Great Escape

Just outside of Chatham, New York, atop a serene, rural hill, two connected pavilions—all restrained concrete, glass, and gray siding—form the weekend retreat of Manhattan architect David Ziskind

 and his wife, Linda, a marketing consultant. If every architect dreams of designing a home of his

own, this desire must have been particularly poignant for David, whose practice focuses on the design of correctional facilities. (“The buildings are humane, confinement the puni

shment,” David assures.) While the simple materials and Le Corbusier-influenced modernism of the home may echo his professional aesthetic, the expansive, light- and art-filled home is anything but a prison. In fact, the home was built for escapism: the Ziskinds sought an antidote to the confinement of Manhattan, with peace and room to entertain. Prior to meeting Linda, David spent every August in Amagansett, New York, but after they were married in 1999, crowds and traffic sent them searching for a new spot. They wanted a small town with, as David says with a laugh, “more than a general store and a gas station.” And land, but not too much—maybe ten acres—with a Colonial house that David could restore and reinterpret.

The property they ended up with had neither. Though it wasn’t what they were asking for, nor was it on the market, to the Ziskinds’ broker, this twenty-six acre parcel sounded like what they wanted. When they visited the site one October day, it was so cold that the couple didn’t even leave their car, but they were smitten with the views to the Catskills, the privacy, and the proximity to Chatham’s Main Street. By December 1999, the land was theirs.

The challenge of what to do with a naked piece of farmland was particularly vexing to David. “One of the most difficult things was that this was a clean piece of property,” he says. “There was nothing to relate to.” But when inspiration struck, it came from the land’s original use as part of a dairy farm. “I realized every property around here has a barn on it,” David adds.

The house’s siting was a happy accident. The couple planned to begin with a small structure that would eventually serve as a studio or a guest house and picked a spot some distance away from where they thought their main home would someday stand. “The first house was supposed to be rustic and inexpensive,” Linda recalls. “But we ended up liking the view from this side better. Until you live in a house, you don’t necessarily know where you want to look.”

Indeed, the first building was basic: a simple, open kitchen with inexpensive IKEA cabinets, living space beneath a soaring ceiling, a loft office above, and a master bedroom and bath tucked in the back. The building, clad in local white-pine siding, connects to the garage via a pergola, now lush with wisteria. The aesthetic suggests a farm, with a minimalist’s touch.

The “barn” was completed in 2001, and the Ziskinds inhabited it for several years, always planning to build their “real” home someday. The longer they stayed in the bright, informal retreat, however, the more they enjoyed both the space and the view. “At some point,” says Linda with a laugh, “I said, ‘It’s too bad we didn’t build this in a way that we could expand it. I like this house.’”

So began the second design phase—one that took, according to Linda, three or four years. “[David] kept drawing various things. We had two stories that connected through the loft.” She casts a sly sideways look at her husband as she continues, “We had two- to three-million-dollar additions that would accommodate an elevator for when we got infirm.” (Neither Ziskind seems likely to be “infirm” anywhere in the near future.) Colleagues chimed in on the project, too; partner Donald Currie helped David decide not to add a new living room. “I said, ‘Why are you doing that? You’re never going to use it,’” Currie remembers. He reminded David that the open kitchen and living area in the old house already more than met their needs.

By June 2007, David had found a solution. Rather than enlarge the existing house, he, with the help of local builder William Stratton, would create a space that linked the new structure to the old in a visual and functional transition. In the new portion of the house, he explains, “The shapes all relate back to a farm, but it’s a modern interpretation. The front building is a version of a silo, and the barrel vault [behind] is a hayloft.”

The contemporary aesthetic of the first structure continues in the new portion. The soaring living room from the original house was retained, with minor changes: a wood stove was removed as it was now unnecessary, thanks to new, super-efficient radiant heating; several large windows were replaced with higher-quality, better-insulated versions; and a large flat-screen TV was installed. David expanded his palette a bit, too, using materials in new ways, as with his striking use of concrete: polished on the floors and raw for exterior walls on the southern and eastern sides of the new building. Inset with square and rectangular windows, these reference Le Corbusier’s 1955 chapel at Ronchamp, France.

But some ideas that informed the first go-around were rethought. Take the front door. The entry suggests a silo, but one with an imposing, formal door set into it. In the original home, the Ziskinds avoided a formal entry altogether, in keeping with the casual spirit of the dwelling, but it didn’t work—guests were confused about where to enter. The Ziskinds wanted the “new” house to do a better job of guiding visitors.

Landscape architect Jamie Purinton also provided part of the solution. She added lines of lilacs between the parking pad and the house, creating a physical barrier to the old entrance. But David took it one step farther, commissioning a custom door from Marvin Windows through Herrington’s, which features deep-mahogany stain and forty-eight square panes of thick, beveled glass. Regarding the door that is now both welcoming and dignified, he says simply, “I wanted it to say, ‘This is it.’”

