A 'line in the sand': Hamptons house battle poses question of what should be saved

For four decades “Bliss House” has stood, mostly hidden between the road and the beach, on pristine oceanfront property in Southampton Village as renowned architect Norman Jaffe’s first local design.

Homeowner Orest Bliss agreed in 1978, as a condition of the town granting building approvals, to a covenant requiring landscaping to largely shield the angular residence from view.

At the time, some Southampton officials considered Jaffe’s modernist design “radical," with one village planning board member arguing the pointed roof could impale seagulls.

Fast-forward to 2023 and the house’s architectural legacy rests at the center of a legal battle over whether it can be demolished as part of Bliss’ plan to sell the property at 88 Meadow Lane.

While once deemed too radical, Southampton officials now have tried to anoint the controversial home as too historic to knock down. The litigation has raised questions about what’s worth preserving in an area where the loss of any home can pave the way for the next Hamptons mega-mansion.

In early 2022, Bliss, 87, filed a lawsuit known as an Article 78 petition against the Village of Southampton Board of Architectural Review & Historic Preservation after it denied a request for a certificate of appropriateness that would have paved the way for demolition — a necessary process in a historic district.

The board cited the significance of Jaffe’s East End contributions in reaching its decision, saying his work was "of particular local importance to the Village of Southampton and to the Historic District.”

East Hampton attorney Brian Matthews, who represents the village board, didn't return a call for comment. The case returns to Suffolk County State Supreme Court on Jan. 30.

Bliss' Southampton attorney, John Bennett, said Tuesday he didn't believe there should be concerns about an even bigger house being built in the home's place and said it's a small group of people pushing for the preservation.

"If this was a turn-of-the-last century, shingle-style house, which a lot of them were designed by these great New York City architects, I'd get it," he said.

In court documents, Bliss argued the home never was listed as contributing to the historic district and isn't architecturally significant or worthy of a landmark designation.

The home underwent a significant renovation in 2000 under plans from a different architect and at least two other nearby Jaffe-designed homes have been demolished, according to Bliss’ argument.

Jaffe, of Bridgehampton, died in 1993 after apparently drowning during a morning ocean swim.

 In 1986, Bliss sought approval from the village planning board for the landscape-related covenant to be removed. The board declined. However, the planning board agreed after Bliss sought input from the architectural review board in 1987, according to court documents. 

In August 2021, emails and letters in support of preserving “Bliss House” flooded into the architectural review board.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Goldberger, a former architecture critic who wrote “The Houses of the Hamptons,” urged the board to deny the demolition.  He wrote houses such as “Bliss House” are a “key part of our architectural heritage.” 

Alastair Gordon, an author, critic and cultural historian, wrote a defense of “Bliss House” in September 2021 at the architectural review board's request.

Gordon told Newsday that "Bliss House" is one of the only homes in the village showcasing this design period and noted the trend of knocking down smaller houses and replacing them with mansions.

“The fact that the village had put their foot down and drew the metaphoric line in the sand is kind of a big deal,” Gordon said. “… Maybe there’s this architectural legacy that should be preserved, or is everything going to be a 40,000-square-foot mansion?"