TIME TRAVELER

Federal charm meets midcentury modernity in a
historic Long Island house

BY GREGORY CERIO

Most of us know a house -- we may pass it every day -- that has thoroughly captured our imagination; a house that possesses a powerful and enduring allure and makes us wonder what it would be like to live there. For Bob Weinstein, the owner of a Manhattan brand-imaging-and-graphic-design firm, and his partner, Eric Hensley, a flight attendant, that place was a house with a tidy Federal-style façade on a quiet street in Sag Harbor, Long Island, where the couple has owned a second home for a dozen years. "We always got a good feeling just walking by it. It had a kind of mystique," Hensley recalls. "There was a huge white-picket fence that curved around the edge of the property," Weinstein says of the lush, nearly one-acre lot. "The grounds were overgrown, but you could look through the trees and see the simple symmetry of the structure. It had presence. Of course, Eric and I never imagined we could ever buy it."

Apparently, no one else had either. When the owner died -- she was born in the house and lived to the age of 101 -- it went on the market, but there were no takers. "It needed a lot of work," explains Hensley, "and no one could figure out what to do with it." Like many old homes in Sag Harbor, this one had been built in stages. The earliest section, a one-room house, dated from 1750. Around 80 years later, subsequent owners began to construct additions, tacking on rooms and wings as needs and tastes dictated. By the new millennium, this jumble of spaces was unsuited to contemporary life. Dark, heavy Victorian wall and window treatments were the least of the problems. The main staircase was narrow and ungainly, and the ceilings in some rooms were so low -- presumably sized for shorter generations of the past -- they brushed the top of Hensley's head when he stood at his full six-foot-two-inch height. But such was the couple's love for the house, along with a drop in the asking price as an additional incentive, that they bought it.

Weinstein soon began drafting possible solutions that would leave the exterior looking essentially the same, he says, to "respect the house's place in the town and not make it grander," but at the same time "revitalize it for modern living, giving it an airy sense of openness and ease." His friends were surprised he embraced a house from the 18th and 19th centuries given his devotion to midcentury-modernist furniture and his huge collection of Scandinavian ceramics. But Weinstein's plan for the renovation resulted in what he describes as an "unexpected feeling of light and volume" typical of a loft space. Second-floor maids' rooms were dispensed with to create a double-height kitchen-and-dining area. They moved and widened the staircase to create sight lines that run from one end of the house to the other on both axes. A mourning room, where bodies were laid out for wakes in the days predating funeral parlors, became a mudroom (dust to dust indeed), closed off from the front parlor by a door that doubles as a bookcase, an idea he got from a neighbor. Walls were refinished with white paint, and brown tongue-and-groove flooring taken up to reveal original plank floors that were sanded, bleached, and rubbed with white stain. "I tell my friends that I'm still a midcentury-design lover," Weinstein says. "Only now it's a different century."

Most of the old architectural details survive, including leaded panes, door and window frames, moldings, and the mantels surrounding the six fireplaces. Gilt-framed 18th-century portraits, culled from flea markets, are displayed prominently on the lower floor. In one striking touch, Weinstein and Hensley framed and hung fragments of the different wallpapers uncovered as the walls were stripped down to the plaster -- documents of the different lives of the house. Within this period envelope they installed furnishings by a roster of midcentury masters: a Florence Knoll sofa, Eero Saarinen tables, George Nelson and Arne Jacobsen chairs. Early-'50s Vladimir Kagan club chairs make a neat counterpoint to the trim lines of a Room & Board sofa in the living room, while the dining room's teak chairs by the Danish designer Kai Lyngfeldt Larsen shine with the same honeyed glow as a brass pendant light by the Finnish designer Paavo Tynell.

What holds it all together is the predominantly white color scheme, which draws in the famous sunlight that has long attracted artists to Long Island's East End, filling the house with an atmosphere of freshness. Like many before them, Weinstein and Hensley have a special reverence for Sag Harbor -- a village in the Hamptons, but not of the Hamptons. "Working on the house made us feel even more a part of the town," Weinstein says. "It was a way of giving back to it." And like the best gifts, this one honors both the giver and the receiver.

A MID-CENTURY MANHATTAN LOFT

All Work and All Play

When you're running a company out of your home, you'd better hope you've got the space to
keep everything in its place. Luckily, that's not a concern for Bob Weinstein.

