After studying architecture at the university and working as a designer in New York, Dana Sottile had clear ideas about what she wanted when she proposed to design her own home in Garrison, NY
But I also knew that the process of building a house could be so frustrating and implacable that it did not do it because it does not do it alone. I wanted to collaborate with an architect who was willing not only to make a shower of ideas and details, but also to manage the foundations of complying with construction codes and coordinate construction.
“I studied architecture as a graduate student”, at the University of California at Berkeley, said Mrs. Sottile, 65, an independent designer and artist. “But I had no license because I felt that the architecture professional covered a lot that he was interested in doing.”
She and her husband, Kevin Reymond, 69, who works in finance, was already owned by a second house in Garrison as a weekend escape from her main home in Manhattan, but dreamed of having a house directly on the Hudson River.
In 2019, they learned of a property that comprised three lots in a splinter between the river and the railway. It was high enough for a house above the flood zone of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, so They were launched and negotiated an agreement to buy it for around $ 1.2 million.
There were two existing houses on Earth, only one of what had electricity. They moved temporarily to the habitable house and would be an extension cable to the other building to use it as a change office when they began planning a new house to replace both structures.
“My vision was to interact with this beautiful landscape,” Sottile said. I also wanted to have a “wow space” with glass walls such as the living room, which would provide no restrictions on the river. From there, he imagined a series “or narrower and more intimate spaces, which would be more welcoming”, as well as a separate and narrower building that would work as an art and design study for Mrs. Sottile and a gym for Mr. Reymond.
Looking for some to work with her in the project, Mrs. Sottile hired three different architecture firms. “I had to let people go to Worale I really didn’t do it because to work with me,” he said, adding that he felt frustrated by professionals who seemed more interested in their own than what the house wanted to be. “They really didn’t because I got involved.”
Trying again, he interviewed two more architects in February 2020 and found a partner arranged in Jeff Jordan, based in New York. Mr. Jordan also had a study architecture at the University of California in Berkeley and previously designed a house for one of the EM. Sottile classmates. When they with a person, it looked like a perfect couple.
“Dana came to us with a pretty strong idea or what she wanted,” Jordan said. “So it was about listening to her and then refining what he had done.”
To collaborate the duration of the pandemic, with the improvised office of Mrs. Sottile, sitting together on a long table, with masks.
“The long view of the river is really obvious and really dramatic,” Jordan said. “But what we added to the plan was this idea of the internal spaces of the patio”, with lines of vision that would provide foreground views of trees and plants from inside the house.
The house of 2,251 square feet and of a single floor they arrived is Essential and a box with two cuts for small courtyards. A third courtyard separates the house from a two -story study and a two -story gymnastics building of 899 feet.
Mrs. Sottile and Mr. Jordan kept the palette of simple material. Beyond large glass extensions, they start the house with thin toasted bricks of the Italian manufacturer S.aselmo y Aluminum painted brown, and used smaller windows and additional insulation on the back of the soundproof. In the living room, the outer brick runs inside the house, where it wrap a wall with a chimney.
A constellation of small spotted lights spross both the roof of the living room and the ceiling of the ceiling outside, joining visa in interior and outdoor spaces separated by glass from floor to accommodation.
To meet Mrs. Sottile and the desire of Mr. Jordan of interesting views, both close and distant, the work of land architecture based in New York populated the patio with pastures and high ferns; Birch, Serviceberry and Japanese Arce trees; And rocks that were stored by turning the excavation.
“The landscape is not a single line,” said Theodore Hoerr, a partner of Terrain Work. “We were trying to create a complete matrix or different spatial experiences, with aspects of prospects and refuge so that people feel comfortable.”
After demolishing the old houses in March 2021, the Toke Toke project for more than three years for Rth Complete construction company, such as surprises such as having to rebuke part of Rivierbank, things decreased. The total cost was approximately $ 5 million, and Mrs. Sottile and Mr. Reymond moved last September.
But they have no doubt that it was worth waiting and spending. “This house has changed our lives,” said Sottile, noting that they can’t help smiling every time they wake up there. “It’s a great gratifying.”