REMAKING A CLASSIC SPACE
By Katlean de Monchy–
The Southampton Arts Center hosted its seventh annual Architecture & Design Tour on Saturday, September 14, with this year’s theme, “Vintage/Reimagined,” spotlighting historic homes that had been updated for modern living.
THE PANEL DISCUSSION
Those who turned up for the tour of select Southampton properties were treated to a brunch followed by a discussion moderated by Brian Brady of Brady Design, which has offices in Southampton and Philadelphia. While known for its expertise in Classical architecture and Classical design, Brady Design obviously includes modern updates in its homes. The panelists were Pamela Glazer, a Southampton architect; Alvise Orsini, of Orsini Design on the Upper East Side of New York, who, incidentally, is married to Geoffroy van Raemdonck, the CEO of the Nieman Marcus Group; Quinn Pofahl, an interior designer based in Southampton, and the architect Lee Skolnick. These four shared their expertise on blending classic architecture with modern functionality.
Each brought a different perspective on how they would add a modern accent to a traditional house. We’ve probably seen Quinn Pofahl’s windows and interiors of Ralph Lauren’s flagship store, the Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo House. You can’t get more traditional than that building, built in 1899 on the Southeast corner of 72nd and Madison, inspired by chateaux in the Rhine Valley. A conversion calmed down the rococo exterior, but still the window displays and the merchandise inside play against the more conservative shell. Pofahl’s house, on Hill Street, was on the tour. It is for sale, for nearly $7 million.
Pamela Glazer did the interiors of two houses on the tour. Alvise Orsini contributed ideas, many gathered from his years of practice in Venice, Paris and London, on how to gracefully inject contemporary elegance into classic design.
And Lee Skolnick brought an architect’s eye to harmonizing contemporary needs to historic structures. Although it wasn’t on the tour, Skolnick described his process while turning an 1836 deconsecrated Methodist church in Sag Harbor into the welcoming arts center and artists residence we know it is today. He pointed out that, in total restoration work, there is a reason to make the work seamless. But on something historic, like the church, in his opinion, and as per the Department of the Interior, there is a tendency to let the rehabilitation “tell the story.”
In that case, with The Church, Eric Fischl and April Gornik’s gift to Sag Harbor, much of the Italianate and Greek Revival exterior remains the same, from the large stone foundation to the clapboard siding, and the belltower, with the original bell re-installed.
Inside, however, Skolnick said, “the interior was already gutted, so it didn’t have any of the original details worked with.” They stripped the building down to its wooden rafters and then opened the space to make three levels. Skolnick said, “Anything that was new was either white oak, gray steel, or white sheet rock. And so there’s a real clear distinction between old and new.”
Eric Fischl offered an artistic solution to the gigantic windows, which had once been filled with leaded glass. Instead Skolnick won permission from the town to replace wooden frames with aluminum, and Fischl contributed portraits of 20 notable creative types with relationship to the area, including Herman Melville, Langston Hughes, James Fenimore Cooper, George Balanchine, Spalding Gray and Betty Friedan. “The only people who can be immortalized,” Skolnick says, “you have to be dead.”
It was a lively panel. And then people were off to tour the houses
THE HOUSES
471 Hill Street, Southampton, owned by Quinn Pofahl. The house is on the market, for $6,995,000. You can see a designer’s controlled hand in the restraint in matching colors and moods from one room to another. It is almost as if each was a model room in a department store. Perfection. All photographs are from the Douglas Elliman listing.
The original house was built in 1910 as an artist’s studio. Thus the main part of the house is one long room. A two-year renovation divided that room with cleverly placed open screens. The kitchen of course was completely redone. You will note that the colors in the cabinetry seem chosen from the same can of Farrow & Ball Bible Black.
There is a comfortable dining room that leads to the living room. And just off the dining room is a sunken lounge with a wet bar. It is so inviting, it might be hard to get people to leave.
And the dining room, one-half of the long room that made up the original studio.
SOUTH MAIN STREET
Sometimes it takes just a few small touches to make a house feel contemporary. Bathrooms and kitchens are most likely to be updated, and therefore the most likely to take a new look. A sense of humor is always welcome in the toilet, from wallpaper to a vintage bathing costume. Remember playing tennis with a wooden racquet?
Antique wooden horses aren’t modern. Posing them together, like this, is. It also solves a problem: blocking access to a patio door. Note that right-handed people usually draw and post animals facing left.
In this house, there were collections galore, used to add a surprise at various corners. That was especially true on top of an antique apothecary’s cabinet, where the heads seemed to be giving visitors the side-eye.
POST CROSSIN ROAD, SOUTHAMPTON
Sometimes the very nature of an older house dictates a design aesthetic. A very old house will have low ceiling, small windows and small rooms. Too many details can make decor feel cluttered. Frank Lloyd Wright said, “Less is more only when more is too much.”
This owner went for less. Take a look at the bedroom.
If you put one more thing in that bedroom, it would be too much. Even art on the wall would clutter the room. It needs to be simple. The Shakers would have appreciated it. And design fetishists can enjoy the hammered upholstery tacks on the footboard bench. The practical braided jute or sisal rug means wet feet can come and go in the summer. It’s a no stress room, just as it would have been 100 years ago, except they didn’t have Roman shades back then.
A kitchen is a partly modernized space. The easiest kitchen island is stainless steel chef’s shelves. Practical and modern. The beadboard walls make it look old and new. White is classic, and fresh in a kitchen. Front-loaded washers and dryers made the tops usable for microwave and toaster oven. Even Puritans would have approved of that kind of space saving.
28 Bowden Square, Southampton
The shingled house at 28 Bowden Square held a surprise. Here was Karen Kluglein in her dining room with a built-in corner cupboard. And with her five mustard-colored Eames molded fiberglass armchairs with zinc Eiffel bases.
You can’t get more midcentury modern than that. Those Eames molded chairs seemed as happy to be there as the yellow marigolds that were blooming outside her front door. It was such a treat to see them there. Especially with the cobalt blue bowl she put on the table for contrast.
Some people know how to knock the socks off an old home. The panel discussion, followed by the house tour, taught me a few lessons I want to take home to Sutton Place.