MEET THE ARCHITECT

AN INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED ARCHITECT MAKES HIS HOME IN EAST HAMPTON

You wrote the forward for the book Houses of the Hamptons: 1880-1930. Why did you get involved in this project? I agreed to do it because the book doesn't talk about houses as if they are disembodied things without people living in them. It's a social history as well as an architectural examination. What is your favorite project featured? All of the houses in the book are extraordinarily interesting. Only recently in the Hamptons has architecture gotten bigger, rather than better, and that's always a problem because big stuff is harder to design. You live in East Hampton year round. What drew you there? When I first came to East Hampton I thought, "This is an old place and its incredibly beautiful." I was dumbfounded to find huge trees—oaks and beeches—growing so close to the ocean. And the beach that runs from Westhampton to Montauk is really one of the great beaches of the world. How do you see the Hamptons evolving? The great charm of the East End is that it was originally made of farming and fishing villages divided by great expanses of fields. These spaces are now filling up. Eventually the original charm of the countryside is going to be lost and that is going to be too bad. But listen...the growth and money have improved things, too. There are a lot of good restaurants now [laughs]. What architects from this area have influenced your work? As they say, "If you want to see farther you stand on the shoulders of giants." My own work has been influenced by the smaller cottages built here for 250 years. The key to each place architecturally is that buildings should reflect the climate, culture, social standards and material of the region. What are you looking forward to this upcoming season? Spending as many weekends here as I can with my wife and my dogs and good weather and the beach—everything. What is your own house like? My wife and I had been renting a cottage for two or three years when in 1969, while I was away, she called me and said, "I bought this wonderful house on this beautiful piece of open space." I didn't like it very much when I saw it, but I've messed around with it over the years and now I like it a lot. It's my home.