Architect Lee Skolnick Finds Epiphanies In Sag Harbor's 'Church'

In the years since the Sag Harbor United Methodist congregation deconsecrated and sold 48 Madison Street in 2008, several visions for the former church have been floated, but it’s only now that a renovation is near completion and that welcoming the community back into the building is on the horizon.

North Haven artists Eric Fischl and April Gornik are the husband and wife team who decided to purchase the building to turn it into “The Church,” a secular space for artists-in-residence to live and to present their work to the public. And it’s architect Lee Skolnick — who they have long had a working relationship with — who was tasked with re-creating the space while preserving the original 19th century structure.

When Ms. Gornik and Mr. Fischl decided to buy the former church, Mr. Skolnick recalled from his Sag Harbor Village home during a recent interview, he jumped at the chance to work on it with them.

“Eric and April and I have worked together for 35 years on various projects,” he said. “I’ve done a number of homes and studios for them, and other projects together.”

Mr. Skolnick added that he also welcomed the opportunity to do a project in the heart of the village with so much potential impact on the community.

Historians believe the building was originally constructed nearby on High Street in 1832 before being moved to its current location in 1864.

Working on such an old structure and not always knowing what to expect has presented opportunities and inspiration.

“Construction is a very mysterious and magical process,” Mr. Skolnick observed. “As you construct a space and as you finish it off, it changes in unanticipated ways. So for instance, when we opened up the balcony, or the mezzanine, on one side, and we able to, for the first time, experience the space from the floor of the sanctuary to the underside of the roof, which is about 35 feet, it was revelatory to just feel that volume of space.”

Now that the white oak floors of the mezzanine are installed and the underside is painted white, the mezzanine has “started to float” in the large volume of space, he said.

“My theory is,” he shared, “that if you make the right decisions in the beginning, these epiphanies happen, revelations happen, that you didn’t actually intend but they are positive. So things get better even though you couldn’t have anticipated all of what finally results. And that’s very much the case here.”

He noted that the building changed hands several times after the Methodist congregation moved out.

It was first purchased to become a home, then a textile designer wanted it to be her workshop and showroom, but she landed in East Hampton instead. The next owner planned to turn it into a luxury six-bedroom home, but abandoned plans for his own family to use it then tried in 2015 to sell it for $23.5 million with plans for the high-end renovation and addition of an infinity pool as part of the deal.

No one bit, and the idea of making a bundle on the property was abandoned, Mr. Skolnick said. The price came down, with the plans for a luxury home renovation removed from the deal, and that’s when Ms. Gornik and Mr. Fischl came in with a new vision, purchasing 48 Madison Street in 2018.

“Some of the work was already done, so the church was pretty much gutted by the time we stepped in,” Mr. Skolnick said. “So we didn’t really have to do much demolition at all because it was stripped back to the frame. And that was what inspired us for the design, because the frame itself has all this history and integrity and it’s quite beautiful.”

Upon observing the frame, they immediately decided to keep it exposed, he recalled.

He likened it to an archaeological approach: “We highlight and celebrate the craftsmanship from the mid-19th century when it was built, and then anything we added in was clearly a modern juxtaposition, so it would be very clear what’s old and what’s new.”

It is the same approach used toward ancient buildings in ruins in Europe, he pointed out. Instead of demolishing the old, it’s kept intact, and the additions look explicitly new to respect the integrity of the original artifact.

Mr. Skolnick said he likes to use a phrase coined by German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe: “They say ‘God is in the details,’ so it’s kind of ironic that we’re in this church and the details become very important, because the spaces themselves are really quite simple. So every piece of new material, every method of attachment, every color choice, every hardware choice, every lighting choice, becomes super important. Because that’s all there is. The rest of it is pure space.”

The details and the exposed wood interplay with the natural light, of which The Church gets plenty.

“The north and south walls each have five 20-foot high windows, which span vertically from the sanctuary floor level all the way up to the top of the mezzanine floor level,” Mr. Skolnick said. “So those are magnificent, and when I designed the new window configuration, I made sure that the windows were as delicate as possible. So the mullions and muntins that divide the glass are very kind of light and spidery, and they are painted a kind of gunmetal gray.”

