The beach cottages were completed in two phases. The first group of six, commissioned in 1988, are forward of a footpath that runs the length of Seaside, parallel to the shoreline. The site is divided in the other direction by a beach access easement, an extension of East Ruskin Street, which leads to a beach pavilion and dune walkover. The program for the cottages nearest the dunes called for one bedroom and a living room and porches, and the cottages at the road were to have two bedrooms and a screened porch.

Seaside was conceived as a town that would be built from the repetition of certain gulf coast residential building types. A reasonable amount of repetition was imagined to be both visually desirable, and financially necessary. As the town developed and prospered, however, a pattern of singular custom houses emerged. The Honeymoon Cottages, as a group, were designed as an alternative visual model for a typical street. They also sought to ennoble necessary repetition. In this regard, the first project by Scott Merrill, established an ongoing interest in prototypes and repetition.