The oversize conference table in Bob Weinstein’s live/work loft (like the cocktail table in the foreground)
was designed by Jens Risom, and, he says, “supposedly came from the conference room of the Kinney Shoe Corporation.
” Weinstein uses the table to display part of his Scandinavian pottery collection.

As a marketer, you have to have good instincts about what will be coming next,” says Bob Weinstein,
whose company, Concrete Brand Imaging Group, develops and extends brand identities for major lifestyle and fashion companies.
“Because what you create today has to have some sort of validity in the future.”

The same might be said of creating a home—and, indeed, Weinstein faced a comparable challenge when developing 5,600 square feet of ultra-raw space in Manhattan’s Chelsea district into that trickiest of typologies, the live/work environment. The goal was consolidation: Weinstein and life partner Eric Hensley had lived in one loft, his business was located in another (“a space I didn’t own, on which I’d spent a good deal of money, in a building whose elevators took 20 minutes to arrive”), and his printmaking studio (he was a fine arts major at Harvard) was in the couple’s weekend retreat. “I wanted to find a way to have all the pieces of my life come together in a space that was flexible enough to accommodate change and, because it’s used for all these different aspects, becomes affordable,” he says with a laugh, “whatever ‘affordable’ means.”

Weinstein’s interior acreage—the entire second floor of an L-shaped former mercantile building—offered a good start. “When we walked in, we were awestruck,” recalls architect Brian Messana, who with partner Toby O’Rorke was hired to configure the interior. A 50-by-100-foot rectangle with a long, narrow leg, the loft boasted entrances on two different streets, patinated concrete floors, and 18 windows, three of them arched and nearly the full height of the 12-foot ceiling.

Yet this embarrassment of riches raised as many questions as it answered. “We were all struggling to understand the relationship between work presentation and life experience,” Messana says of the design process. (Weinstein himself drew more than 30 floor plans.) “Weinstein works with all these big companies—how do you capture that audience? Is this a showcase? Or do you want to be modest? How does that
dictate the carving up of all this real estate?”

INTERIOR DESIGN MAGAZINE

Double Vision

Merging home and office in a single space can offer the best of both worlds, to achieve the benefits – beautiful surroundings, no commute – balance is essential.  Everything must work together harmoniously.  Messana O”Rorke Architects was hired to accomplish this delicate feat for a client who runs his own
brand-imaging company, with eight employees, out of a 5,600-square –foot New York loft where he also lives.  The client chose the two-person firm after seeing its portfolio of residential, gallery, retail and office projects.  “I knew the look I wanted was a combination of all four of those”, he says.

 The “white box” had to be divided into home and office zones that functioned independently but could work together when necessary.  The list of considerations was long, the process emotional.  “The raw space itself was so beautiful – the idea of putting up a wall broke my heart,” says the client.  But walls did go up, along with the pocket doors of translucent plastic for the foyer.  An unusual 2 ¼ inches thick and 10 feet high, these luminous doors dominate the 300- foot entry, which elegantly divides the loft into two nearly equal sides. 
“It’s the sorbet course,” the client says, only half joking.  “It prepares your for what’s next.”  The culinary metaphor speaks to the role of the transition: a pause allowing one to distance oneself from the street below and to savor what is to come.

Even though budget constraints forced some decisions, Messana O”Rorke was in many instances able to turn drawbacks into win-win situations. 
“In every way we could, we maximized the existing conditions. We just flowed with all the variables,” says Brian Messana.  Ceilings were not dropped to cover exposed pipes – the idea was to let age and patina add character.  One of the biggest visual successes of the project is the original concrete floor with its variegated patterns.  It was simply sanded, cleaned, and sealed with a water-based urethane.  “If I’d had and extra $100,000, I would have been seduced into thinking I needed a new concrete floor, and I don’t think It would have had the impact this has,” says the owner.

Filled with light from a wall of east-facing arched windows, the living room also does duty as a reception area for visiting clients.  A long table that dominates one end of the room acts as a stage for an assemblage of the owner’s ceramics and quirky flea-market finds but can quickly be cleared to serve as a conference table.  The sofa, an original Florence Knoll from the 1950’s was bought by the client, a passionate collector of mid-century-furniture.

