New York-based SO – IL has shared images and details of its recently completed North Fork House, a subdued and tranquil—yet never close to sterile—weekend retreat in East Marion, New York, tucked into a 20-acre hillside site overlooking Long Island Sound. The project, finished last year, was designed in collaboration with Shenton Architects with Patrick Cullina serving as landscape designer.
The cruciform residence, wrapped entirely by a continuous porch that’s sheltered by generous roof overhangs, is comprised of four distinct rectangular volumes with expansive floor-to-ceiling glass windows and steeply pitched, zinc-clad gabled roofs. This organization of space allows for each distinct wing—separated between living and sleeping quarters—to take on its own relationship with the surprisingly varied topography of the property. “The house seeks to sample the lively terrain, bringing together different qualities of light, landscape, and vista to define interior spaces,” explained the design team.
The wings containing the bedrooms, for example, are positioned within a more wooded, secluded part of the property with the living spaces arranged above “a soft clearing that slopes down to the water.” A dining area and library have been carved out where two of the living-centered quadrants meet; beyond this section of the home is a spacious, pie-shaped outdoor entertaining area that that extends from a porch area tucked beneath a curving, cantilevered roof that offers a deviation from the largely angular forms that comprise the residence. At the center of the home is a modest roof terrace that’s “discretely burrowed between the four gables” that “sneaks vistas bordered by the gables’ diagonal lines.”
Nestled within a “collage of disparate landscapes,” North Fork House offers a sense of uniformity in its design and organization of spaces yet, above all else, celebrates the varying forms of natural beauty that makes the property so unique.
