Seaside, Florida

Seaside is an unincorporated master-planned community on the Florida Panhandle in Walton County, between Panama City Beach and Destin. One of the first communities in America designed on the principles of New Urbanism, which promotes walkability and mixed-use developments, the town has become the topic of slide lectures in architectural schools and in housing-industry magazines, and is visited by design professionals from all over the United States. It has been featured in multiple documentaries for its urban design.

The community was first constructed in 1981.

The idea behind Seaside came in 1946, when the grandfather of future founder Robert S. Davis bought 80 acres (32 ha) of land along the shore of Northwest Florida as a summer retreat for his family.

In 1978, Davis inherited the parcel from his grandfather, and aimed to transform it into an old-fashioned beach town, with traditional wood-framed cottages of the Florida Panhandle. Davis, his wife Daryl and, the architectural partners and Driehaus Prize winners, Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company toured the south studying small towns as a basis for planning Seaside. The final plan was complete around 1985.

The town was used as the main filming location of the 1998 film The Truman Show.

Seaside is located along County Road 30A immediately adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico. Via County Road 30A, Rosemary Beach is 8 mi (13 km) to the southeast, and Miramar Beach is 16 mi (26 km) to the northwest (via County Road 30A to US 98).

Seaside is one of three planned communities on Florida's Gulf coast designed by Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. The other two are Rosemary Beach and Alys Beach. The three are examples of a style of urban planning known as New Urbanism. As Seaside is privately owned, no other municipal governments had planning jurisdiction over Seaside, and therefore the developers were able to write their own zoning codes.^{[citation needed]}

Individual housing units in Seaside are required to be different from other buildings, with designs ranging from styles such as Victorian, New Classical, Modern, Postmodern, and Deconstructivism. Seaside includes buildings by architects such as Léon Krier, Robert A. M. Stern, (Gary Brewer, Partner in Charge), Steven Holl, Machado and Silvetti Associates, Ernesto Buch, Teofilio Victoria, Derrick Smith, Richard Gibbs and Randy Harelson, Vic Bowman, Stuart Cohen and Anders Nereim, Peter Horn, Deborah Berke, Leo Casas, Nonya Gernader and Rafael Pelli, John Massengale, Don Cooper, Carey McWhorter, Robert Lamar, Pam Bullock, Suellen Hudson, Melanie Taylor, Victoria Casasco, Gordon Burns & Associates, Thomas Christ, Walter Chatham, Daniel Solomon, Ronnie Holstead, Jeff Margaretten, Alex Gorlin, Aldo Rossi, Michael McDonough, Samuel Mockbee, David Mohney, Mabry & Porter, Ty Nunn, Steve Badanes, Walker Candler, Charles Warren, Gary Justiss, and David Coleman. Another Driehaus Prize winner, the architect Scott Merrill designed the Seaside Chapel, an interfaith chapel and local landmark, along with a number of homes. It also utilised some of the planning ideas created by Charles, then Prince of Wales (later King Charles III).