IN Eighties SAGAPONACK, a village within the Hamptons, new homes had been awash in shingles and classical columns, to the dismay of the architect Fred Stelle.
“It was raging postmodernism,” he mentioned, nonetheless sounding bewildered. He took modest architectural jobs increasing previous homes with modern extensions and bided his time. Lastly in 2001, he mentioned, a Manhattan artistic director requested a totally fashionable 2,500-square-foot new home.
Then got here one consumer after one other. Some are well-known like Calvin Klein, Aerin Lauder and Michael Kors, sprinkling stardust on a agency that’s housed in a transformed potato barn in Bridgehampton.
Because the enterprise expanded, Mr. Stelle added three companions, Viola Rouhani, Michael Lomont and Eleanor Donnelly. Their agency, Stelle Lomont Rouhani Architects, quietly turned recognized for a model of seaside modernism that sits evenly in nature, with million-dollar water views of sea grass and open skies.
This East Hampton dwelling overlooking the Three Mile Harbor is without doubt one of the creations by Stelle Lomont Rouhani Architects.
This place to calm down in solitude sits close to one of many homes designed by Stelle Lomont Rouhani Architects.
The homes grew, together with the enterprise. “Typically they received large,” mentioned Mr. Stelle, 77, recalling one with 30,000 sq. toes.
Up and down the Jap Seaboard, the place the pleasures of a sunny day can dissolve right into a roiling superstorm in the middle of a day, a confluence of legal guidelines and constraints level away from conventional structure. Flood maps from the Federal Emergency Administration Company dictate building, low-lying buildings should sit atop metal posts to let speeding water surge safely beneath, and native peak restrictions depart scant room for an attic, not to mention a sloped roof.
A FLAT ROOF maximizes residing house beneath and might host a 13-kilowatt photo voltaic array, planters thick with sedum or a mahogany solar deck. Atop a 4,900-square-foot home on Mecox Bay — with interiors by the designer Shawn Henderson — the companions gave a Manhattan actual property govt and his spouse all three.
ON A SPIT OF LAND between the ocean and a pond, gossamer floor-to-ceiling white curtains by the inside designer Julie Hillman billow at open Fleetwood sliding doorways, in high-performance glass crystalline reasonably than tinted “like very darkish sun shades,” Mr. Lomont, 58, mentioned.
“MY HOUSES ARE ALL GLASS, WITH WATER VISTAS TO FEED YOUR SOUL,” mentioned Deborra-Lee Furness Jackman, the Australian actress.
She labored with the agency for greater than six years to fully exchange an unremarkable two-story tear-down within the East Hampton woods. She additionally acquired and remade a modest midcentury home subsequent door. That home is now stained black, its lot folded into her waterfront compound.
She requested cozy class, whimsy, and the sensation of a museum gallery in tune together with her creative aspirations. “I stroll into any house, and I begin creating,” she mentioned. Her estranged husband, Hugh Jackman, attended the design conferences, however “this was my ardour piece,” she mentioned.
Ms. Furness Jackman admits that she shouldn’t be good at compromise, however she listened each time the architects and the designers mentioned “That received’t work.” An early model of the format had two tales, however sooner or later Mr. Stelle lopped off the highest to supply an unexpectedly elegant single-story pavilion at floor degree, above a tall walkout basement with a screening room, an artwork studio and the storage.
Ms. Rouhani, 54, mentioned she developed the plan “to include this concept of drama” informal sufficient for household life.
A customer would possibly nominate the 15-foot asymmetrical pedestal eating desk that Ms. Donnelly modeled to scale in Plasticine, after which carved full-size in blue foam.
After 18 months of growth, the huge bleached walnut desk, with a metal inside construction reinforcing its 11-foot cantilever, arrived by crane at one finish of the sprawling nice room, on the principle degree, and received welded into the ground beams. “Design is my ardour,” Ms. Furness Jackman mentioned, and “cantilever is my favourite phrase.”
AT A PROPERTY IN WATER MILL, Ms. Rouhani began from scratch and fortified a brand new design with disastrous climate in thoughts. Involved {that a} seaside cottage that after belonged to Christie Brinkley wouldn’t survive one other storm like Hurricane Sandy, the architects shifted the substitute home again from the ocean as an extra precaution, and LaGuardia Design Group restored the dunes.
When new homeowners purchased the property for $11.7 million in 2017, in addition they tapped Stelle Lomont Rouhani and received a free-standing storage topped with a pool home. In command of the interiors, Ms. Donnelly, 51, oversaw the portray of the partitions. They’re white, although the décor pops with pink and orange equipment. “There’s no rainbow of fruit flavors in our architectural palette,” Ms. Donnelly mentioned, although she shortly added that coloration was doable at request.
A CEDAR HOUSE IN AMAGANSETT for George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg, the Canadian inside designers, added exterior zinc-wall panels which are unhazardous, recyclable and mirror warmth from the solar.
The couple owns properties elsewhere, however Mr. Yabu mentioned they thought of this one their “easy” major residence from late spring via October. “The seaside is basically us, and this time of 12 months we yearn for it,” he mentioned.
The higher degree thrusts daringly towards the dunes whereas sustaining a respectful distance of 5 toes. The lads needed to step out of the decrease degree immediately onto sand, so Mr. Stelle suggested them to maneuver quick and get grandfathered by the constructing division to maintain the brand new construction “off stilts.”
They designed their very own interiors, in a artistic dialog with the architects that Mr. Yabu termed a “love fest.”
Now, a dozen years on, Mr. Stelle nonetheless brings colourful eggs freshly laid by his Araucana hens as a thanks when he arrives to indicate the home to potential new purchasers. “Architects could be prickly, however he’s supernice,” Mr. Pushelberg mentioned.
