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ARCHITECT CHARLES GWATHMEY BRINGS NEW LIFE TO THE ICONIC HOME HE BUILT FOR HIS PARENTS

"Every time I go I still get that uplift," says Charles Gwathmey, speaking of the house he built for his parents in Amagansett in 1965. "The house has a certain spirit. When I'm there I have great memories of my parents—we had an unbelievable relationship all my life—and remove myself from everyday life. I draw and swim."

Gwathmey, co-founder of the 60-person Manhattan architecture firm Gwathmey Siegel, inherited his parents' house on Long Island in 2002, after his mother, Rosalie Gwathmey, passed away. He and his wife Bette Ann, an executive with Ralph Lauren, spent almost two years restoring it and now weekend there year-round with three sleek saluki hounds and, occasionally, their grown son Eric, a documentary filmmaker.

"There's a great deal of joy in the house," Bette Ann says. "It's so peaceful. Charlie and I are very active during the week; the house is our getaway. We are pretty private here, though we like to have a few close friends to dinner. This house has so much meaning in terms of its history." And it's some history.

Soon after Gwathmey graduated from Yale architecture school in 1962, his mother asked him to build a house for her and his father Robert, a renowned painter. "My mother had $50,000," Gwathmey recalls. "I had to find the land, which cost $7,500. That left me $42,500 to build and furnish the house."