Southampton Village ARB Members Wrestle With Mocomanto Glass Connector

Plans to restore historic features of a nearly 137-year-old home on First Neck Lane in Southampton Village are being overshadowed by a modern-looking connector that would join the historic home known as Mocomanto with a proposed addition.

Members of the village Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review gave their first round of input on the project, which seeks to nearly double the size of the Victorian home on Lake Agawam, at Monday night’s meeting, and all agreed that the connector, which would be used as a kitchen and would be surrounded by glass, needed a little work.

“The connector is a new and foreign element,” ARB Chairman Curtis Highsmith told the developers. “I don’t think it’s going to work.”

Mr. Highsmith said he thinks the applicant should go back to the drawing board and redesign that connector.

Board member Jeff Brodlieb agreed and told representatives of Ken Fox, the owner of the home and a managing partner at the Stipes Group, which has been instrumental in financing companies like Blue Apron, GoFundMe and Grubhub, that the materials being used in the connector are not consistent with the materials used in the house and the addition, and that it was not vintage 1880s or 1920s.

Mr. Fox has an application with the ARB to construct an addition to the historic home that would increase its gross floor area by 52 percent, from 4,717 square feet to 7,190 square feet, The addition was designed by the Manhattan-based Studio Sofield. As part of the presentation of plans on Monday, numerous photos dating back to the 1880s showed how the historic home was expanded and reduced throughout the years, especially between the 1880s and 1920s.

Given the number of photos that were taken of the home between those years, board member Susan Stevenson said it was apparent to her that the home needed to be preserved.

“We should realize from day one that this was an important building, and still is,” Ms. Stevenson said.

Ms. Stevenson, who admitted on Monday that she did not always like the home but was always curious about it, described Mr. Fox’s proposed expansion as “mcmansion-ish,” adding that it “completely neuters what it was.”

During the presentation, it was noted by Studio Sofield that the connector joins the original home with the “guest house,” and Mr. Brodlieb said he wrestled with the concept of creating such a big guest house.

The addition, which the developers continue to stress is subservient in height to the historic home, also had four garage doors, which Mr. Brodlieb struggled with.

“I didn’t see that. I saw a big expanse that was all but subservient,” he said. “Return this jewel of Southampton back to what it was.”

Siamak Samii, a local architect who was hired by opponents of the project, told ARB members that throughout Mocomanto’s history, there has never been an expansion as big as what was being proposed. He added that the photos prove the home can be expanded in a number of ways, the current proposal not being one of them.

Mr. Samii also told board members that the addition had a 30-foot ridge-line, comparing it to adding a second story home instead of the one and a half story addition that the applicant claims.

Given the awkward shape of the parcel, Bill Sclight, a Water Mill-based architect, told ARB members the applicant has done a great job fitting the addition onto the property. He also told ARB members he supports the project.

“I thought it was a good meeting,” John Bennett, the attorney representing Mr. Fox, said on Tuesday. “I thought it was one of the better ARB meetings.”

Mr. Bennett said the board members gave Mr. Fox’s team a good amount of guidance on changes to make, and were extremely helpful.

Still, board members were nowhere close to making a decision on the application. Instead, the public hearing was adjourned until the next meeting at Village Hall on December 11.