The challenge in the office area was to provide surfaces for layout, display, storage and computer workstations while maintaining a minimal look that functions
as a neutral backdrop for the different brand images created there.  The strongest visual component of the long office space, the 26 Florence Knoll credenzas that the client already owned, were not always part of the plan.  Initially, stainless-steel tables with flat files had been considered because the original, desk height Knoll credenzas were too short to be functional.  After much brainstorming, the seemingly impossible became viable.  The solution was to bring these very collectible pieces of furniture to a height of 36 inches by adding white laminate cubbies on top.  This created a set of work, presentation, and display surfaces.  And, says the client, “It also makes a great serving buffet for a party.”

Private living spaces such as bedroom and bath are tucked into a rear section of the loft, reached by a long corridor that can be sealed off with a sliding door.  When closed, it appears to be a wall, offering no hint of the inner sanctum beyond.  This is significant, as such simple visual tricks helped achieve a sense of seclusion.  Behind the door, the master suite is open in plan, which is consistent wit the rest of of the loft.  (One difference, however, is fenestration.  The architects gave the living room the benefit of the loft’s largest windows, the bedroom and bath, where less light is needed, have just one window each.)  In the bedroom, the low bed floats in the center of the space.  In the bathroom, the owner’s fantasy of waking each day in a hip hotel is fulfilled by a spa-worthy glass wall and rain shower.

 While the loft has dual functions, it is unified by a single clear vision.  The owner’s atypical approach to modernism hits the the right notes.  And when the sliding doors of the office, close, creating needed separation, it signals the end of the workday.  Let the evening begin. - Donna Paul 

A MODERNIST'S PASSION

 A Sag Harbor cottage gets an update – and a soul

 BY ANNETTE ROSE-SHAPIRO 

 Bob Weinstein and Eric Hensley spent six months living with plywood floors and walls that hadn’t yet been sheet-rocked in order to bond with their new Sag Harbor home.  They were attracted to the house- although it had no particular architectural interest – because of its Suffolk Street location.  Another pending purchase had fallen through when the pipes burst and the house was taken off the market.  Walking through the village one weekend, Weinstein and Hensley spotted their future home.  The lovely property with ist large specimen trees and private garden, situated on a quiet, low traffic side street and just a two minute walk to the main street, caught their eye.  Even though the house was in a state of mid-renovation, this was seen as more of a blessing than a hindrance.  “We were able to work with a clean slate,” says Weinstein.

 Although it wasn’t easy “camping out” in a house with few amenities, it helped the couple get a sense of the space.  Weinstein, the president and creative director for a Manhattan brand-imaging group, felt they needed to sit in the house and plan, getting a feel for the layout and seeing how the light played in the rooms.  Aside from the aesthetic considerations, they also felt that it was important that the house fit into the neighborhood and the community.  The owners also wanted to bring back the “village cottage” feel to the house, which had been eliminated by the previous owner.  But the most important consideration was renovating the space with an eye to the emotional attachment they hoped to form with their home in the years to come.

 Even though the renovation was done in two phases, the owners had a master plan for developing a creative blueprint that would allow them to work their ideas into the context of a true Sag Harbor village home.  The first phase which began shortly after the house was purchased 15 years ago, included adding dormers on the second floor, creating master bedroom suite with a bathroom and office, turning a breezeway into a dining room and rebuilding a decrepit fireplace, as well as extensive landscaping and a swimming pool.  This phase spoke to the functional aspects of the house- how to make the rooms more private and intimate for small-scale entertaining.

 The owners had taken on quite a challenging project for their first renovation.  How could they make their slick midcentury aesthetic work in a house surrounded by more traditional and historic Sag Harbor homes?

 The other half of the renovation was completed just four years later with a two-story glass-enclosed addition with a sitting room on the first level off the kitchen.  The light-filled master bedroom suite is on the floor above it, giving the sense that it’s floating amongst the trees.  The rest of the project included a major overhaul of the kitchen and bathroom, as well as front yard landscaping.

 During this phase, the owners were also treated to a most unusual recital.  The daughter of the original builder paid a surprise visit while work was being done on the house.  She was so moved by the changes that she spontaneously burst into song with her operatically trained voice.  She told them that she felt the soul that her father had built into the house had been restored, and she could feel the love that Weinstein and Hensley had for their home.

