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Profile

Bates Masi + Architects LLC, a full-service architectural firm with roots in New York City and the East End of Long Island for over 45 years, responds to each project with extensive research in related architectural fields, material, craft and environment for unique solutions as varied as the individuals or groups for whom they are designed. The focus is neither the size nor the type of project but the opportunity to enrich lives and enhance the environment. The attention to all elements of design has been a constant in the firm’s philosophy. Projects include urban and suburban residences, schools, offices, hotels, restaurants, retail and furniture in the United States, Central America and the Caribbean. The firm has received 43 design awards since 2003 and has been featured in national and international publications including The New York Times, New York Magazine, Architectural Digest, Architectural Record, Metropolitan Home, and Dwell. Residential Architect Magazine selected Bates Masi one of their 50 Architect’s We Love. A gallery exhibition in May 2010 featured the firm’s earlier work from 1960-70.

 

Paul Masi spent childhood summers in Montauk and currently resides in Amagansett. He received a Bachelor of Architecture from Catholic University and a Masters of Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He worked at Richard Meier & Partners before joining this firm in 1998.

Harry Bates, a resident of East Hampton, received a Bachelor of Architecture from North Carolina State University. After ten years with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, he was in private practice in New York City for 17 years before moving the firm to Southampton on the East End in 1980. Our offices are currently located in Sag Harbor with plans to relocate to a new LEED Certified office building of our own design in East Hampton.

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Northwest Peach Farm

Lot size: 10 acres

Building size: 7000 sq. ft.

Location: East Hampton, NY

Program: Single Family Residence

Photographer: Michael Moran

Landscape Architect: Coen + Partners

This residence is primarily used when the clients’ extended family comes from England for long visits. They come to relax and to reconnect with their family and with nature, away from city crowds and traffic, at a retreat they neither want nor need to leave for a month. The design objective was to make every day of that month unique by providing a range of destinations within the site with diverse scales, functions, and views: from gathering in the expansive living room overlooking the fields of the former peach orchard to reading alone on a shaded bench between the library and the edge of the forest. Multiple paths and hallways connect each destination, further increasing variety. Finally, each detail and custom furnishing is designed to make mundane rituals into thoughtful events.

For example, in the kitchen, rolling cutting boards ride in tracks down the long island, turning meal preparation into an assembly line for everyone’s participation. Those not cooking can make a selection from the wine room where the bottles cast a pattern of shadows through a glazed wall into the main entrance. The dining table can be configured for the evening: stainless steel tubes running the length of the table can be rotated to reveal candleholders, flower

vase holders, or flat surfaces for hot dishes. At other times, the tubes can be removed and the trough filled with ice for chilling drinks. For a change of pace, there is dining on the roof deck at sunset, barbequing on the terrace, lunch in the shade of the pool house canopy, or breakfast in the screened porch. Each space is unique, making each meal special.

Even the morning routine becomes an event. In the kids’ rooms, a ribbon of stone traces their morning ritual. Starting as a nightstand by the bed, it becomes a bench for their pile of clothes, a desk for checking their email, a sink in the bathroom, and, finally, the shower floor. In the parents’ master closet, hidden steel hooks pivot up from the mahogany bench to hang the day’s outfit choices.

The clients wanted this to be a gathering place for their family, full of memories for generations to come. Thus the materials were chosen not only for durability but also for their gradual changes over many years. The copper siding and roofing will slowly turn green as the weathering limestone becomes darker. However, the window system will stand the test of time unchanged. An English company has manufactured the same industrial steel windows for over 150 years and many early examples are still in tact. A geothermal heating and cooling system, green roofs, organic finishes, and triple glazed windows will minimize the structure’s environmental impact over the generations.

The clients look forward to many tranquil summers together with their family in the house.

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