Lesson Plans

Steven Gambrel brings clarity and coherence to a Bridgehampton home that has been an unwieldy amalgam of farmhouse and school building since the 1840s

- Peter Terzian

In the 1840s, a farmhouse was erected in Bridgehampton, New York, a quiet agricultural community on the South Fork of Long Island. The builders relocated an old one-room school house from the main street of the village and turned it into a wing of the house, a common practice in the 19th century— why waste perfectly good wood? The house continued to grow over the decades, with additions in the 1870s and 1900s, until it became something of an architectural jumble, with an ill-suited Italianate cornice and porch columns.

Still, it was a lovable jumble. Five years ago, a couple with three young daughters stumbled across a listing for the house on 1st dibs. The Manhattan residents already owned a weekend house in neighboring Sagaponack. “We’d always been enamored with the idea of finding an idyllic farmhouse,” says the wife. “But we didn’t plan on moving. My husband said, ‘Over my dead body are we buying another house.’ Then we drove to see it the next day, and within 24 hours, we had put in an offer.”