Daniels Lane

Sited on a narrow, one acre, oceanfront lot, the design of

this house was one of the first projects in the Village of

Sagaponack to be affected by the 2010 revision to FEMA

flood elevations, requiring a first floor elevation of

approximately 17 feet above sea level with a maximum

height allowance of 40’ and all construction required to be

located landward of the Coastal Erosion Hazard Line. The

location within a high velocity (VE) wind zone added to

the planning and structural challenges.







Nearby inspiration came from both the 1979 Tarlo ‘Wall’

House by Tod Williams and Norman Jaffe’s Perlbinder

House, completed in 1970. The two story travertine entry

façade is highlighted with a single opening accentuated

by a cantilevered afromosia stair landing that hovers off

the ground. A ‘cut and fold’ in the wall plane bends to

allow for one large glass opening, from which an over

scaled, wood aperture containing the main stair landing

cantilevers. In a nod to Louis Kahn’s Richards

Laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania, a layer of

service spaces run parallel to the wall plane creating a

threshold prior to reaching the horizontal expanse of

the ‘served’ entertainment spaces of the open plan living

room, dining and kitchen. Fifteen foot wide, floor to

ceiling, glass sliding panels maximize the ocean view and

open the house onto the ocean side patio and pool.







The second floor is imagined as a travertine and

glass ‘drawer’ floating above the glass floor below. Three

identical children’s bedrooms run from west to east,

setting a rhythm that is punctuated by a master bedroom

balcony that projects out from the wall plane, clad in the

same afromosia wood as the stair landing. Interior

materials include poured in place concrete floors,

Calacutta marble cladding and afromosia millwork.