Lumber Lane Barns
The clients, both psychiatrists and collectors of 18th and 19th century tiles, started acquiring land twenty years ago in Bridgehampton, New York. They wanted to create a family compound (for grown children and grandchildren) among landscaped gardens. Five years ago, they noticed a house for sale for $1. The house was offered by the Bridgehampton Historical Society and would be sold to anyone willing to move the house from its current location. The house had already been moved several times in its three centuries plus history but was currently under threat at its current location to new development. Intrigued, the owners decided to buy this house and collect additional houses and barns to create the project. They worked with a local restoration designer to acquire the additional buildings and oversee the restoration of the frames.
We were able to synthesize historical and modern architectures through parallel and complementary programming and design aesthetics. While restoring historic structures, we wanted to accommodate a contemporary lifestyle and celebrate the surrounding landscape (itself created from flat farm lands). The creation of glass ‘Hinges’ was critical in linking the historic structures into defined and separate programmatic living spaces while concurrently highlighting each historic house. The Hinges were the main circulation space and allowed the Tinmouth (1780) and Halsey (1690) houses to serve as bedroom/living spaces with the ‘Kitchen Barn’ (1740) providing the main communal cooking/eating and entertaining spaces. There is also a Carriage House (1740) which contains a yoga studio and rehearsal space for the grown children (two of which are actors and directors).
The site itself was transformed and the central passion of the clients. They chose every tree and its placement. They oversaw the sculpting of the land and placement of rocks. There is a fire landscape opposing the water landscape. The houses are powered by a closed looped geothermal system and solar voltaic cells.
Photography by Carl Bellavia