Checking In: Are These Buildings Checking Out?

Architecture buffs, cultural preservationists and just plain folks who like to drive around the Hamptons and look at interesting houses all took in a deep breath a few weeks ago after reading that an application had been filed in Sagaponack to tear down the Philip Johnson-designed Farney House.

Everyone thinks of Philip Johnson for his New Canaan, Connecticut, “Glass House,” but perhaps his greatest achievement is his uncredited work as the lead project architect under his mentor Mies van der Rohe for New York’s Seagram Building. Later, he was hired under his own name to design The Four Seasons Restaurant on the landmark building’s ground floor. And so to underline his authorship of that establishment, he had lunch there many weekdays in The Grill Room, where his shiny bald head and oversize black specs were easily spotted.

The sting of the potential Farney House loss, a modernist strip that resembles “The Glass House,” was lessened for some by news that the replacement would be designed by Robert A.M. Stern. But for many East End lifers, the potential pulldown is just another symbol of luxury and sprawl gobbling up our sacred ground. Some have banded together to try to save the Farney House. And another group led by Sally Spanburgh, a Southampton local historian and architecture/design authority, is trying to preserve another Philip Johnson work—an addition commissioned by Henry Ford for his Gin Lane estate in Southampton in 1951.

While certainly not intending to hasten any demises—and with one hopeful eye on inspiring the opposite—this survey of structures and homes of the Hamptons spotlights a few sites that we hope don’t disappear from our landscape anytime soon.

Wavecrest Resort

170 Old Montauk Highway, Montauk

The adjective “iconic” is overused, but justly applied to this Old Montauk Highway signpost.

This glass “wheelhouse” is actually an octagon, and it serves as the office for the Wavecrest Resort. The complex now has 69 cooperative units, 65 of which can be rented out as hotel rooms, and the base of this building serves as a reception office, while the upstairs is a private co-op that has had the same private owner for more than 20 years.

Wavecrest was originally built and owned by Franklin and Lucille Jarmain, who lived in the octagon. Each Friday night, they invited select hotel guests for cocktails. Lucky guests rode a private elevator up to sing songs with Lucille Jarmain around Guy Lombardo’s piano, which had come from the Montauk Manor. The idea for the crescent-patterned “wave” roof came from Franklin Jarmain, whose doctor son Robert still owns a Wavecrest unit. “Dr J.”—his email handle—says, “The place is doing great.” But a recent visitor lamented the weedy entryway, the Snapple machine visible from the road, and a beautiful stone wall, owned by a neighbor, being consumed by kudzu.

Double Diamond House (aka Geller House)

615 Dune Road, Westhampton

In 2005, this experimental 1963 Westhampton home designed by Andrew Geller (known for his work on the interiors of Lever House and Windows on World) may just as easily have been swept out to sea as bulldozed. The house had always appeared to be precariously perched on the dunes. “Once, when my grandfather was at the house” says Mr. Geller’s grandson, filmmaker Jake Gorst, “the Coast Guard came ashore and asked if everything was all right.” At the time it was, but 40 years of erosion later, the house needed to be lifted and moved, and Jonathan Pearlroth, the son of the original owner, lacked the funds needed and applied to the Town of Southampton for a permit to demolish the structure.

Luckily, Mr. Gorst happened by. He was then beginning work on his 2012 documentary “Modern Tide: Midcentury Architecture on Long Island,” but also taking footage for a more personal project, a documentary, tentatively titled “Saving the Pearlroth House,” slated to air on PBS this fall. Mr. Gorst offered to step in as an advocate. Using Kickstarter, he first created a foundation to preserve his grandfather’s legacy. Working with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Mr. Gorst also hosted fundraising events to save the house. Last year the original structure was moved 40 feet farther from the ocean, with Mr. Gorst there to document the undertaking. He and Mr. Pearlroth together selected the New York City architecture firm COOKFOX to design a 3,500-square-foot addition. Construction is slated (perhaps optimistically, based on a visit to the property in early May) to be finished by July Fourth weekend. Mr. Pearlroth and Mr. Gorst said they are committed to allowing the public to view the Pearlroths’ newly restored home by appointment.

Sons of Gideon Lodge

209 Windmill Lane, Southampton

In describing the Sons of Gideon Lodge, the historic preservationist Sally Spanburgh clicked off this catalogue: “… lovely detail, like the louvered bell tower, the Tudor arched doors and windows with their diamond divided light pattern, the shingled skirt up to a common windowsill that runs consistently around the building’s perimeter, the brackets and the exposed rafter tails at the eaves.” The Sons of Gideon Lodge was originally a Bethel Presbyterian Church, with the first black congregation in Southampton.

Ms. Spanburgh’s 2010 research turned up a Southampton Village owner listing of Goldie Smith/Sons of Gideon Lodge. But since Goldie was born in 1868, something tells us she’s not going to hire contractors for a full renovation. Sons of Gideon is a branch of the secretive Freemasons. Conspiracy theorists like to speculate that they still have oodles of secret global wealth, so why hasn’t one of them stepped up to at least get a leaf blower in there so we can all take a look?

“Fisher’s Cottages”

Shepherd’s Neck, Montauk

While nightclubs and fashion boutiques are commonly blamed for ruining the hamlet of Montauk, there’s an equally historic neighborhood that deserves shielding from the fedora-wearing hipster invasion. In the winding hills of the Shepherd’s Neck area is a distinctive neighborhood of Tudor-style, tiny stucco homes. Many, including this writer, assumed “Fisher’s Cottages” meant that old Montauk Bonackers once lived there. Actually, the cottages were built in the 1920s by the outsized personality and famed developer of Miami Beach—Carl Fisher—for the workers building three planned resorts that Fisher hoped would transform the fishing community into a wealthy yachting resort.

“He wanted the hills to resemble an English countryside, thus the name,” explained Montauk Library archivist Robin Strong, “with sheep roaming the hills, etcetera” that guests could view from the porticoes of the Montauk Manor. The 1929 crash helped put an end to Carl Fisher’s master plan, but the cottages provide a window into a grandiose vision that would have dramatically changed “The End.”

Fading Contemporary

The Dunes, Amagansett

There was a period—1980s, anyone?—when it seemed that every other house on the waterfront was white, asymmetrical, flat-roofed, maybe whimsical, with an abstract metal sculpture or two in the front yard. Some were cube based, while others had harder-to-construct (and maintain) cylindrical frames. What they offered was open living floor plans, tons of light and a sense of modernity. But what they also often offered were leaky roofs and less than top-notch building materials, and, as often happens, what was once the height of cool woke up one morning to find itself dated—or worse, rotting.

Can anything be done?

“The leaks and cracking that these houses often suffer can absolutely be addressed,” explained Lawrence Citarelli, president of LIII Group, a luxury design and construction firm based in Westhampton Beach. His firm, for example, was hired by uber art dealer Larry Gagosian to update a modern house on Further Lane in East Hampton that was originally designed by Gwathmey Siegel. “But not by a patch job, that won’t address improper pitch or poorly designed drainage systems,” Mr. Citarelli explained. “The roof and sub-roof structures need to be completely replaced, using today’s engineering and materials,” he said. “But then you’re good to go.”