Surf’s Up

If you’ve ever named a company, you know that landing on a perfect name can take some brainstorming. For us, the moment we came up with SURF Coastal Homes, we knew it just worked.

We chose the name SURF because it makes us smile and exhale.

SURF means sun-drenched carefree days on the sand with upbeat tunes and crackling beach bonfires at night (yes, it all still exists at Cinnamon Shore!)

SURF pulls us to visualize the actual beach surf, conjures up the timeless act of surfing, it brings a zen/environmental/one-with-God’s-creation vibe which ties in with our philosophy of green sustainable building.

SURF gives off a sophisticated/deep/timeless/clean minimalist feel (we strive for this in our homes) and, somehow at the same time, it’s playful and free and reflects the dreamy/escape/fantasy beach lifestyle we build into our home designs.

Plus, SURF’s just plain cool. Who doesn’t want to be a surfer after all? Don’t we all have a bit of that cool, fearless, carefree surfer deep inside us?

According to “Collections of Waikiki” blog, surfing can be traced back to 12th century cave paintings in Polynesia. In the late 1700s, European sea captain James Cook was shocked to see Polynesian men riding the waves on planks of wood. “I could not help concluding, that this man, the surfer, felt the most supreme pleasure, while he was driven on, so fast and so smoothly, by the sea” wrote Captain James Cook.

In their book “Surfing Corpus Christi and Port Aransas” Don Parker and Michelle Christenson report that “Surf culture in the Texas Coastal Bend began in earnest in the early 1960s when a few young men (including Pat Magee and Mike Lee and Cecil Laws) set up surfboard rental stands on the beach. (Laws’ son, Larry, attended surf school in Hawaii in 1962 and eagerly brought what he learned back to Port Aransas.) By 1970, thousands of people had caught the surfing bug. In the decades that followed, Coastal Bend surfers won national championships for their wave-riding prowess, beating out counterparts from the East Coast, California, and Hawaii.”

The wide beaches and gentle waves of Mustang Island make Cinnamon Shore an ideal spot to learn the art of surfing. In fact, Cinnamon Shore even offers surf lessons multiple times a week during the spring and summer, and by appointment during the fall and winter. While your surf instructor will provide you with a board, those who catch the surfing bug and want to invest in their own board will find an excellent selection, both new and vintage, at Board House Surf Shop in downtown Port Aransas.

And nothing looks as iconic and effortlessly cool as a surfboard when it comes to decorating your beach house.

Let those gentle waves from our Gulf of Mexico draw you out to play. No matter your age or stage, we all have a bit of surfer inside.