House warming : Typically cold material makes for a surprisingly cozy concrete beach retreat
By: Minutillo, Josephine
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Publisher: New York BNP Media 2019Edition: Vol.207(4), April.Description: 72-77.Subject(s): Architect Works (AR-AW)Online resources: Click here :
In:
Architectural recordSummary: Ask Tod Williams and Billie Tsien—designers of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and the erstwhile Folk Art Museum in New York—and they’ll tell you they don’t do houses. A few years ago, David Walentas, the real-estate tycoon who transformed part of Brooklyn’s derelict waterfront into one of New York’s most desirable neighborhoods, and his wife, Jane, needed an architect for a house they were building on Long Island’s East End. They didn’t think Tod and Billie—whom the couple, as patrons of the arts, had known for years—would do it.
“We wanted a simple concrete box,” says David. In fact, the Walentases had originally hired a local architect to deliver that. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems. By the time they came to Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners (TWBTA), plans for a bar-shaped structure were already far along, and the couple didn’t want to change that. David and Jane, as it turns out, had very strong feelings about what they wanted. After developing several million square feet of residential space, and living in numerous renovated lofts or old Victorians in New York City, Connecticut, and the Hamptons, this was the first house they were building for themselves. “The last place we had was a 1670 farmhouse, on an equestrian estate in Bridgehampton, with low ceilings and small windows,” explains Jane. “We wanted something contemporary. And some of the places we looked at to buy were just too beautiful.” After giving up riding and playing polo, they also wanted to return to a strip of beach in Southampton where they had lived in the 1970s in a Ward Bennett–designed house they bought for $200,000. (It recently sold for over $17 million.)
| Item type | Current location | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
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Articles Abstract Database
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School of Architecture Archieval Section | Reference | Not For Loan | 2018466 |
Ask Tod Williams and Billie Tsien—designers of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and the erstwhile Folk Art Museum in New York—and they’ll tell you they don’t do houses. A few years ago, David Walentas, the real-estate tycoon who transformed part of Brooklyn’s derelict waterfront into one of New York’s most desirable neighborhoods, and his wife, Jane, needed an architect for a house they were building on Long Island’s East End. They didn’t think Tod and Billie—whom the couple, as patrons of the arts, had known for years—would do it.
“We wanted a simple concrete box,” says David. In fact, the Walentases had originally hired a local architect to deliver that. But nothing is ever as simple as it seems. By the time they came to Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners (TWBTA), plans for a bar-shaped structure were already far along, and the couple didn’t want to change that. David and Jane, as it turns out, had very strong feelings about what they wanted. After developing several million square feet of residential space, and living in numerous renovated lofts or old Victorians in New York City, Connecticut, and the Hamptons, this was the first house they were building for themselves. “The last place we had was a 1670 farmhouse, on an equestrian estate in Bridgehampton, with low ceilings and small windows,” explains Jane. “We wanted something contemporary. And some of the places we looked at to buy were just too beautiful.” After giving up riding and playing polo, they also wanted to return to a strip of beach in Southampton where they had lived in the 1970s in a Ward Bennett–designed house they bought for $200,000. (It recently sold for over $17 million.)
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