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comment Little Ram Island House
William Pedersen's Little Ram Island House sets sail.
When William Pedersen, FAIA, cofounder and principal design partner of Kohn Pedersen Fox, bought a 3-acre piece of waterfront land on Shelter Island, New York, in 1981, “Things were a little different on the island,” he wryly recalls. In the intervening years, the island has grown more expensive to live on and crowded with visitors during the summer, but Pedersen has created a residence that, nested in the earth and angled to create uninterrupted views of Long Island Sound, is protected from those changes.
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It took Pedersen two decades to develop his design for some very demanding clients: The architect himself and his family. As demonstrated by a shelf of miniature models that Pedersen keeps along with his sailing trophies (more about this later), he considered myriad options and worked on some 30 different iterations before determining the final one. “This project formed my weekend entertainment for almost 20 years. Now we have a wonderful new dog, a boxer, to keep me occupied,” Pedersen jokes. For two years, Pedersen considered a spiral-shaped house with a south-facing interior garden—an orientation that would have shielded the house from the northeast winds and let it bask in the southern sun, but neglected the stunning view of the sound’s open waters to the north.
The dwelling, as it stands now, not only capitalizes on that vista, but also preserves two neighboring houses’ views. Pedersen was particularly concerned that he not mar one of the other houses’ axis to a lighthouse across the sound—after all, Pedersen built that residence, the Bedell Mills House, in 1991. Thus his own home’s slim, angular shape is a thoughtful example of how to build without impeding upon the landscape. Its low-slung form defers to the island’s natural slope, seeming to rise up where the earth is depressed and taper off where it comes up. This design also affords low heat gain during summer and better solar penetration from the low winter sun, making the house energy-efficient year-round. Large exposures on the building’s northern side admit daylight and natural ventilation, so air-conditioning is rarely used.
But back to those sailing trophies. Another major influence on the design of the house was the local nautical culture and Pedersen’s passion for sailing (he moors his boat in Coecles Harbor, just south of the property). In section, the 4,500-square-foot residence resembles a very large yacht with a stone fireplace rising like a boat’s mast. This romantic gesture is echoed in the surrounding landscaping: Native species grow on the lawn and undulate in the wind-drawn waves. The course of the driveway winding up to the house forces a car to tack in from the road like a boat would across the water.
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