Social Living | The Smith Family
At Home in Sweetbay
-Liesel Schmidt
When Prentiss and Beverly Smith look at their home, they don’t see what others do.
The coastal home boasts an architectural style that sits right at home on the water, complementing the landscape with its use of brick and clapboard siding, its color palette and its wood accents.
But for the couple, this 5,000 square-foot house is the keeper of memories that make its name—Sweetbay—all the more apt. “We have spent so many happy times here with friends and family,” says Beverly, who raised three children with her husband, a retired radiologist.
The Smiths moved to Fairhope from Mississippi and built Sweetbay, looking toward the future. “We built this home to grow older in,” Beverly notes. “For that reason, it has a number of features that are handicap accessible. But more than that, this home is the fulfillment of a promise. Our life here at Sweetbay, in Fairhope, is so special because Prentiss always told me that we would retire on the water. I had no idea just how wonderful it would be. He’d told me when we found this property that he would buy it if I would stop buying shoes for a year.”
