The home of architect Cary Tamarkin and family, Shelter Island, NY. As new houses go, this one is pretty much perfect.  Mimi Read: You’re a New York architect and developer who works in the classic modernist tradition. Why do you like simple, calm design? Cary Tamarkin: I think it’s where happiness comes from. Nothing gives me a headache quicker than ‘over-architected’ architecture that screams for attention. My work is about exposed structure, open space, light—and the feeling that it’s not trying too hard, even though I try really hard to get that. Every piece of this house is thought out, pared back, rethought, pared back again, thought through again. The house has a Zen-like spirit. Were you influenced by Japanese design? The post-and-beam structure is typical of traditional Japanese architecture. I appreciate their sense of scale and detail and their respect for natural materials, but this house refers back to the work of Marcel Breuer, Elliot Noyes, and Paul Rudolph. The whole house is aglow with wood. It’s mostly old-growth cypress. This is a beach house, and the idea was to design something cabin-like, a simple, modest wooden box that would feel at home on Shelter Island. You say that as though it were just a humble little house. Is that how you see it? Was it easy to build? Relatively inexpensive? No, no, and no. It’s a better story to call it a cabin, but in reality it’s a little jewel box because I detailed the hell out of it. My contractor was a former boatbuilder with a beautiful spirit of craftsmanship. He even put stainless-steel sailboat cranks on the clerestory windows. I love the action of cranking them open. You’re involved. It’s like the difference between a sailboat and a motorboat. I notice that all the transom windows are open. That’s the first thing I do when I get here, for cross-ventilation. There’s an almost constant breeze from the water, so we don’t need air-conditioning. Photos via Remodelista

The home of architect Cary Tamarkin and family, Shelter Island, NY. As new houses go, this one is pretty much perfect. 

Mimi Read: You’re a New York architect and developer who works in the classic modernist tradition. Why do you like simple, calm design?

Cary Tamarkin: I think it’s where happiness comes from. Nothing gives me a headache quicker than ‘over-architected’ architecture that screams for attention. My work is about exposed structure, open space, light—and the feeling that it’s not trying too hard, even though I try really hard to get that. Every piece of this house is thought out, pared back, rethought, pared back again, thought through again.

The house has a Zen-like spirit. Were you influenced by Japanese design?

The post-and-beam structure is typical of traditional Japanese architecture. I appreciate their sense of scale and detail and their respect for natural materials, but this house refers back to the work of Marcel Breuer, Elliot Noyes, and Paul Rudolph.

The whole house is aglow with wood.

It’s mostly old-growth cypress. This is a beach house, and the idea was to design something cabin-like, a simple, modest wooden box that would feel at home on Shelter Island.

You say that as though it were just a humble little house. Is that how you see it? Was it easy to build? Relatively inexpensive?

No, no, and no. It’s a better story to call it a cabin, but in reality it’s a little jewel box because I detailed the hell out of it. My contractor was a former boatbuilder with a beautiful spirit of craftsmanship. He even put stainless-steel sailboat cranks on the clerestory windows. I love the action of cranking them open. You’re involved. It’s like the difference between a sailboat and a motorboat.

I notice that all the transom windows are open.

That’s the first thing I do when I get here, for cross-ventilation. There’s an almost constant breeze from the water, so we don’t need air-conditioning.

Photos via Remodelista

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