Spec house redux

The architect Louis H. Sullivan wrote, “Once you learn to look upon architecture not merely as an art, more or less well or more or less badly done, but as a social manifestation, the critical eye becomes clairvoyant, and obscure unnoted phenomena become illumined.”

With their new Mecox Road spec house in Bridgehampton, architect James Merrell, builder Peter Cardel of Cardel Development and realtor Beate Moore of Sotheby’s International Realty are banking on the premise that the infusion of real design values in a house need not be in conflict with a for-profit agenda.

The speculative McMansions of the last 20 years have come to symbolize the greed, excess and wastefulness associated not only with a drain on natural resources and environmental degradation but also as a contributing factor in the financial collapse of the economy. Lacking a theoretical framework or meaningful symbolic content, these bloated, energy guzzling monsters substituted size and expensive finishes for substance—in inverse proportion to the self-worth of their potential buyers.

The raison d’être for a weekend house once involved the integration of built form with nature for the purposes of restoring health and providing tranquility. This architecture of leisure represented an escape from sweltering and polluted cities in the summer. The Mecox Road spec house re-examines the way we live now as well as the programmatic requirements that are intrinsic for a Hamptons getaway.

According to the collaborating partners, the core values of this project revolve around respect for the environment, elegant understatement versus flamboyant display and a modern design that is companionable with both the historic context of its neighborhood in addition to that of the larger region. This energy-efficient house, which is both Energy Star and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified (LEED), complies with the standards required of these two entities.

The interiors are light-filled with a palate of bleached oak for floors, accent walls and trim all juxtaposed against warm white walls. Judiciously located planes of glass offer views with filtered light and are used to create spaces that connect indoors with outdoors.

The scheme starts, however, with a master plan for the property that addresses the natural features of the existing, historic site. The entry and driveway on the east side of the site have been deliberately positioned away from the center of the front elevation in order to provide a terrace for relaxation with a retractable awning and a garden whose crowning jewel and focus is a shade-giving, 100-year-old horse chestnut tree.

Southern light flows into both floors of the house year round. The exterior facing the street, in terms of massing, is derivative of early 18th-century East End houses like “Home Sweet Home” and the Old Osborne office as well as the historic houses that once populated this Bridgehampton neighborhood.

Double-hung windows, longer on the first floor than on the second, punctuate a façade of traditional shingles in a simple A-B-A rhythm that reflects the zoned division of spaces in the interior. The facade is capped with a simple gable roof, concealed gutters and an iconic chimney slightly off-center.

The north side of the house contains the dining room, family room and kitchen, all opening onto the dining terrace while overlooking the pool in the backyard beyond. Despite its open plan, however, the organization of the spaces is layered front to back.

From the entry foyer, the visitor can walk directly ahead along a loggia in the mid-section of the house which opens to both the south facing terrace and living/dining areas to the north and terminates at a small office on the west end. Directly to the right of the foyer is a wing containing a service entry and powder room adjacent to the kitchen.

The west wing contains a junior master bedroom and bath in addition to a family room significantly larger than the living room. A stairwell (no fancy statement here), tucked behind the living room, provides access to the basement below and second floor above.

Mr. Merrell notes that upward of 25 percent of the space devoted to McMansions is wasted on corridors. In his design for this house, corridors have virtually been eliminated. The second floor landing opens onto a sky-lit sitting room that overlooks the front yard and is adjacent to the five reasonably-sized upstairs bedrooms.

The U-shaped plan of the building is really rather traditional on a conceptual level and yet it’s full of details that incorporate modern twists. Poche, French for “pocket,” is another long-established architectural technique used throughout the house as a way of outlining the geometry of the spaces in the plan by filling in substantial wall thicknesses on paper.

In reality, these thickened walls really contain elements like closet build-outs, duct-work and plumbing. They serve to define the separations between spaces as well as provide a feeling of solidity.

Wood accent walls appear to float because of the insertion of reveals just before the ceilings. Exterior shingles give way to center-matched boards on the side and rear first story walls; the complete reverse of the traditional historically correct configuration of boarded front wall and shingled side walls.

From the street, one would be hard-pressed to imagine that this house contains 6,335 square feet on the first two floors with an additional 1,900 square feet of finished space in the basement. This is not a small house by any means, and yet the layering of wings gives the illusion of a sensibly-sized house, particularly since there is a lot of house, so to speak, behind the house.

This spec house is neither cynical nor overdone. Its design is transitional and encompasses values that may or may not be clear depending on the sophistication of the viewer. It has a scalable intimacy, a narrative that skirts both past and present and presents itself as a work which has engaged in discourse.

In short, this house (whether one likes or dislikes it) is a long overdue critique of a failed building typology. By confronting the precepts of social convention for speculative building, the Mecox Road house firmly poses a refreshing challenge to the state of the art.

Anne Surchin is an East End architect and writer.