Oceanfront Montauk Residence in California by Pentagram Architects

This beautiful oceanfront residence is sited on a pair of adjacent lots in Montauk, New York designed by Pentagram Architects. The montauk residence were designed to capture large private outdoor space on the Atlantic. The main house is a low slung single story composed of an open (steel and glass) wing and an embracing (brick and wood) one. Only the writing studio and outdoor fireplaces top the single story height.

The ‘guest house’, by contrast, is nearly entirely airborne, barely touching the ground and creating a series of covered spaces and processional gateways to the main house. The guest house is, as we thought of it, the second floor of the main house, dislocated to the entry side of the site where it can participate in defining the large landscaped courtyard 75 feet above the ocean. Each house has its own identity, yet they share a vocabulary of materials, forms and intentions.

The main house is composed of a pair of opposing ‘L’ shaped wings: one of steel and glass (’his’ space: a loft on the ocean) and one of brick and wood (’her’ space: a warm, enclosing set of private rooms). The materials—stone, terrazzo flooring, glazed brick walls, teak, stainless steel and terracotta—are the robust stuff suitable for both interiors and exteriors. The material palette binds the interior and exterior into a set of intimately connected spaces, erasing the boundary between inside and out.

The guest house is modeled on a motel with access to all rooms off a continuous balcony facing the courtyard. The louvered (entry) side of the compound preserves the ocean views while concealing the neighbors ‘new shingle style’ house immediately next door. Interiors of white linoleum, beach-ball colored wood walls and exposed concrete keep the sense of solidity without the luxuriousness of the main house materials. The partly shaded pool (in deference to the easily sunburnt husband) and the raised cube of the hot tub offer the ocean views without permanently dominating the center of the composition.

The realization of such a remarkably transparent and open house, one that literally opens to the outside with enormous sliding glass walls, is quite a technical feat in an environment as harsh as the northern Atlantic shore. The radiant heated floors, geothermal wells, highly engineered glass and doors, along with fine construction tolerances contribute to the efficiency and comfort these houses offer in all seasons.

Together the houses form a porous outdoor room, open to the ocean and defined by layers of buildings and plantings. It is, however, the omnipresent sound of the ocean that most permeates the spaces and binds them to their site.

Montauk Residence New York