She and her husband bought the existing house on the property for its one-block proximity to their house of worship. As observant Jews, they don’t drive on the Sabbath, which runs from dusk on Friday to dusk on Saturday, and this location places them within easy walking distance of their synagogue.
They enlisted a friend, architect Salo Levinas, to design a remodel to the two-story brick residence, but so many changes were in order that they eventually decided to demolish and build from scratch. Local builder Rosenthal Homes had constructed the couple’s previous house, with positive results. Wisely, they opted for the same contractor this time around.
Once the project team fell into place, Levinas started designing a house that would fit both the family and the site. No one involved with the project wanted it to appear too big for the land or the neighborhood, so he concentrated on breaking down its massing. “We tried to dismember the house so [it would] have different volumes,” he says. The building’s longest side runs roughly parallel to the street, and he pulled each of its ends forward to create two side wings with a front courtyard in between them. One wing holds a home office for the husband, while the other encompasses a three-car garage on the ground level and bedrooms for the college-age sons and high school-age daughter upstairs.
Levinas and project architect Antonio Vintro placed the garage entry around the side of the house to avoid having its doors appear on the front elevation. “It’s a little friendlier that way,” Levinas says. A silvery fieldstone from Lake George, N.Y., covers the base of both wings, anchoring the building to its site. Gray-painted fiber-cement board wraps the upper floors with an additional texture and color.
Flagstone paves the courtyard, which is sheltered by a mahogany marine plywood-lined roof overhang. The owners use this outdoor room throughout the week, but particularly on Saturdays, when other neighborhood residents who are also observing the Sabbath can walk over and sit down for a chat. A low stone wall close to the street provides a bit of separation, as do a pair of Japanese maples in the front yard. But the courtyard purposely welcomes visitors, and the glass wall behind it adds to the sense of transparency and openness.
