ONE OF THE OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS of writing for shelter magazines is that you see a lot of potentially envy-inducing places. Usually, I’m fine. A place may be beautiful, decorated by a top designer, or owned by very rich people, but it’s not generally something I can personally see myself living in, or desiring to live in, and I return to my humble cottage without wanting to cry.
Not so with my latest assignment for Hamptons Cottages & Gardens magazine. For an upcoming issue, I’m writing about a newly built house — compound, actually — on Lake Montauk that looks from the outside like a vernacular cedar-shingled cottage, but inside — sensitively, seamlessly — has all the bright, clean openness of modern architecture.
The architect is Robert Young of the NYC firm Murdock Young, and the photos in this post (I’m just giving you a sneak peek) are by Michael Moran.
Though the house is 4,300 square feet, with five bedrooms and quite a few baths, it’s emphatically not a McMansion. It’s so cleverly broken up into smaller elements (the architect calls them ‘Monopoly houses,’ which are linked together by a tissue of steel and glass) that it feels totally human-scaled.
Look for the issue, distributed locally in stores here on the East End of Long Island, on August 15.
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Stunning! Looking forward to reading more about it. And a great assignment for you!!! Congrats!
I can’t wait to see more pics!
OMG, I want to move in. Can’t wait to see the article in HC&G.
I won’t blab about all the pictures on the architect’s website…oops. It’s kind of sneaky modern. It has the old familiar, comfortable shapes and materials on the outside and it rambles. The sleek happens on the inside but it’s not “all moderned out.” I love those huge look-through-the-house openings. Lucky you for being there.
That’s true, Terry. You can see a lot more pictures of the house on http://www. murdockyoung.com than on my little blog post, or in the upcoming issue of the magazine, for that matter. But you’ll have to get a copy of the magazine to read my sparkling text;-)
The astounding thing about the architecture is that the two idioms (idia?) – traditional and modern – are so well-integrated. There’s absolutely no disconnect. Don’t know how Robert Young pulled it off, but he sure did.