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.

The panel, moderated by Brian Brady, left: Lee Skolnik, Quinn Pofahl, Pamela Glazer, Alvise Orsini. (Photo by Rob Rich/SocietyAllure.com)

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.

Quinn Pofahl (Photo Rob Rich/SocietyAllure.com)

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.

Alvise Orsini (Photo Rob Rich/SocietyAllure.com)

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.”

Lee Skolnick (Photo Rob Rich/SocietyAllure.com)

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.

After renovation (Photo Scott Francis)

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.”

Access to the Bell Tower (Photo Scott Francis)

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.”

(Photo Scott Francis)

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.

If this is meant to be a mud room, no one would dare track mud. For one thing, nowhere to take off boots. Maybe it’s a potting room. It IS beautiful.

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.

The pot-filling spigot over the range is nice. The rhythm of the kitchen seems natural. Is it possible to have too many windows in the kitchen?

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.

The cozy sunken lounge with wet bar.

And the dining room, one-half of the long room that made up the original studio.

Note that few colors insert themselves into the basics of wood, natural fibers, a gray table and white walls. A bust, a clay pot, and a squat red arm chair offer spare color. It’s all controlled.

SOUTH MAIN STREET

A shingled house on South Main Street, Southampton (Photo S. Eichner for Rob Rich/SocietyAllure.com)

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?