Southampton Arts Center Architecture + Design Tour Is Saturday

“Vintage/Reimagined” is the theme of this weekend’s Southampton Arts Center Architecture + Design Tour, featuring a discussion on using old houses in a modern way plus a self-guided tour of village homes and properties that speak to the theme.

On Saturday, September 14, the seventh annual tour’s events will begin with an 11 a.m. brunch at the arts center on Jobs Lane and a noon panel led by classical architect Brian Brady of Brady Design with a panel of architects and designers. Brady will be serving double-duty on tour day, as his own home will be featured on the tour. The other tour stops will be revealed on the day of the tour.

The panel is not to discuss the specific houses on the tour but to explore this year’s theme. But at each stop, a homeowner or another knowledgeable person will be on hand to speak with guests about the homes.

“I love to show off my house,” Brady said during an interview Friday, noting that guests ask great questions.

“Elizabeth Halsey married Edward White, and the house was a wedding present from her parents,” he noted. “I believe they got married in 1926, and they moved into the house in 1929. And she was the original town historian.”

He said he opened up the inside of the house to make it more livable, particularly opening up the kitchen, which was tiny and in original condition when he bought it.

“I built a beautiful pool house, which is the exact same style of the house, which is a Colonial Revival, and there are very few of them in Southampton,” he continued. “It’s not your typical Hamptons architecture.”

He also cleared the sideyard and put in a pool, and added a one-car garage, also in the Colonial Revival style.

“It looks like an original compound, but two of the structures are brand new,” he said.

He said there are two schools of thought when adding on to a historic house: “One is to protect the integrity of the existing structure and make your addition completely different so that everyone can look at it and see what’s old and what’s new. I don’t believe that. When I put an addition on an historic house, I want it to be seamless. I want it to look like the addition was part of the original house.”

The panelists have different ways of looking at it, he said, pointing out that when architect Lee Skolnick worked on the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor, “which is a beautiful historic structure,” he put on an addition that is completely modern.

“There’s no right or wrong. It’s just someone’s interpretation,” Brady said.

The most important thing is to renovate or add on to a vintage home without destroying the integrity of the original architecture.

Joining Skolnick on the panel are architect Pamela Glazer and designers Alvise Orsini and Quinn Pofahl. Glazer is based in Shinnecock Hills, Orsini owns the 1910 home named Balcastle — which in on the National Register of Historic Places — in the village, and Pofahl’s Jetsam Studio is on Jobs Lane.

“It’s a real great mix of people, and everyone’s really excited about it,” Brady said.

Brady goes on as many house tours and garden tours as he can.

“I just like seeing what other architects and designers have done, and you get inspired,” he said. “You get to see what’s good and what you don’t like, and you get to meet really interesting people, because the people that go on the tours are interested in design and architecture.”

The Southampton Arts Center Architecture + Design Tour on Saturday, September 14, starts at the arts center at 25 Jobs Lane in Southampton Village at 11 a.m. with brunch, followed by the panel at noon. The tour will begin at 1:30 p.m. Tickets start at $350 each. Visit southamptonartscenter.org/ad-tour to purchase.