Sited on a narrow, one acre, oceanfront lot, the design of this house was one of the first projects in the Village of Sagaponack to be affected by the 2010 revision to FEMA flood elevations, requiring a first floor elevation of approximately 17 feet above sea level with a maximum height allowance of 40’ and all construction required to be located landward of the Coastal Erosion Hazard Line. The location, within a high velocity (VE) wind zone, added to the planning and structural challenges.
Nearby inspiration came from both the 1979 Tarlo ‘Wall’ House by Tod Williams and Norman Jaffe’s Perlbinder House, completed in 1970. The two story travertine entry façade is highlighted with a single opening accentuated by a cantilevered afromosia stair landing that hovers off the ground.
A ‘cut and fold’ in the wall plane bends to allow for one large glass opening, from which an overscaled, wood aperture containing the main stair landing cantilevers. In a nod to Louis Kahn’s Richards Laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania, a layer of service spaces runs parallel to the wall plane creating a threshold prior to reaching the horizontal expanse of the ‘served’ entertainment spaces of the open plan living room, dining room and kitchen. Fifteen foot wide, floor to ceiling, glass sliding panels maximize the ocean view and open the house onto the ocean side patio and pool.
The second floor is imagined as a travertine and glass ‘drawer’ floating above the glass floor below. Three identical children’s bedrooms run from west to east, setting a rhythm that is punctuated by a master bedroom balcony that projects out from the wall plane, clad in the same afromosia wood as the stair landing. Interior materials include poured in place concrete floors, Calacatta marble cladding and afromosia millwork.
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