Cornelia Channing

Charles Gwathmey’s Looming Legacy

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In a 1991 article for The New York Times, the critic Paul Goldberger wrote, “Architecture is not free-verse. It’s like a sonnet”  — meaning that it demands creativity within a strict set of limits. In poetry, those limits are linguistic: grammar, meter, and line. In architecture they are physical: gravity, proportion, and space.

Walking by Charles Gwathmey’s famous residence and studio on Bluff Road in Amagansett, this poetic analogy rings particularly true. The 1,200-square-foot house — a cedar-clad composition of cubes, triangles and cylinders — has a sparse, almost lyrical, elegance.

Gwathmey designed it and the adjacent studio for his parents, without a license, at the green age of 27. It was the first of many houses he would build on the South Fork, marking the beginning of a career that would help to define American Modernist architecture.

Born to a Southern family, Charles “Charlie” Gwathmey spent his childhood in Charlotte, North Carolina. His parents were prominent artists who eventually moved to New York, where they taught at Cooper Union and joined a tight-knit community of bohemian academics. In 1967, they retired and bought a small property on Bluff Road, hiring Charlie, fresh out of the Yale School of Architecture, to build them a house.

With a one-acre site and a strict budget of $35,000, the young Gwathmey was forced to be resourceful. He used a minimum of materials and respected the margins of the modest space. Composed of simple discrete forms — cylinders, cubes, and triangles — and weathered to a pale gray, the house appears almost to have been carved out of stone. Inside, the space is vertically organized and extremely efficient, accomodating a work room, living and dining space, a kitchen, two guest rooms, and a master bedroom. If all architecture is a sonnet, then this home is something even more minimal and restrained. Like a haiku.

The 480-square-foot studio, completed a year later, sits about 100 feet away at a 45 degree angle to the house, creating an external harmony on the property. It is clear that Gwathmey thought of them as sculptures; a loyalist to the school of high Modernism, he took pains to ensure that his designs not appear “organic” or “integrated with nature” in any way.

The flat and unadorned lawn on which the buildings sit helps to highlight their sculptural quality. From a distance, the structures appear to be facing one another on a plane, each distinct and self-contained. Visually, they evoke chess pieces, a Japanese rock garden, stanzas on a page.

Gwathmey received much praise for the house. It was lauded in particular for its unique shape, and for how creatively he worked within his budget. Architectural Digest called the design groundbreaking. The New York Times called it “perfectly poised.”

His parents liked it, too. Robert and Rosalie, who lived in the Bluff Road house until their deaths, were known for throwing extravagant dinner parties. (Though Rosalie, who was a fabulous cook, supposedly bemoaned the small, cramped kitchen). “They would entertain all the time,” recalls Helen Rattray, a friend. “For such a little house, it certainly accommodated some big crowds.” Rattray can recall being a guest at one such Gwathmey party on a cold winter night: “With those big windows and sharp angles, I expected it to feel cold and exposed, but it was actually rather cozy.”

Launching his career with a landmark, Gwathmey had the rare experience of becoming an icon in his own time. When he finally sat for his professional licensing exam, he was surprised to find his own work referenced on the test. Legend has it that the question was: “Which of these is the organic house?” Among the possible answers were Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater” and Gwathmey’s “Residence and Studio.” Proud to be an example of design which stood out from its environment, Gwathmey knew that Fallingwater was the answer they were looking for. Somewhat derisively, he ticked the box next to Wright’s name. He passed.

Shortly after, Gwathmey partnered with Robert Siegel to form Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, an architectural firm that gained international prestige for both residential and public works. Together, the firm was commissioned to design the Science Library of the New York Public Library, the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., and the renovation of the Guggenheim Museum. The firm built high-profile houses all over the country, including blue-chip projects for celebrities including Jerry Seinfeld, David Geffen, Faye Dunaway, and Oprah Winfrey.

Nick Martin, an architect in Sagaponack who began his career as an intern at Gwathmey Siegel, says, “Everything was an experiment with Charlie. He had a unique combination of ingenuity and perfectionism — it was an energy that was really inspiring to be around. He ran the office like a finely tuned instrument. Everyone had a role and a place and there was a sense of order and harmony.”

In all, Gwathmey built more than ten houses on the East End before his death in 2009. The last one, a large estate on Georgica Pond for Steven Spielberg, was completed in 1985. Following Rosalie’s death in 2001, Gwathmey used the house on Bluff Road as as weekend residence (though he slightly upgraded his original design, replacing the concrete floors with marble). While many of his houses are still in the hands of their original owners, every few years, it seems, a Gwathmey will come on the market, making headlines and raising fears about whose hands it will fall into.

Fast-forward to 2016. The New York City architecture studio Worrell Yeung gets a call about a Gwathmey in the dunes in Amagansett. “It was a unique request,” Max Worrell remembers. “The clients weren’t looking to remodel, but to restore the home.” The house in question, a four-bedroom, raised residence with ocean views, was designed by Gwathmey in 1978 for the Haupt family. From a distance, the house reads as a blank white rectangle, but walk inside and the subtlety of the design — with dramatic interior cut-outs and an irregular polygonal pool — becomes evident.

“We are big fans of Gwathmey - particularly his early stuff,” Worrel said. (Max Worrell and Jejon Yeung met at Yale Architecture School, Gwathmey’s alma mater, where they studied Gwathmey’s work). “So we were very excited when we got the call about the house. Especially given that it was in its original condition, totally untouched.” The house, which had been maintained by the original owner, was in good shape but had seen some wear and tear. The foundation, built on sand, had settled and the doors and windows needed to be replaced. “Our intention, at first, was really to do as little as possible.”

The previous owners provided Worrell Yeung with Gwathmey’s original drawings, which served as a guide for their work. The project carefully implemented upgrades and subtle modifications that improved the functionality of the space while preserving the integrity of the design. The renovation included a full replacement of the building envelope — the roof, cedar siding, doors and windows, skylights, and pool deck — all carefully detailed to “make it look like we hadn’t done anything.”

The interior required some rethinking. The clients — echoing Rosalie’s complaints from decades earlier — preferred an open kitchen layout to Gwathmey’s enclosed design, which required removing a ½ wall that divided the kitchen from the living room space. This, Worrell notes, was probably the most significant change they made to the house and it was undertaken with the utmost care. “At every stage of the process we were asking ourselves: What would Gwathmey do?”

The results are striking. The house, which is raised slightly off the sand and tucked into a grove of white pines, looks at once brand new and utterly retro. Entering through the unassuming sliding glass front door, you find curved walls and interior geometric shapes that recall Le Corbusier. Abundant natural light and wood tones soften the open, sparsely decorated space, making it feel comfortable. With south facing floor-to-ceiling windows and a large rear deck, the house gives the sense that it is unfolding as you move through it, inviting you in. In the living room, a 45 degree wall cut-out provides an attractive focal point and functions as an interior window, offering a partial glimpse into the main living room, which then dramatically unveils itself as you ascend the staircase.

Max Worrell describes painstakingly matching materials to Gwathmey’s original designs, from the white pine trim to the kitchen counter laminate (which was replaced with a high quality look-alike). Such details reflect an uncommon level of care. One is reminded of art historians who restore old paintings with a scalpel and brush. And, in a way, the two are not so different. The house is an homage to Gwathmey’s vision. Like a good translation, it updates the language while leaving the poetry intact.

Caption for opening photograph: Exterior of Gwathmey Residence on Bluff Road, East Hampton, NY. Photo by Norman McGrath.