Fire Island Vacation Home

A summertime ban on cars and trucks makes Fire Island, N.Y., an unusually tranquil weekend haven. Visitors to the barrier island, which sits off the southern coast of Long Island, get to bypass exhaust fumes and loud engine noises while they enjoy walking and biking everywhere. But there’s just one problem: How do you build a house on an island with no motor vehicles? How do you move building materials and bulky equipment from one place to another? With no subs living on the island, how do you transport them to the jobsite every day?

General contractor Bill Santangelo spends much of his time figuring out the answers to these questions. His skill and 20 years of experience in building on Fire Island led Washington, D.C.-based Rich Walker and Frank DeCrosta to choose him as the contractor for their new weekend home there. “Some of the more beautiful homes on the island, to my mind, have been built by Bill,” Walker says. For Studio27 Architecture, the D.C. firm that designed the house, the challenge lay in both a tight time frame and their physical distance from the building site. Prime building season on the island runs from Labor Day to Memorial Day, and the clients approached them in May. So principal Todd Ray and project architect Bethan Llewellyn had only a summer to produce a completed design. And since traveling to inspect construction every week would have been impractical, their drawings had to be very specific and easy to follow. “We knew we weren’t going to be there a lot,” says Ray. “The highly detailed drawings really saved us.”

Like the Walker/DeCrosta residence, 95 percent of Santangelo’s projects are located in The Pines, a quiet Fire Island enclave. Visitors reach the town by taking a 25-minute ferry from Sayville, Long Island, where Santangelo and his family live. Rather than having to depend on the ferry, he owns a 38-foot steel crew boat that his employees and subs use to transport themselves to and from their jobsites. Santangelo himself zips back and forth across the bay on a 26-foot fiberglass fishing boat, as he often comes and goes at different times than the crew. “It’s easier and uses less fuel,” he says. And the third watercraft in his mini-fleet is a 20-by-40-foot crane barge that he uses to transport building materials, heavy equipment, and construction waste. Owning the boats increases his overhead, but the logistical help they provide makes them well worth the extra cost.

Once everything arrives on the island, the focus turns to bringing it to the site. Right across the street from the freight dock at the ferry station is a pine-shaded strip of publicly owned land that a handful of contractors employ as a storage area. There Santangelo keeps a trailer filled with construction supplies and tools. He also stores several electric carts that he uses to navigate the island’s circulation system of raised boardwalks. The boardwalks take the place of standard streets and sidewalks; Ray compares them to Venetian canals. They’re charming but rickety in places, so Santangelo and his crew are careful not to place too much weight on them. Due to corrosion from the salt air, the carts have to be replaced every couple of years. “In this climate, everything goes,” he says.

The area’s harsh climate and environmental conditions also helped dictate the building’s design. To comply with flooding regulations and insurance requirements, the house is raised 2 to 3 feet off the ground on wooden pilings driven deep into the sandy soil. All exterior fasteners and bolts are dipped in galvanized metal to resist rusting. The exterior nails are stainless steel. And in order to withstand 120-mile-per-hour winds, the home’s wooden frame is reinforced with extra plywood and steel bracing.

Project Credits: Builder: Crellory Property Management, Sayville, N.Y.; Architect: Studio27 Architecture, Washington, D.C.; Lighting designer: Illuminations, Washington, D.C.; Living space: 2,266 square feet; Site: .3 acre; Construction cost: Withheld; Photographer: Judy Davis/Hoachlander Davis Photography (except where noted).