Architecture: A Year In Review, 2014

Is it that time again? Hard to believe it’s time for my annual year end review. I am pressed to think of another 12-month period where so much happened on the East End as related to architecture, quality of life issues, zoning battles, assaults on local character, and a general sense among the year-rounders that the East End is slowly becoming Hampturbia.Did I possibly invent a new term? Doubtful, but where is the noted architecture critic and historian Alastair Gordon when I need him? Miami, of course, but I digress.

Architecture on the East End is seeing a resurgence of Modernism not seen since I was in college in the 1970s, the recently demolished Philip Johnson house in Sagaponack notwithstanding.

This is a welcome relief to the deluge of recycled shingle style buildings that have endured as “the builder’s choice” for decades.

The problem with the new subdivisions of shingle style homes, with few exceptions—Michael Davis being one—is that the designs are tired, lacking individuality, not true to their historic roots and out of touch with the times. I have long subscribed to the theory that if you want to live in an old house, buy an old house and refurbish it. Bring the 21st century to the 1800s and have the best of both worlds.

Few understand this concept, but those who do pay a great service to our local heritage, Sag Harbor’s Ted Conklin being one individual of note. Bridgehampton has a number of such projects under way, and the owners should be applauded for their vision. But for every project securing the local vernacular through renovation, addition or restoration, a half dozen are wiped from the map.

Other locations are not so fortunate, including Southampton Village, which continues to have battles royale both within the village proper and along the beachfront, where building size, massing and height have become neighborhood squabbles of epic proportion, with building style taking a back seat for a change. It’s lawsuits galore and a most unpleasant situation for neighbors who have lived quietly among the hedgerows for decades.

Sag Harbor is experiencing similar growing pains, where well-established neighborhoods are being unsettled by new owners anxious to keep up with the Joneses, with larger homes and amenities. Local zoning must also keep up and address these issues head on, lest we face an uncertain future, particularly in our historic districts.

Sag Harbor Village will see three significant projects realized in the coming year. The long awaited Watchcase Factory and Harbor’s Edge condominiums will be completed and occupied, along with the renovated and expanded Baron’s Cove Inn, which is being transformed into a luxury resort. Sag Harbor will be largely shaped by these projects, as traffic and parking may never be the same.

Then there is the tendency to slip down that very slippery slope to sameness that is the CVS application for a special exemption permit in Bridgehampton’s historic epicenter. Really? How shortsighted of CVS to even contemplate such an endeavor, complete with lawsuits against the Town Planning Board. Kudos to the phalanx of universal opposition to this application by everyone within a 10-mile radius. CVS should tuck tail and take its convenience store masquerading as a pharmacy and head to the proposed Bridgehampton Gateway across from the Commons and fight it out with Rite Aid, mano a mano. Anything short would be boorish behavior at best.

Just look to Wainscott for the latest demonstration of bad taste in the new HomeGoods store, which practically resides on Montauk Highway. The siting of this store is even closer to the highway than the previous footprint of Plitt Ford, which occupied this site for decades. The scale and proportion of this building are a shock to the senses, and in reality a distraction to motorists. Who could have looked at this site plan and the associated elevation studies and approved such a design? What purpose does a site plan review serve if this is the end result?

Hopefully 2015 will provide an appropriate and respectful resolution to many of these and other issues facing our East End villages, including PSEG’s ongoing desecration of East Hampton. Among the stories to follow: The restoration of and additions to the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor will finally be revealed, hopefully to great acclaim; Bridgehampton may or may not see a CVS opposite the historic Nathaniel Rogers House; and Southampton may or may not see taller beachfront homes dwarfing century-old neighbors.

Stay tuned, as this will no doubt get, in the words of Lewis Carroll, “curiouser and curiouser.”