Hidden Treasure

A Manhattan couple’s secluded weekend house on Long Island is a serene, Scandinavian-style retreat

- Harriet Thorpe

With its flat roofs, overhanging eaves and cascading horizontality, this house on Long Island, by Manhattan-based architect Andrew Franz, is modernist in spirit while borrowing its modesty from Scandinavian cabins and New England-style panelling to create something both refined and easygoing.

Designed for a hard-working couple as a weekend antidote to their Tribeca loft (also designed by Franz), this city escape needed to be a house that ‘felt like it had been there for a long time and didn’t draw attention to itself ’. It’s located on Shelter Island, which is ‘less tony and more modest than the Hamptons, more New England in spirit and more low key,’ says Franz, who ‘camouflaged’ the three-bedroom, four-bathroom house into its dramatic plot overlooking the bay. ‘It’s 3,300 sq ft, but it doesn’t look at all foreboding.’