point and noticed that there were more people hovering near the dip on the kitchen’s center island than anywhere else in that never-ending house. The dip was the star of the food show to be sure, but all of the food was truly spectacular. (Would you have really expected anything else?)

Also met the mayors of Bethany Beach, South Bethany and Ocean View, who, it turns out, have a pet project they're collaborating on called the Assawoman Canal Walk. The party wasn’t the best place to get into the nitty-gritty details (as I’d left my big, black journalist’s pad at home), but I’m gonna be following up with them to see what they have on their mayoral minds.

Judging by the cocktail party, anyway, next week’s 20th anniversary Beach & Bay Cottage Tour should be a smashing success. Can’t wait to check it out.

You can find all the salient details in our July-August issue, currently available at hundreds of locations on the Eastern Shore.