The Work of Bates Masi + Architects Featured in Second Monograph

For the East Hampton architecture firm Bates Masi + Architects, every facet of a building site is taken into account.

Yes, the topography, light and prevalent wind direction inform a home’s design, but also the history and ecology of the site.

“All of our projects have a story,” said Paul Masi, the firm’s owner and principal. “There’s no other way for us to begin the design process, and there has to be some narrative to drive the design and make decisions.”

It’s that notion that gave a name to the second Bates Masi monograph, “Architecture of Place,” published this month by Oro Editions and featuring a look inside the design process of 10 select Bates Masi projects, eight of which are homes on the South Fork.

A lot goes into determining a project’s story. Beyond the physical and historical context of a site, the firm’s architects must consider client requests, neighbors’ concerns and zoning restrictions. Masi said they like to cast a wide net and explore every aspect and see how the design responds. That’s what goes into designing for a sense of place, he said.

“We try to carefully consider all of the different influences and objectives,” he said. “Because those conditions are there, and if you don’t deal with them, you’ll notice.”

Bates Masi often collaborates with renowned landscape architects, but on between a third and a half of projects, Bates Masi also designs the landscape.

“Oftentimes, when we’re starting the project, we’re not only looking at the house, we’re looking at the entire landscape because the experience begins from as soon as you’re entering the property,” Masi said.

Some projects featured in “Architecture of Place” were undertaken when the firm’s founder, celebrated modernist architect Harry Bates, was transitioning into retirement, and some began after he had already moved to Florida. Bates died one year ago at age 95, having left his mark on Fire Island as well the East End of Long Island.

Bates and Masi first worked together in 1996, when Bates was nearly 70 and Masi was 25. Five year later, Masi became a partner in the firm.

“My wife and I were building our first house — like laying floors, putting in doors and windows — and also running a business, and I wasn’t even 30 yet.” Masi said. “I look back at it thinking, How the hell did I do that?”

He said that Bates had peaks in his career and troughs.

“When I joined him, he was definitely in a trough because there was maybe only one small project going on, and it was really just the two of us,” Masi said. They had a similar design, aesthetic and philosophy, he explained, and when they began to work together, the business took off. “And truthfully, it’s just been busy ever since,” he said.

The firm is now 19 strong, with employees at offices in East Hampton and New York.

Bates moved to Florida full time around 2017 and up until then continued to have input in the firm’s projects, to varying degrees. Masi said Harry didn’t walk in one day and announce he was retiring; it happened slowly over 12 years or so.

In her foreword to “Architecture of Place,” Pilar Viladas, the design editor for New York Times magazine, remarks that “while Bates Masi is constantly exploring new forms of architectural expression, Harry Bates’s influence is still very much a part of the firm’s philosophy.”

Masi compared choosing his favorite project in the book to being asked to name his favorite child.

“I have three children, and I don’t have a favorite child,” he said. “I love them for kind of who they are and what’s unique about each one.”

He can say the same of the houses his firm has designed.

“It’s hard because the scale is so varied, like we have one really small house in there and then we have one very large house, and so it’s so hard to compare,” he said. “One was for a single gentleman and the other one was for a family of three generations.”

He said he admires projects in terms of what design problem they are addressing.

The book’s cover project is Stony Hill in Amagansett, completed in 2020. The clients bought the property for the unique character of the site and loved its open vistas, Masi said. It’s in an area of pasture, near Amber Waves Farm.

“They tasked us to have a project that really captured that spirit of the place, and for us, we went back and started looking at the history and we saw that this particular area was burned by the Indians, and they did a controlled burn,” he explained.

After the burns, grasses grew in, and wild animals grazed there. The Indigenous people used it as hunting grounds.

“Then when the settlers came, there was this open pasture that they used for the livestock,” Masi said.

The project synopsis in the book explains, “The meadow was divided into parcels with low stone walls and farmers rotated their livestock from one parcel to the next so as not to overgraze and damage any one area.”

Taking the agrarian history into account, the Bates Masi design called for dividing the site into zones akin to the pasture quadrants.

“That’s what we ended up diagramming the house like,” Masi said.

The house is divided into three volumes connected by breezeways. Bedrooms are in one wing, the kitchen, living and dining area in another, and the third is the service area, with the garage, mudroom and laundry, topped by a guest room on the second story.

“We used thatching for parts of the interior and exterior of the home,” Masi noted.

The thatch is a grass — namely, phragmites — and a nod to the significance of grass to the site’s history.

The project also included sand cast clay tiles in the chimney and in retaining walls around the house that define grassy zones. “That I liked a lot because it had the texture of sand, and there are actually pieces embedded in it,” Masi said. “It’s the colors of our area of the Earth, so I felt like it really rounded the house as well.”

The book’s two out-of-town projects are in Mattinecock in Nassau County and in Annapolis, Maryland. More projects happening far afield are in the works.

“Right now in our office, we have a project in Switzerland, we have a project in Hawaii, a project that we’re starting up in Texas and a project that we’re starting up in San Francisco,” Masi said.

Working in a new part of the world presents both challenges and learning opportunities. Masi said the firm has always cautiously stepped into a new area due to having no presence there and not knowing the right people to work with. “But for us, it’s really exciting to practice in a new place because of the different culture that’s there, the different influences,” he added.

That comes in the context of the character of place and also the building culture, he explained. He said he looks at it as an extension of his education because the things he learns will influence how he practices on the East End.

“I love coming somewhere that’s new to me and really trying to understand what makes this place so special, and then, how does that then translate into the architecture?” he said.

In addition to the 10 featured projects, the monograph also includes a timeline that presents even more Bates Masi homes, including a few that are unbuilt, piquing a reader’s interest in what could have been.

Some were canceled in their early stages, and at least one was canceled after a hole for the foundation was already dug. Projects may be canceled due to a client’s divorce or change of job.

“Those things happen in life, and it’s certainly difficult for us because we put so much into these projects,” Masi said. “They’re like our children, but it’s life, and these things happen.”

But not every canceled project stays dead. One project not included in the book was designed 20 years ago and is under construction right now.

“We thought it was kind of just evaporated into the ether, and then someone bought the property and resurrected it, and we’re building it pretty close to what we designed 20 years ago.”

The first monograph of the firm’s work, “Bespoke Home,” was published in 2016. More books may be coming down the pike to follow “Architecture of Place.”

“I’m really excited about the work that’s coming up, and since this book has been published, we have enough work for another one or even two books,” Masi said. “And you know, whether we do one or not, I don’t know, but we have a great team here and have some really interesting projects on the horizon.”

He said the Bates Masi style is evident not in the form of the building, but in “the quality of craft and the way that the architecture is expressed through the details.”