Jobs Lane House is located in an old neighborhood of historic Bridgehampton, NY. We were commissioned to undertake a renovation to the existing structures. But this proved impossible, and a new house design approach was adopted. 

Period houses in old neighborhoods across the country stand as the record of our architectural heritage. But when they are demolished and replaced with new houses, the historical continuity is broken, and that record is lost. Restoration often seems like the right answer, but modest period homes present a unique challenge, as they were rarely built to a standard worthy of restoration. Furthermore, new building codes and client requirements present an ever‐greater obstacle to a renovation as well. So, with our Jobs Lane House we adopted a different design strategy. We pursued an interpretation.

Interpretation seemed an opportunistic strategy because interpretations are new works that refer back to an original. We had a great original to start with: a classic 1930’s bungalow, with a 1980s studio/barn addition. And, we had already noted how each architectural component expressed its own character in massing, roof pitch and window design. So we vowed to preserve that idea in the new house, even if we could not preserve the original materials. We dubbed these structures, respectively, Bungalow and Barn.

As our design interpretation progressed we found that it not only freed us from the literal materials of the original, but it also allowed us to add a new architectural language to the design. And this inspired the flat‐roofed, glass‐walled element that you now see connecting the Bungalow and Barn in the completed project. This component we dubbed the Bridge and with its addition our design took on an architectural element that connects the project to the 21st century.