Mobile Home
Much as we love the idea of old barns as dwellings, it’s the reality that gets in the way. Many of them turn out to be awkward, dark, and difficult to divide into discrete spaces. It makes you realize that they may be better suited to housing animals and farm supplies than families and furniture.
Architecture: This house incorporates the fine hand hewn timber of a Vermont barn, moved here and combined with mostly new construction and just about every posh amenity you can imagine.
Site: Wickapogue Road in Southampton has a spit personality. Once, and to some extent still, a farming area, it is now the locus of mansions and estates. A perfect site then for a barn related home.
The inside word: This is a highly sumptuous and attractive place. It is a real luxury home with some interesting and genuine barn elements, one that does not feel as if the cows left and the folks moved in. It manages to be light, spacious, opulent and up-to-date, and to still convey something of New England history. Offered at $6.8 million.
Anatomy Lesson
We sometimes wonder what sort of surroundings serious antique dealers live in. Do they want to live with the kind of things they work with every day, in which they might have a certain expertise. Is it a busman’s holiday to come home to a rich collection? Or do they want a break from all that?
Architecture: Two historic structures—a 1750 Southampton barn and a 1695 Riverhead house—form the structural anatomy of this 4,500 square foot residence.
Site: Sweeping views of farm fields and big open skies make this one a half acres seem almost rural.
The inside word: Two prominent and very knowledgeable antique dealers built this house several years ago. The inside spaces are expansive—a 25 foot high great room for example—and the details, as you would expect, are meticulous. The Wainscott south location matches the ambition of the house. Offered at $3.75 million.
Northwest Territory
Most of the great old estates in East Hampton and Southampton were on relatively small plots, at least compared to major estates in Connecticut or Westchester. One or two acres is often the standard. Many of the larger ones, both here and in other areas, have been divided over the years, so it rare to find a true five or ten acre estate in our most exclusive neighborhoods.
Architecture: A sprawling and handsome traditional house with many interesting details replicating the original shingle-style from which this home is derived.
Site: A wooded ten acres down a very long private road in the Northwest Woods section of East Hampton. Close to nature but far from neighbors and everything else.
The inside word: Because of successive upzoning over the years, as well as clearing restrictions in water recharge areas, it is almost easier to find estate size lots in some wooded areas north of the highway than it is in the traditional estate areas. This very substantial property is offered at $5.995 million.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Some houses have a storybook quality. They are more than their architecture and materials and location—more than the sum of their parts. They are somehow evocative, with layers of meaning, undercover agents with several identities to reveal. We enjoy reading a good house.
Architecture: It is very much Hamptons style. It is familiar and conformist in a comfortable way—at least familiar to a tasteful elite, and conforming to wealthy lifestyles.
Site: Off Mitchell Lane in Bridgehampton, overlooking an agricultural reserve.
The inside word: As new houses go, this one has some complexity. There is an agreeable merger of traditional elements, certain formal qualities, and a somewhat bucolic setting. It’s a good place to come home to as well as quite spacious for entertaining. Offered at $2.25 million.