Located within a private oceanfront community, Bates Masi Architects have designed a home for a young couple in East Hampton, New York, that would accommodate their growing family and reflect their modern lifestyle. In other words, the clients wanted a transparent residence beautifully surrounded by gardens. The clients desired a modern home that would fit within it’s historic context while embracing the modest scale of the property. As you enter, you are greeted by an open-plan kitchen, dining and relaxation zone, which acts as the social core of the house. A diverse array of materials and textures adds dynamics to the overall scheme.
While the first floor is dedicated to guests and entertaining, the second floor is reserved for the family. The design meets these goals by referencing the nearby agrarian vernacular buildings, specifically gabled potato barns embedded in the ground. Cedar and weathering steel are executed in nontraditional ways. The warm, earthy tones of these materials blend with the weathered landscape that surrounds it.
The project also involved capitalizing more on the already incredible views, improving the flow of spaces, providing an outdoor living area, and ratcheting up the quality level of the home in general. The Family Room sofa is fabricated out of the massive glue-laminated wood beams and carved out to create side tables and drink rails. A unique structural system was employed to create a false ground plane that slopes up from grade to the second floor, masking the scale of the house when viewed from the street. As you walk through the rooms, you get a sense of elegance originally mixed with a welcoming factor.