Once inside, visitors find a minimalist mudroom designed for function and elegance. Careful detailing is everywhere: a built-in bench, lit from underneath, for taking off boots; a closet for skis and coats; and a pocket door that closes off the foyer, keeping cold air out on frigid winter days.

That pocket door opens into a large dining area, characterized by austere furnishings and a soaring, barrel-vaulted ceiling with enormous windows that showcase the astonishing view of the Catskills. Simple, natural materials like maple and bamboo paneling and built-in fixtures keep the outdoors firmly in focus. Inside, classic modern furnishings, a baby grand piano (the one on which David learned to play as a child), and a variety of artwork provide compelling clues to the Ziskinds’ passions.

Linda has been an active supporter of many Columbia County arts organizations, including the Chatham Film Club, the Spencertown Academy, and Austerlitz’s Millay Colony for the Arts and Edna St. Vincent Millay Society; in honor of this, one wall features a group of small works on paper purchased at the Millay Colony’s annual fundraising auction.

On the far wall of the dining room hang several Le Corbusier prints, acquired more than forty years ago. Builder Currie played a role here, as well: he was the one who spotted the prints in the window of Manhattan’s old Fifth Avenue Rizzoli Bookstore, and he couldn’t resist going inside to inquire. The price was low enough that a group of young architects banded together to make the purchase; David ended up with five of them.

To the right of the dining room is the space that links the new building with the old. It holds a large pantry, a favorite room and a clue to how people live successfully in minimalist spaces. “I get distressed at chaos and I like to see order, because it makes me feel calm,” Linda explains. “When I can see everything laid out, I know what my tools are. I know what I have to work with.” (This also suits David, who prefers to keep kitchen counters free of clutter.) The space also holds the command center for the whole-house music system, installed—to rave reviews from the homeowners—by Tune Street in Great Barrington, Mass. The kitchen remains in the old building, connected to the pantry, though upgraded with custom cabinets by Schiffini Mobili Cucine, an island whose workspace looks out to the living room, and new appliances, including a six-burner Viking Professional Series cooktop, a Thermador convection and standard oven, a Bosch dishwasher, and a forty-eight-inch Liebherr refrigerator with a patented BioFresh compartment.

As for David, the master bedroom is the space that gives him the greatest joy. And it’s no wonder. Just down a hall from the dining room, the suite features the same soaring space and views. Simple furnishings include a built-in platform bed and nightstands (designed by the Ziskinds and built by contractor Stratton’s finish carpenter) and a classic Le Corbusier chaise. David is proud of choices that derive from his institutional work, such as the three-and-a-half-by-eight-foot custom door hung on hospital hinges that closes off the room. When open, it recesses into its own compartment, flush with the wall.

The room is part of a suite, including Linda’s other favorite room, the walk-in closet, fitted with built-in dresser drawers and floor-to-ceiling shelves for purses and shoes. The adjoining master bath features a large soaking tub and a rain shower. The entire section is separated from the bedroom with a frosted glass pocket door, so that when the Ziskinds entertain outdoors, they can maintain their privacy while allowing the beautiful bedroom space to remain open to view.

A happy coexistence of privacy and space defines the whole house and seems to influence the way the Ziskinds move through it. They have their own spaces to which to retreat: David to his basement gym and den, lit by those angular, Le Corbusier-style windows, and Linda to the sanctuary of her office, with its floor-to-ceiling bookshelves complete with a library ladder and a surprising Louis XV-style “bureau plat” writing desk featuring ornate bronze mounts. “What’s cool about having very spare, very modern design is putting in that unexpected element,” Linda explains.

The Ziskinds relish the unexpected moments their home provides—the breathtaking view revealed upon entry, the light flowing from windows that cuts into the concrete walls at night, the art and furnishings that ground the soaring spaces. Most of all, it seems, Linda delights in seeing the realization of her husband’s lifelong goal.

“When I met him, he’d redesigned the inside of his apartment, but he’d never designed a home,” Linda says. “All that pent-up desire, all those ideas … it was just exploding out of him, this lifelong desire to design his own home.”

In bucolic Chatham, it seems, dreams really do come true. [SEPTEMBER 2010]

Paige Smith Orloff is a former film and television producer who lives in Spencertown, N.Y. She blogs regularly at thesisterproject.com.

THE GOODS

Bill Stratton Building Company
630 Highland Rd.
Old Chatham, N.Y.
518.392.4200

Donald Currie
STV Group Inc.
212.777.4400

Herrington’s
312 White Hill Lane
Hillsdale, N.Y.
518.325.3131

Jamie Purinton Landscape Design
Copake, N.Y.
518.329.2337