Two Artists Saying Goodbye To Their Sag Harbor Home

Saying goodbye isn’t easy. Especially to a home after 45 years.

“I’m going to miss a lot of things about the house—the martini deck in the evenings, the reflection of the sunlight. The sun at a certain point in the evening … makes the far shore this golden strip. It’s wonderful to see it emerge and see it fade,” said James McMullan. He and his wife, Kate, have recently put their Sag Harbor waterfront on the market for $3.6 million, as they prepare to move back into New York City to be closer to their daughter and new grandchild.

“And I’ll miss the studio, I’ll never have a place as wonderful as this,” Mr. McMullan added. A creative force to reckon with, the couple excel in their respective fields. He is an illustrator who has designed posters for Lincoln Center Theater for about 30 years, while she writes children’s books, occasionally with her husband.

They purchased the prefab home in 1970 for $40,000, using it only as a weekend retreat until 2004, when they moved out full time. The artist’s studio was one of three additions made to the house over the years, totaling about $600,000. Architect Lee Skolnick assisted with some of the renovations, the studio included.

The architect, another Sag Harbor resident, “helped me to appreciate that Techbuilt houses are based on the Japanese idea of tatami mats,” said Mr. McMullan, referring to a flooring material used in traditional Japanese rooms. “[Techbuilt homes] have a kind of purity about them, and among modern architects, of prefabs, they’re the ones that are held in the highest regard.” Mr. Skolnick extended that pure aesthetic with certain support beams, Mr. McMullan noted.

The 2,200-square-foot house sits on just less than an acre of land and overlooks Upper Sag Harbor Cove. There are four bedrooms (five, if the studio is converted into a master bedroom) and four full baths, a Skolnick-designed Gunite pool, and docking that offers access to a chain of harbors and bays.

“I had a sunfish and sailed a lot on these coves,” Mr. McMullan said from his home. When the boat broke down, he and his wife switched to kayaks and a dinghy to explore the surrounding nooks and crannies.

The house is close to the water but also perched about 17 feet above the high tide line. The combined proximity and height give the place a “very boat-like relationship to the water,” said Mr. McMullan. “As you sit in the living room, there’s just this tiny strip of land; you’re mostly just looking directly at the water.”

While their chapter in Sag Harbor may be coming to an end, their creative endeavors continue to bloom—this time, from their new home, an apartment overlooking Central Park. He is still illustrating posters, and she is working on a new book that’s part of the couple’s collaborative series on vehicles that love their jobs, including “I Stink!” and “I’m Dirty!” about a garbage truck and a backhoe loader, respectively. In fact, Amazon recently converted the books into a TV series called “The Stinky & Dirty Show!” featuring 20 episodes about these two characters.

And, of course, the McMullans plan to visit the place they’ve called home for over a decade. “Kate and I have really become part of the community,” Mr. McMullan said. “It’s wonderful. We have friends out here.”