Luis Canepa Arquitetos Renovates a Praia Preta Beach House Without Erasing Its Stone, Brick and Timber

Most coastal renovations in Brazil's holiday belt start with a demolition crew and end with a white box of glass. Praia Preta II Residence, by Luis Canepa Arquitetos, takes the slower route. The studio, led by Luis Canepa with Bruna Candil on the project team, inherited an existing house on the northern coast of São Paulo state. That house already had a clear material identity: white-painted brickwork with raised joints, stone walls and rustic timber. The 281 m² project, completed in 2025, adapts the house to its owners' new needs and leaves that identity readable.

What interests us is the plan. The house is an L, and the two arms point at two different coastlines. One facade looks over the rocks to open sea; the other faces the beach. That gives the house two kinds of water to work with: a rough, rocky edge on one side and a soft, sandy one on the other. The renovation does not invent a new architecture for this split. It sharpens the one already there, with deep verandas, timber screens and rooms that open fully onto the lawn.

Between the Rocks and the Sand

Seen from the shoreline, the house almost disappears. It sits low behind dark boulders and breaking surf, and the forested hillside behind it is far taller than its roofline. That modesty is the first design decision worth crediting. Many beachfront houses compete with the landscape. This one stays below the tree canopy and lets the ridge dominate.

Closer in, the stone volumes read as part of the ground. Lichen-covered boulders and a large tree trunk frame the timber-framed windows, and a gravel edge separates the long stone wall from the lawn. You get the impression of a building that was negotiated into the site rather than placed on it.

A Wall Vocabulary Kept, Not Erased

The rubble stone wall is the house's spine, and the renovation treats it as an anchor. Slatted timber screens and verandas attach to it. An ochre plaster base appears at one courtyard corner and warms the grey stone without competing with it. The palette is limited, and it works because each material has its own job: stone carries mass, timber filters light, and plaster marks the ground line.

The small details tell you how seriously the team took the climate. A river-stone drainage strip runs along the lawn edge under a deep timber eave, and a pebble strip crosses the grass. These are unglamorous moves. On a rainy tropical coast they matter more than any facade gesture, because they keep water away from old masonry.

The Veranda as the House's Real Living Room

If you want to understand how this house is lived in, look at the porch. Dark timber posts, wooden shutters and a slatted bench along the stone wall make a covered room that faces the lawn and the forested hills. The long veranda wraps the corner of the L, so the transition from inside to outside happens gradually.

Louvered shutters, rattan pendants and a long wooden table on a patterned cement floor turn one stretch of the porch into a dining room. A second stretch holds an outdoor counter with a sink, set against a stone wall with hazy hills beyond. Splitting the veranda into distinct uses is a smart program choice. Covered outdoor space stops being leftover circulation and starts doing the work of the house's main rooms.

Pool, Deck and Pavilion

The pool sits in front of the low stone and brick volumes, and the dark timber roof keeps the composition grounded. A timber deck connects the turquoise water to the covered porch, and wooden steps rise to a separate pavilion. Yellow lounge chairs and bean bags supply the only saturated colour outside, and they make the earthy palette of stone and wood look deliberate.

The raised pavilion adds a vertical step to an otherwise flat site. It gives the outdoor sequence a destination beyond the pool edge, and in afternoon light it reads as a lookout as much as a deck.

Kitchen and Dining Under Dark Beams

Inside, the exposed dark roof beams set the tone, and the renovation leans into them. The kitchen island has a slatted timber front that echoes the exterior screens, and a green tile backsplash adds the room's one bold surface. The whitewashed brick wall at its side is the clearest sign of continuity with the old house: raised joints, painted rather than replaced.

The open kitchen and dining room end in sliding glass doors that look across the lawn to the sea. That one long view justifies the whole interior layout. You cook, eat and look out to the water in the same space.

A hallway between rough stone and wooden doors leads to a round dining table under woven pendants. A slatted timber window above whitewashed brick filters the light. The more intimate dining corner feels like a counterpoint to the big open kitchen, and the house is better for having both.

Corridors That Read the Old House

The corridors are where the refurbishment is most legible. Whitewashed brick runs down one side and vertical timber slats down the other, and patterned tiles are inset into polished concrete underfoot. At the end, a stone wall closes the view under a timber ceiling. Every inherited material shows up in a few metres, so walking through the house reads like a sectional cut through its history.

The inset tiles deserve a note. They read as fragments within the new concrete floor, and they give a utilitarian passage a sense of craft without overdecorating it.

Rooms Facing Lawn, Bay and Banana Plants

The sitting areas are spare: woven lounge chairs, striped rugs, a low wooden table. The real furniture is the floor-to-ceiling timber glazing, which frames tropical foliage, sunlit lawn and banana plants. The restraint is correct. In a house with this much landscape at the door, a busier interior would just compete with the view.

On the other arm of the L, timber-framed doors look out to the overcast bay. The bedroom keeps the same dark ceiling beams and opens fully onto lawn and banana plants. The two outlooks, open water on one side and garden and shore on the other, confirm that the L plan is doing real work. Each room gets a distinct relationship with the coast.

Plans and Drawings

The two site plans are the most useful documents for understanding the project. The first marks demolition in red over the existing L-shaped house, set among trees between a stone wall and the sandy shore. It shows how targeted the interventions were. The second shows the furnished result with deck, pool, trees and a curving path to the beach. Read together, they show that the plan's basic footprint survives. The renovation works mainly by subtraction and adjustment, not by adding new mass.

Why This Project Matters

Brazil's coastline is full of second homes that are aging into renovation. The default answer is usually to tear them down and start over. Praia Preta II argues for another path. It keeps the existing house's material character of painted brick, stone and rustic timber, and it spends design effort where it counts: the threshold between inside and outside, the drainage, and the orientation of each room.

For architects working on refurbishments, the lesson is that an existing plan can carry a project if you understand what it already does well. Here the L was the asset, with one arm on the rocks and one on the beach. Luis Canepa Arquitetos recognized that and built the renovation around it. The result looks less like a makeover than a house that finally fits its site.

Praia Preta II Residence by Luis Canepa Arquitetos (lead architect Luis Canepa; project team Bruna Candil). Location: Praia Preta, São Paulo, Brazil. Area: 281 m². Year: 2025. Photography: André Mortatti.

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