Water Mill Contemporary

For a New York-based family seeking a year-round residence in Water Mill's wooded landscape, Citizen Artist worked in close collaboration with Jason Thomas Architects and Araiys Design Landscape Architecture. Rather than assert itself as an object, the house unfolds horizontally across its site, its contemporary form grounded by proportion, material restraint, and a quietly calibrated relationship to its surroundings, allowing light, shadow, and seasonal change to function as primary compositional elements. Angled planes, faceted volumes, and precise intersections shape the interior architecture and furnishings alike, reflecting a formal vocabulary drawn directly from the wooded setting, the clients' sensibility, and the enduring principles of modernism. Materials are deployed with equal precision. Custom millwork and stonework, designed by Citizen Artist and fabricated in Italy, function architecturally rather than decoratively, emphasizing continuity, weight, and tactility. The palette references colors found in nature just before or just after their peak: muted greens, softened earth tones, deepened neutrals, and ripened cerise. Two standout bathrooms distill this approach: the primary bath features bookmatched marble whose veining mirrors the branching trees beyond the glass, while the lower-level gym bathroom wraps every surface in Pietra di Lumm limestone, creating an immersive sanctuary of diffuse, even light. At the center of the home, a sculptural stair, conceived as a folded plane akin to origami, captures and redirects light throughout the day, functioning as interior topography as much as circulation. While the architecture is decidedly contemporary, Citizen Artist introduced warmth and history through carefully selected vintage pieces, most notably exceptionally restored works by Bossa Furniture from Brazil, including a Cubo sofa by Jorge Zalszupin and Concha chairs by Carlo Hauner and Martin Eisler for Forma. In the main living space, bespoke sofas produced by Jouffre sit in dialogue with a monumental KGBL coffee table, the arrangement grounded by a silk and wool rug by Atelier Février. The clients described the finished house as "poetic"—a characterization that speaks to a shared choice of restraint over spectacle, and to what Citizen Artist considers the highest purpose of the practice: creating environments that honor the lives lived within them.