House at Sagaponac

Sagaponac, New York

Invited to design a weekend house for the second phase of the acclaimed architectural development the Houses at Sagaponac, XTEN Architecture conceived of the residence as a single sloped sculptural volume relating to the horizontal scale of the landscape. The rooms, terraces and porches are gathered under and sheltered by this large and embracing roof form. The primary geometry of the house is evocative of both the low slung shingle style structures and the classic modernist architecture renowned in the Hamptons.

The simplicity of the exterior form of the house belies a spatial complexity on the interior, as rooms, terraces and courtyards of varying ceiling heights flow from the outside to the inside and back again. The house is organized as two angled wings around a courtyard, each of which open and connect to a large South facing covered porch.  The West wing comprises the social spaces; kitchen, dining and living areas, which culminate in a double height space that opens in three directions to the landscape. The East wing contains the guest bedroom suites, each oriented to private views of nature.  The South facing covered porch opens to a generous pool terrace with full length steps that connect to the meadow grasses. Above this covered porch is the master bedroom suite with its own roof deck.

The interior and exterior walls are clad in gray vertical cedar planks, which reinforce the solidity and singularity of the architectural form. Glass is the only other primary enclosure material, in the form of large fixed panels and long spans of sliding glass walls that disappear into hidden wall slots.  The use of wood flooring throughout the house, decks and terraces continues the indoor-outdoor materiality, which is amplified when the glass walls slide away. The layered, indoor-outdoor spaces are at once open and closed, modern and vernacular, while the house creates a strong profile on the landscape and a sense of place in the fields and woods of Sagaponac.