Dwell 2015 11

dwellings
S
Sandy Chilewich and her husband,
Joe Sultan, had always been beachgoers,
heading out every summer to
their ramshackle house on Fire
Island—a perfect place for a family
with two young sons. But with the
boys now grown, and that community overgrown,
they were restless and ready for something different.
The couple also wanted a place they could go yearround.
They had long dreamed of building their own
house and decided to search for land in Columbia
County, in upstate New York. They weren’t looking for
magnificent vistas. “We wanted a place that felt contained,”
says Chilewich, creative director of the
groundbreaking, eponymously named company that
produces woven-vinyl tablemats and flooring. She
recalls finding their land on the first day of looking:
The real estate agent kept showing them what they
didn’t want—mountaintops with majestic views—but
finally took them to a simple wooded plot, saying, “I
shouldn’t really show you this place; it’s really boring.”
They bought it on the spot.
Sultan, a licensed architect who had spent years
doing SRO (single-room occupancy) units all around
New York for mentally ill adults, stopped being a fulltime
architect in 2000, when he joined Chilewich’s
growing textiles firm. He transitioned from his architectural
practice in 2004 to serve as full-time CEO for
what’s now called Chilewich|Sultan.
The couple’s country retreat would be the first
house Sultan had ever built—a thoroughly appealing
prospect. “It took a year to start construction. My first
idea was to do a cabin,” he says, “but Sandy said no.”
Instead, they opted to build small—the house is just
800 square feet—because that was what they could
afford without having to scrimp on materials or quality.
And since the property encompasses 10 acres, they
knew there was definitely room to grow. “We wanted
what we did to be what we really wanted,” explains
Chilewich. As it was, Sultan added another five feet
to the plan to accommodate a fireplace, then a bit more
for a screened-in porch. He oriented the house along
a north-south axis and placed the windows to take
advantage of late-morning and afternoon sun in the
south-facing living room, and afternoon sun from
the west in the dining room and kitchen. The screenedin
porch is located on the house’s north side—placed
there to be out of the sun and cooler in the summertime.
The house was also built with sustainability in mind.
Sultan inserted as much insulation as he possibly
could—upstate winters are cold—with blown insulation
between roof joists under the porch. The windows
are fitted with double-glazed Low-E glass, set into steel
frames—a material that he has always loved. The
kitchen walls are covered in reclaimed wood, water
comes from a well on the property, and the hot-water
radiant heating system is powered by propane and a
small box boiler.
Situated near the south-facing
facade (above left), the main
living space is furnished with
a Michel sectional from B&B
Italia, Feel Good side chairs by
Flexform, and a suspended
Ergofocus fireplace from
Focus. In the dining area
(opposite) are a Gamma table
by Cappellini, Eames molded
plastic chairs, and a Flotation
pendant by Ingo Maurer. The
floor coverings are designed by
Chilewich, and an assortment
of art pieces decorates a wallmounted,
stained maple shelf
in the hallway (above). Though
it posed structural difficulties,
the elongated, wall-notched
skylight provides a magical
moment, says Sultan: “We can
go to bed at night and see the
moon through it.”
84 NOVEMBER 2015 DWELL