Pryor
Lot size: 1.6 acres
Building size: 3,200 sq. ft.
Location: Montauk, NY
Program: Single Family Residence
Photographer: Bates Masi Architects
Landscape Architect: Coen + Partners
The house occupies a hill in Montauk with a distant view of the ocean. A site that the owners, a couple with two young boys, spent years to find. It is the couple’s reprieve from their home in the city, a place to share the outdoor lifestyle with their family and to remember their teenage years together in Montauk. The house design prompts the owners to interact with the surrounding environment, evoking experiences of camping.
A departure from typical residential planning, the house is entered through multiple areas for different guests and occasions. Large glass doors slide open to the living, dining, and kitchen area for a large gathering; a smaller-scaled swing door for an occasional guest opens to the center hall with a view of the ocean; and a sequence of auxiliary spaces – beach equipment area, outdoor shower, sand and mudroom – creates a seamless ritual of the daily activities for the family and their friends. In all living areas and bedrooms, glass doors and insect screens slide in and out from wall pockets, transforming rooms to screened porches or spaces completely open to the landscape.
The double-height kitchen, dining, and living area has thirty-six-foot-wide glass doors that pocket into southern and northern walls. When open, the dining
room becomes a picnic area, and the living room fireplace becomes a campfire. Multiple layers of bronzed metal fabric at the clerestory windows in the living area unfold to adjust sunlight for optimal brightness and temperature. These operable architectural elements use the natural environment to create suitable living conditions.
The house is environmentally friendly in its overall construction and planning, with such specifics as geothermal heating and cooling, shading and venting systems, solar panels, and organic finishes and materials. Lending to the structure’s sustainability, the house is assembled, rather than built, with a prefabricated foundation, panel siding, and efficient built-ins that minimize construction debris and toxins, such as concrete foundation tar, on the site. With the owner’s initial premise of camping, the design and functionality of the house promote a memorable experience for friends and family in the natural environment.
A departure from typical residential planning, the house is entered through multiple areas for different guests and occasions. Large glass doors slide open to the living, dining, and kitchen area for a large gathering; a smaller-scaled swing door for an occasional guest opens to the center hall with a view of the ocean; and a sequence of auxiliary spaces – beach equipment area, outdoor shower, sand and mudroom – creates a seamless ritual of the daily activities for the family and their friends. In all living areas and bedrooms, glass doors and insect screens slide in and out from wall pockets, transforming rooms to screened porches or spaces completely open to the landscape.
The double-height kitchen, dining, and living area has thirty-six-foot-wide glass doors that pocket into southern and northern walls. When open, the dining
room becomes a picnic area, and the living room fireplace becomes a campfire. Multiple layers of bronzed metal fabric at the clerestory windows in the living area unfold to adjust sunlight for optimal brightness and temperature. These operable architectural elements use the natural environment to create suitable living conditions.
The house is environmentally friendly in its overall construction and planning, with such specifics as geothermal heating and cooling, shading and venting systems, solar panels, and organic finishes and materials. Lending to the structure’s sustainability, the house is assembled, rather than built, with a prefabricated foundation, panel siding, and efficient built-ins that minimize construction debris and toxins, such as concrete foundation tar, on the site. With the owner’s initial premise of camping, the design and functionality of the house promote a memorable experience for friends and family in the natural environment.