The gray muntins give the windows texture, but are less obtrusive than white so they disappear, he explained. “All glass appears dark during the day. The [gray] muntins kind of fade away.”

The new window design is intended to make the building airy and filled with light.

“No pun intended, but to be perfectly transparent, we had a number of meetings with the architectural review board in Sag Harbor, and I must say they really warmed up to the idea that we were doing a very careful and kind of sensitive treatment to an old building, but not attempting to do a literal reconstruction of it,” Mr. Skolnick said.

In the new windows are spaces for 20 portraits of artists from different disciplines with ties to Sag Harbor’s history. Created by Mr. Fischl in the grisaille monochromatic technique, the gray portraits are printed on a special film that makes them visible from both the inside and outside, like a modern interpretation of stained glass, Mr. Skolnick said. “It’s very referential to the heritage of the arts in Sag Harbor, which is appropriate for a community arts center.”

Among the artists and writers featured are Herman Melville, James Salter, Susan Rothenberg and Spalding Gray, and the portraits can be easily removed to swap in others over the years.

Somewhere outside, a legend will be placed for passersby to learn about the people in each of the portraits.

“It adds a little bit of history to the experience,” Mr. Skolnick said.

One window, the front-door transom, is from the original church, but it had been absent from the building for some time.

“We looked far and wide with the help of the former minister and the help of some of the parishioners because we had heard that the original transom still existed,” Mr. Skolnick said. “And finally it was located and brought to the site, and we said, ‘Well, we’re got to reinstall it.’”

He said the interior of The Church is suffused with light, which changes all day long with the sun’s movement. “It’s really kind of breathtaking,” he went on to say. “In fact, the south-facing windows let in so much light and heat that we’ve designed shading devices so they can be covered up.”

The translucent shades allow for a view out the window but reduce glare during the day.

At night, from outside, the building looks like a “warm glowing lantern,” Mr. Skolnick said. “The first time we turned on the lights this winter, we were just astounded at this incredible warm glow. All the wood, of course, is a natural warm color.”

The entry consists of temporary doors right now. Replicas of the original front doors are being manufactured and will be installed in the next few weeks.

Old pews were also recovered that, like the transom, Mr. Skolnick hopes to incorporate in The Church as well.

He also aimed to make The Church flexible, so if one part of the planned program becomes more of a priority than the others, it will not be difficult to adapt.

The residence for artists is an addition to the building, attached to the back, with a distinct look to make it obvious that it is not part of the original structure. Mr. Skolnick said it is similar to a four-bedroom house, with four units that share an open living area/kitchen/dining area.

The sanctuary on the main floor is now completely open and suited for lectures, exhibitions, musical events and film screenings, he said.

The mezzanine has been partially opened up and will house the library and be available for writers, poets and musicians.

The lower level, which is above grade, has an exposed natural stone foundation and is designated for flexible artists’ studios for painters, sculptors, photographers and makers of various sorts, Mr. Skolnick said.

Builder Moises Cerdas is bringing the structure’s redesign to fruition, and landscape architect Ed Hollander designed the grounds. Both Mr. Hollander and Mr. Skolnick offered their time pro bono — Mr. Skolnick’s staff is contributing time at a discounted rate — and Mr. Hollander’s contacts have given plants, shrubs and landscape material at cost, or complimentary.

“Proportionately, I have spent a lot more time on this project than I might on others, because it’s near to my heart,” Mr. Skolnick said. “It’s Eric and April, it’s for Sag Harbor, it’s right down the street from where I live, and so this is a way that I can contribute to the life of this village which I’ve loved for over 40 years.”

Mr. Skolnick is the principal of Manhattan-based firm Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership, which designs residential and institutional buildings around the world, from the Children’s Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton, to the Luxembourg Science Center in Differdange, Luxembourg, and the Children’s Science Museum in Istanbul, Turkey, to name a few. He’s also done work for East Hampton’s LongHouse Reserve, of which he is the first vice president of the board. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and the AIA Long Island Chapter has presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

A monograph of his firm’s work, “Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership: Public/Private,” will be released in late summer.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has delayed the project and the opening, Mr. Skolnick anticipates The Church could be in full swing by the fall and outdoor events could be held even sooner.