The Peace Plan

For the designer Carol Egan, a glass house becomes the perfect container for a flourishing inner life.

- Paola Singer

Some spaces dazzle with their opulence. Others dazzle with their simplicity, eliciting a longed-for sense of quietude or a reconnection to some of the more essential facets of life. The latter was the case for designer Carol Egan when she first saw the Amagansett, New York, property that would become her home. "I had a complete reaction to the building," she says of the minimalist structure, a 1,000-square-foot rectangle with glass walls. "And when I walked into the garden, it was a done deal."

Although simple in execution, the barely there construction was the result of deep contemplation. Originally designed in 1960 by the late architect and professor Richard Bender, the building was a prototype for the Amenity project, a utopian community of modestly priced homes set on 20 acres of woodlands near the beach. Bender took up residence here with his family for many years, mingling with other notable East Enders of the midcentury, people like Costantino Nivola and Saul Steinberg.