6/20/13 A 135-year-old East End barn turned modernized home - Hamptons Cottages & Gardens - June 2013 - Hamptons

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A 135-year-old East End barn turnedmodernized homeFor a couple seeking an airy escape from the urban crush, a Southhampton barngets a chic, modern makeover.

by Michael Lassell

photographs by Costas Picadas

FARM FRESH A SIX-FOOT ADDITION AT THE WEST END OF THIS FORMER HORSE BARN PROVIDED SPACE FOR A NEW PRIMARY ENTRANCE. THEMAHOGANY BILLIARD BENCH IN THE LIGHT-FILLED FOYER IS FROM ANN-MORRIS ANTIQUES.

PHYLLIS AND ELI FOOTER ARE AVOWED MODERNISTS, so a historic gambrel-roofed barn

was not the likeliest choice for their East End home. But this is not just an ordinary barn. And the

Footers are not just ordinary homeowners.

Southampton’s storied Hildreth family built the barn for their horses 135 years ago, and it had

already been turned into 5,400 square feet of living space by the time the Footers first saw it, in

the early 1990s. “I didn’t want to go inside,” Phyllis Footer recalls of the fateful day. The cedar

shingles were mildewed, she says, and the postmodern embellishments of the 1984 conversion

were not her cup of contemporary tea. The interior, however, won her over, particularly the light-

drenched living area, with its soaring exposed-beam ceiling.

HAMPTONS COTTAGES & GARDENS / JUNE 2013 / A 135-YEAR-OLD EAST END BARN TURNED MODERNIZED HOME

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6/20/13 A 135-year-old East End barn turned modernized home - Hamptons Cottages & Gardens - June 2013 - Hamptons

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AIRY LAIRTHE ARMLESS SOFAS AND CHAISE IN THE LIVING ROOM ARE CUSTOM DESIGNS BY KYLE WELLS; THE LINEN TWILL FABRIC IS FROMROGERS & GOFFIGON. THE FLOORS ARE BLEACHED AND STAINED MAPLE.

So the Footers, who at the time worked for Manhattan-based fashion footwear manufacturers

Schwartz & Benjamin, bought the barn and moved in. Phyllis then spent a year looking for just

the

right interior designer before choosing Kyle Wells, whose work was primarily traditional in scope.

“She told me she didn’t hire me because of my portfolio,” says Wells, who had done a renovation

proposal that appealed to his new client. Footer was playing her hunch that she and Wells would

make a compatible creative team.

Their strategy was to respect the vernacular of the exterior and keep things modern indoors. Work

proceeded slowly, in three major stages, over more than a dozen years. During the first phase,

three guest rooms on the ground floor were reconfigured; the second phase called for gutting the

rooms above them to create a baronial master suite. For the last phase, Hamptons-based architect

Stephen Lesser joined the team to devise an addition for the west end of the house. The new

façade not only removed such “improvements” as a circular glass hot-tub enclosure, but it

provided a new and dramatic main entrance.

CURVACEOUS BEAUTYTHE SECOND-FLOOR GALLERY (LEFT) ARCS GRACEFULLY ABOVE THE OPEN LIVING ROOM. (RIGHT, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) KYLEWELLS DESIGNED THE MASTER SUITE’S LIMESTONE BOLECTION MANTEL. A GUEST ROOM WAS CONVERTED FROM FORMER HORSE STALLS.TERRA-COTTA TILES LINE THE FLOOR OF THE KITCHEN, WHICH FEATURES A TRAULSEN REFRIGERATOR, THERMADOR OVENS, ANDVINTAGE MIMI LONDON BAR STOOLS. A SORI YANAGI BUTTERFLY STOOL SITS NEXT TO A KALLISTA TUB IN THE MASTER BATH.

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Wells filled the house’s interiors with classic mid-century furniture, adding contemporary Italian

pieces and antiques, mostly from local sources. He stirred his own custom designs into the mix,

too, like a 12-foot-long bronze dining table with a black granite top.

Not that the work is ever done, as there may yet be a phase four. Although the Footers have now

retired and moved from Manhattan to Boca Raton, they still summer in the Hamptons, where

Phyllis has a “someday maybe” plan to turn the gallery into a game zone (it already has a vintage

Blatt pool table). And she has been wanting to remodel the kitchen since day one.

VERDANT VIEWTACONIC DECK CHAIRS FROM MUNDER-SKILES COMPLEMENT THE SLATE POOL SURROUND. THE GROUNDS WERE DESIGNED BY ELIZABETHLEAR OF LEAR & MAHONEY LANDSCAPE ASSOCIATES.

“We do a lot of cooking here,” says Footer, who likes to fill her home with family, including her

grown sons and grandchildren. While “it’s a lot of house,” she says, it has its privacies. “Eli and I

have our own sanctuary, and the hedges are high. We don’t know there’s another world out

there.”

Wells, now a cherished family friend, also designed the Footers’ “even more modern” Florida

residence. “I consider myself very lucky to have such a wonderful home in the Hamptons,” says

Footer, “and I think we’ve made a modernist out of Kyle.”

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