Redone Kemah home sparkles on the bay
Clusters of dried coral and shimmering seashells in display cases are decorative nods to the bay view from the summer home of Dr. Mike and Bethany McCann.
For years, each brought their children to Kemah during the summer so they could play all day on land and in the water.
“My kids’ dad also sails, and from the time they were born, they’d come down for summers from Houston. I just loved it down here. It’s a very simple lifestyle where kids aren’t focused on video games. They’re climbing trees and finger painting and running outside and swimming,” Bethany McCann said of her children, daughter Haddon Hughes, now 24, and son Parker Hughes, 23.
Mike, 60, a spinal interventionist at the Fondren Orthopedic Group, bought the Mediterranean-style home their blended family now shares back in 2008, moving in two days before Hurricane Ike hit. The house is “built like a bunker,” he said, so it suffered only minor damage to the roof. In 2010, he added a guesthouse with two more bedrooms, bathrooms and a living area.
He’d drive to work in Houston through the week and sailed whenever he could. His kids — daughter Macey McCann, now 23, and twin sons Ford and Marshall McCann, 21 — grew up on the water, sailing in the bay and in regattas all over.
“When I joined the (Texas Corinthian Yacht Club), there were 100 families, and our kids grew up with multiple mothers and fathers watching over them. It’s a turn back in time,” Mike said. “They could run and play, and we didn’t have to worry about them. There were lots of eyes watching over them.”
Several years ago, both Mike and Bethany, now 58, found themselves divorced, and one day after dropping their kids off to sail, Mike invited her for coffee. Later offers came for lunch, and then it became dinner. The couple married six years ago at their Kemah home.
“The kids grew up friends, and they would get off of the water together, and we’d have big family dinners. We dated with our kids, all seven of us,” Bethany said. “We got married out in the yard in a big tent, and our daughters said they’d gone from being best friends to being sisters.”
Together, their sailing pedigree is strong. Mike was on the Texas Corinthian Yacht Club team that in August won the Hinman Masters Trophy at the New York Yacht Club Invitational in Newport, R.I. Haddon, a Georgetown University graduate, won the Intercollegiate Sailing Association Women’s Singlehanded National Championship in 2015 as a freshman, and Ford, a Georgetown student now, won the 2021 Men’s Singlehanded National Championship.
Macey also sailed for Georgetown and is now in the U.K., preparing for law school. Both Parker and Marshall are students at the University of Miami.
“Now that the kids are off in college and traveling the world, we try to have friends down on weekends,” Mike said. “It’s not a party all of the time, but it’s fun having friends down to catch up and go out on the water. It’s 35 minutes from downtown, and yet you feel like it’s your vacation spot.”
The McCanns knew interior designer Julie Shannon, who’d helped them with some things at their Houston home, and Mike asked her to help with replacing leaky windows at the Kemah house. That job led to other exterior tweaks, followed by changes inside that included gutting the kitchen and bathrooms, turning a large closet into a bar and updating furniture and décor in every room.
“Then all I asked for was a new sink in the kitchen, and after that it all went downhill,” Mike said. “The whole kitchen got torn out after that.”
The front hall became lighter and brighter and stars two display cases that hold the many trophies and awards the McCanns have accrued through the years. The first floor also has two updated bedrooms with bathrooms, which the kids use when they’re in town.
The second floor is the main living area. The fireplace was refaced with antique limestone and a seashell logo, and a new, 9-foot parsons sofa table covered in grasscloth was placed behind the 14-foot sectional sofa that was rebuilt to fit the scale of the room. A closet off of the living room was turned into a bar, with glass-front cases for displaying barware.
A step-up takes you to the dining room, with its new chandelier made of white coral.
The kitchen features new cabinets, lighting, plumbing fixtures, hardware and Subzero and Wolf appliances. Nearby, a breakfast area has two tables, each with a small banquette and stools and an improved view of the bay with Roman shades on the windows.
The third floor is a primary bedroom suite that’s outfitted in coastal chic bed linens, draperies and décor. A display of coral and shells spreads across the room, including coral prints on pillows and draperies, and table lamps encrusted with oyster shells.
The primary bathroom’s muddy taupe palette merges with black and white with green accents. Bethany’s closet was rebuilt, outfitted to hold her collection of dolls and dollhouses.
Throughout the backyard and patios, the McCanns had 68 pieces of furniture. Shannon had them all refinished and added new cushions. The pool was retiled in shades of blue, and just for fun they built a cornhole court.
When Mike and Bethany head back to Houston for full-time living, Shannon will turn to the guesthouse for a second phase.