Not that it matters when you have loads of money, but Ariel Ashe and Reinaldo Leandro of the New York City architecture and design firm Ashe + Leandro, nor their client, had ever built a house…
“There’s something very exciting about trusting people early in their career. Whatever Ariel and Reinaldo may have lacked in experience, they certainly made up for in the energy and the love they poured into the project.”
The architects came up with a trio of structures connected by glass-walled corridors and a fully finished basement on Martha’s Vineyard for this Manhattan art collector. Now, what appears to be three individual buildings, is technically one big one. Building codes on the Vineyard prohibit guest houses, so it is “broken up” into three spaces.
A collector of works by some of today’s best contemporary artists, like Thomas Houseago, Rashid Johnson, Nate Lowman, and Sterling Ruby, the unnamed client asked for lot of white walls and even “slot” in the living room floor for moving artworks that are too big to go from the basement via the stairs.
“We did have to lose some of the windows we wanted. He has a great collection and wanted to give it real presence. Because he’s friendly with several of these artists and has them up to stay, we felt like we were designing as much for them and their work.”
Years ago I visited a friend on the Vineyard and I deemed it one of my favorite places on earth. To me it combines upstate beautiful New York forests with the pristine East Coast beaches of the Hamptons. The house itself is a combination of a Caribbean retreat, my upstate barn and the ideal at-home gallery. It’s all sort of too TOO perfect, but if you were offering, I’d take it.
(Photos, Björn Wallander; via AD)
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