Island Homes: Enjoy The Seaside In Contemporary Style Or Vintage Luxury

Architect Lydia Xenogala took the approach of emphasizing seascapes' beauty. She built her island home in Skiathos, Greece, on a hillside facing the ocean, with a stepped series of parallel spaces designed so that almost every room has a view of the Aegean coast.

The house's three main sections also each have their own outdoor terrace. The house's entrance is at the highest level, leading to a corridor that descends through the levels. Sliding doors mark the passage between areas. The master bedroom is on the lowest level, closest to the water.

The entire house is designed with glass doors facing the sea to the south, and smaller windows facing north, filling the house with light and air, Dezeen reported. The house's construction materials of marble, plaster and terrazzo are traditional in the region, but the contemporary architectural design and unusual colors mark the house as something new and different.

In the 1920s, the architects of Jazz Age mansions in Palm Beach, Florida, took the approach emphasizing luxury and pleasure for their millionaire clients, Chicago Tribune reported. The aesthetic of the era valued flaunting one's wealth to a point that may seem ostentatious to today's eyes, and so luxury was the keyword in the mansions where the old money and the newly wealthy industrialists mingled for the three-month Palm Beach season.

Almost all of these mansions are gone today, but there is one famous survivor: Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump's island home. The property was designed by architect Marion Sims Wyeth and detailed with Portuguese tiles and gold leaf by theater designer Joseph Urban.

Island homes are a place of pleasure and beauty; it can cater to any taste. It might be a gilded, luxurious resort built to let residents enjoy the pleasure of the summer beach season, or it might be a contemporary space full of glass doors and viewing terraces, built to emphasize the beauty of the seascapes. Meanwhile, watch "What you need to know about Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago" video here: