A local doctor's Long Beach home was recently featured in New York Magazine for its "modernist" design, which includes an airplane-hangar door that overlooks the beach.
The home, designed by architect West Chin, was originally "a run-down clapboard cottage," when the owner approached Chin.
"Most people think of a modern house with a flat roof, but we sloped it in the direction of the ocean so that the roofline fits in with the rest of the street," Chin told New York Magazine. "You don't realize the size or the design of the house until you get right up to it."
Chin, who was selected by New York Magazine as one of the top 100 architects and decorators in the city while with FTF Design Studio in 2002, knocked down the entire existing structure and used all available 6,000 square feet to create what the magazine described as a "modern design with the traditional Cape Cod–style surroundings."
Taking full advantage of the waterfront, West designed a living area that opened to the outdoors via a 26-foot garage-door-like wall. Instead of resting on a flat concrete foundation, the house sits on 100 piles, inserted into cores drilled into the ground. As a result, the living space feels as if it were floating over the ocean. Weeks after last summer's move-in, that structural decision paid off functionally, too: The house didn’t even flinch during Hurricane Irene.
The Long Beach oasis also features a pool in case it's too cold for a dip in the Atlantic.
