The Story Behind
A KAA Design Masterpiece Along the Manhattan Beach Strand
There are homes that occupy the Strand, and then there are homes that define it. The residence at 3216 The Strand belongs emphatically to the latter category — an architectural statement conceived by the celebrated Los Angeles firm KAA Design in collaboration with Matt Morris Development, two names synonymous with the highest standard of bespoke residential design on the California coast.
The home announces itself before you step inside. Four two-story mahogany masts frame the beachfront façade with a nautical authority that is at once bold and refined, providing a structural screen that preserves the privacy of the primary suite and Strand-level beach room while signaling the seriousness of what lies within. The entryway, with its deep wood-paneled ceiling and stone-paved approach framed by lush greenery, offers a considered arrival sequence — a decompression chamber between the animated life of the Strand and the serene world inside.
The mahogany-clad circular staircase is the home's central spine and its most indelible first impression. Rising dramatically through the full height of the structure, it links the middle-level entry to the upper living spaces with a sculptural authority that elevates it far beyond mere circulation. It is architecture as experience. Throughout all four levels, ten-foot ceilings and walls of floor-to-ceiling glass dissolve the boundary between interior and the vast Pacific horizon, ensuring that the ocean is never merely a backdrop — it is a constant, luminous presence.
The top-floor living spaces anchor the home's social life. A professional-grade kitchen with stone countertops, a pot-filler range, and dark wood cabinetry flows into an open-plan living and dining area defined by a stone-surround fireplace and rich dark wood flooring. Here, the ocean view is panoramic and unobstructed, stretching from the Palos Verdes Peninsula to the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu. The adjacent top-floor outdoor living and dining deck — fitted with a built-in grill, a stone-clad fireplace, and the signature bronze folding louvered panels — offers a degree of elevated privacy that is genuinely rare on the Strand.
The primary suite is a study in restrained luxury: warm wood-paneled ceilings, expansive glass doors opening directly onto a private ocean-view balcony, and a primary bathroom that pairs dark wood cabinetry with stone countertops and a glass-enclosed shower. A generously proportioned walk-in closet completes the suite with the kind of quiet functionality that defines truly considered design.
Below, the home reveals its full depth as an entertainer's residence. The beach-level room houses a custom bar with bronze shelving, blue leather bar stools, a pool table, and sliding glass doors that open directly to the sand. A fully equipped gym and spa retreat — with a dark stone-clad water feature and a blue-lit pool — occupies the east side of the same level. Lower still, a dedicated home theater with tiered leather recliners, a wine cellar with light wood racking, and a tasting room bearing the inscription 'THE TIME IS ALWAYS NOW' complete a program that is as thoughtfully assembled as any in the coastal canon.
This is a home engineered without compromise — for those who understand that the Strand is not simply an address, but a way of life.
Manhattan Beach occupies a singular position in the geography of Southern California. Situated on a gently elevated bluff along the Santa Monica Bay, roughly 18 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles, it has evolved over more than a century from a modest beach colony into one of the most sought-after coastal communities in the United States — a place where the easy confidence of surf culture coexists with a quietly sophisticated civic life.
The Strand itself is the community's defining artery: a paved pedestrian and cycling path that runs the length of the beach, threading together the city's neighborhoods with a democratic openness that has always been central to Manhattan Beach's character. To own directly on the Strand is to occupy the front row of one of the world's great urban beaches — a beach consistently recognized for the quality of its water, the breadth of its sand, and the clarity of its light.
The city's downtown, centered along Manhattan Beach Boulevard and the blocks surrounding the historic Manhattan Beach Pier, is a compact and walkable collection of independent restaurants, specialty retailers, and casual-luxe establishments that reflects the community's affluent but unpretentious sensibility. The pier itself, rebuilt in its current form in the 1920s and home to the Roundhouse Marine Studies Lab and Aquarium, remains a beloved civic landmark and an enduring symbol of the city's relationship with the ocean. A short walk from the Strand, residents have access to acclaimed restaurants and a dining culture that draws food-focused Angelenos from across the region.
Manhattan Beach is also a community defined by its commitment to outdoor life. The 38-acre Polliwog Park in the city's interior offers green space, a lake, and an amphitheater for community events. The city maintains an extensive network of tennis courts, sand volleyball courts — the beach itself is widely regarded as one of the premier outdoor volleyball venues in the country, with a heritage tracing back to the earliest days of the professional beach volleyball circuit — and parks that speak to a population that takes its physical culture seriously.
For families, the Manhattan Beach Unified School District has a long-standing reputation as one of the strongest public school systems in Los Angeles County, a factor that reinforces the area's enduring desirability across generations of buyers.
Connectivity is a quiet advantage of the location. Los Angeles International Airport is approximately seven miles to the north, making this one of the most strategically positioned luxury addresses in the region for those who travel frequently. The coastal corridor connects seamlessly to Santa Monica and the broader Westside, while the South Bay's own employment centers — including the aerospace and technology companies concentrated in the El Segundo and Hawthorne corridors — are minutes away.
What Manhattan Beach ultimately offers, and what The Strand at its finest distills to its purest expression, is a form of coastal living that feels genuinely irreplaceable: the rhythm of the tides, the long golden light of the Pacific afternoon, and the rare sense of a community that has never lost sight of why people came here in the first place.
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