At the end of August 2019, British carmaker Aston Martin Lagonda revealed its ambitious “Aston Martin Automotive Galleries and Lairs” initiative, a service for designing customized garages (and homes) for Aston Martin customers looking to show off their high-end automobiles.
Now the auto manufacturer has revealed the first fruits of its labor, in collaboration with the New York City-based S3 Architecture: A faceted, sloping residential compound on a sprawling 55-acre landscape in Rhinebeck, New York, called Sylvan Rock.
True to its name, Sylvan Rock takes advantage of and emulates Upstate New York’s dramatic glacial rock formations. The two-story private residence is topped with a sharply sloping metal roof intended to reference mountain peaks that dramatically dips to cover the semi-subterranean garage and glass-walled “car gallery.” The 8,430-square-foot home itself will be wrapped in blackened-cedar cladding and expansive glass, a palette repeated across the three “pods” (basically cabins) nearby for guests.
Sited on a small bluff, the house was elevated and designed to give 360-degree views of the surrounding landscape, including the Catskill Mountains. Other perks include an underground wine cellar, lounge, and executive office, and high-end finished throughout.
Even accessing Sylvan Rock is car-centric, as S3 and Aston Martin are touting the home’s 2,000-foot-long driveway.
The collaboration is also (somewhat paradoxically, given the heavy car emphasis) sustainability-minded. Aside from the “wellness pavilion,” complete with spa, Aston Martin noted that an on-site garden, accessible through a separate service entrance, is anticipated to produce enough food to make the home self-sufficient. A treehouse on the property, with the same sharply gabled roof as the main house and pods, will allow on-site camping and elevated views of the surrounding wilderness.
“When designing, we always let the land speak first and respond to it,” said S3 Architecture partner Christopher Dierig in a press release. “The roofline mimics the jagged edges of the rock ledge reaching down into the earth, as if the home is born of and launching from the landscape. The resulting design blends our modernist aesthetic with the privacy and context of the rural location to create a unique luxury experience.”
Construction on Sylvan Rock is expected to begin sometime in early 2021. It seems that Aston Martin and S3 weren’t designing for an individual client, as the home has already been listed by Corcoran Country Living for $7.7 million.
