Bauhaus-style home in Amagansett lists for $4.995M

In 1996, years before contemporary architecture become ubiquitous in the Hamptons, architect John Fondrisi transformed a small cottage overlooking the ocean in Amagansett into an ode to modern design.

Fondrisi, who studied at Pratt Institute and Columbia and built a career designing Manhattan loft spaces, was inspired by Bauhaus design. He listed the four-bedroom, 4½-bathroom home for sale last year, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus movement — the Bauhaus art school opened in Weimar, Germany, in 1919.

The term Bauhaus literally translates to “construction house” and has come to mean a combination of contemporary design, fine art and arts and crafts.

Fondrisi’s home, listed at $4.995 million, is one of a few on the East End that adheres to the spirit of the movement.

“I was inspired to design the house because of the location,” above the ocean, says Fondrisi, who also designed a modern pavilion at the 1964-65 New York World's Fair.

In transforming the home, Fondrisi kept the traditional, wood-shingled exterior of the cottage to “complement the integrity of the landscape,” says his son, John Fondrisi Jr., bringing the outside in by installing walls of glass and outfitting the eat-in kitchen with industrial stainless steel countertops.

The vaulted ceiling above the living room is outfitted with skylights and exposed steel beams. In the upstairs master bathroom are twin Philippe Stark Duravit sinks, from the well-known French designer that Fondrisi once apprenticed under. The floors throughout are made with sustainable maple from Canada.

The final touch — a heated gunite pool — was added to the .48-acre property last summer.

Roxane Mosleh of Saunders & Associates, who is co-listing the property with Alyette Mosleh and Bobby Ginsberg of Saunders, says Fondrisi’s design was forward thinking.

“When you look at the new construction, that’s what people doing now, the traditional style with a modern interior,” says Mosleh, who is also a formally trained interior designer and construction project consultant, overseeing her own Bridgehampton-based firm, Roxane Mosleh & Associates.

The home is down the street from another modern gem, designed by architect Charles Gwathmey for himself, which recently went into contract after being listed for $3.895 million.

Mosleh says Fondrisi’s home features larger rooms and more open space than the Gwathmey structure, and is designed with glass and steel, rather than the cedar that some of the midcentury modern architects were known for.

The ideal buyer for Fondrisi’s home, Mosleh says, would be a “modern connoisseur” looking for a prime oceanfront escape, where you can see and hear the ocean from much of the property, including a second-floor sun deck.

“This is a house that required somebody who sees the value in modern architecture,” Mosleh says, “someone who really appreciates how it was built.”