 Weinstein, a committed Modernist, has been collecting for over 20 years, and his Manhattan loft was filled with pieces purchased at flee markets, antiques shops and even yard sales.  He feels that the modern furnishings lend a certain lightness to the home that’s perfect for casual indoor/ outdoor living.  Regardless of the furnishing’ period or the provenance, the collection is a personal mix that seems to work well in any setting.  Weinstein adds that every piece in the house has a backstory, he knows where he found it and remembers how much he paid.

 Weinstein and Hensley are enchanted by their renovated home and its location.  They say they experience a special quality to village life in Sag Harbor. 
The owners felt a unique sense of accomplishment when the builder’s daughter recognized that they had indeed infused the house with a “soul” through
all their unique touches.

CARRIAGE TRADE

Written and Produced by Pamela Abrahams

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KEITH SCOTT MORTON

After a soup-to-nuts renovation of a 250-year-old home in sag harbor, decorator Robert Weinstein and partner Eric Hensley set their sights on the elegant carriage house out back their dog, decorator Bob Weinstein and his partner, Eric Hensley, a flight attendant, passed a mystical Sag Harbor property surrounded by a long white picket fence and framed by majestic trees. They were in awe of its beauty and grandeur and often mused about living in the grand Federal-style home with the amazing carriage house behind it.

When the owner, who was born in the house, died at the age of 101, Weinstein, president of Robert Weinstein Renovations and Interiors, purchased it, despite the overgrown grounds and the desperate need for an update. The pair first tackled the main house, which was built around 1750, but they couldn't wait to get started on the stately, mint-condition carriage house out back. With a three-bay horse stable, two large barn doors and a hayloft, the space was packed with old furniture and scraps of lumber. "It was astounding to me that in the center of Sag Harbor sat an unused, untouched building of this scale and beauty," says Weinstein.

 SESAME (click photo for larger view)

The process of renovating the main house lasted a year, during which Weinstein retreated to the carriage house to dream up plans for the space.
"It's not like a home where you know you must have certain rooms—a kitchen, dining room, living spaces, bathrooms," he says. "It's more like a playhouse
or a treehouse." He knew that no matter what the final project looked like, he wanted to preserve the history and character of the structure while reclaiming
as many materials as possible.

Weinstein devised a plan to turn the space into a combination pool house and design studio. He removed most of the upper hayloft, creating a
light-drenched, luxurious feel. "It's not about square footage," he says. "It's about the unexpected, the architectural aspect that intensifies by revealing high ceilings and old beams. When you walk in, you're surprised."

The shoddy, stained flooring was replaced with wide-plank pine that was painted white to contrast with the natural wood of the beams and supports. Wood from the upper loft floor now lives on as the guest room's walls. Old barn doors were replaced with French ones and used to form the shutters on the exterior of the stable area. "There is nothing like the patina of age to give a space character and warmth while imparting a sense of history," says Weinstein.

The pair introduced vintage and designer furniture from their previous home, which was just around the corner. A coffee table harkens to the bones of the house—it's a piece of the barn door topped with glass. The Richard Schultz side table and Danish chairs are some of Weinstein's favorite finds; a collector of mid-20th-century furniture, he believes no weekend is complete without a trip to Sage Street Antiques or tag sales.

In the kitchen, a hardy soapstone sink, an eBay score, complements a Silestone quartz countertop. The collection of vintage stools was amassed from local sources. And as Weinstein stood buying the antique French zinc-top table at Bloom, right in town, he spotted an enormous antique French cabinet arriving on a truck. "I knew the scale was right," he says. "It fit perfectly into the corner, and it provides storage and cubbies for pool towels." Penciled with notes about items and prices that were sold in its first home, a hardware store in France, it, too, has a storied past.

The small upper loft that remains is Weinstein's design studio, which he accesses via a handsome new stairway with treads made of wood from the torn-down loft floor. The loft's original ladder now displays collections in the bedroom.

Outside, rows of blue hydrangeas and zinc containers filled with lavender echo the tones of the bluestone patio that surrounds the pool. It's where Weinstein and Hensley have après-swim lunches. "The space is bright, carefree and very comfortable," says Weinstein. "We celebrate the good life in Sag Harbor with friends and our dog, and we think about how lucky we are to have this special place!"