Northport Historic Modern Masterpiece on Long Island
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Address: private
City: Northport
State: New York
Neighborhood: Fort Salonga
Beds: 3
Baths: 2
Floors: 2
Year Built: 1938
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Square Feet: 2833
Lot Size: 1.66 Acres
Annual Property Tax: 15,997
Status: Active
mls: 1858265
Price: $950,000
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Full Description:
This rare example of 1930’s modernism is just one of two International Style homes from this period surviving on Long Island as originally designed. The design of this house is by William P. Bogie, a financial magazine editor with a serious interest in architecture, who was influenced directly by his close friend, pioneering, master International Style architect A. Lawrence Kocher, also editor of Architectural Record. The Bogie house, built of concrete, stucco, glass and steel, is in mint condition, maintained devotedly over 68 years by the Bogie family.
In 1934, Mr. Kocher, with his partner Albert Frey, had built in Fort Salonga the first European-style weekend house in the United States, referred to as “one of the first modern houses in America.” It drew greatly from the ideas of Le Corbusier working in France, as well as from the Bauhaus in Germany. The Bogie house incorporates features of the Kocher house, where the Bogies spent many a weekend while clearing their nearby land and would in 1938 build their own International Style house.
Like the Kocher weekend house, which was a cube standing on steel columns over a carport, with spiral staircase rising to the living quarters and to a deck above that, the Bogie house has a spiral staircase rising from a covered terrace to a large roof deck over part of the downstairs. The frame redwood-stained upstairs of the Bogie house similarly was built over an extended carport, and has that International Style appearance of floating in space while blending with the woodland setting.
When people enter the private 1.66-acre wooded and landscaped Bogie property, they are astounded to learn that this strikingly modern house was built as early as l938. Children in the neighborhood refer to its giant oaks, soaring hemlock, two-storey rhododendrons and laurel, azalea, dogwood, holly and flowering wild viburnum as a “secret garden.” Landscapers and visitors alike marvel at the mature landscape and comment on its privacy and serenity. The woods on the Bogie property lies adjacent to the woods of Sunken Meadow State Park and is part of the rural wooded surroundings of Fort Salonga, on Long Island Sound, only 45 miles, or one hour, from New York City.
The house seen today was built in three stages, all in the style of the 1930’s, and was recently redecorated and upgraded, preserving period interior features such as original ceiling lights and door knobs, while introducing beautiful contemporary color. Because it was designed by the owners, it is highly functional, reflecting their interests and the way they chose to live.
The original 1938 core house, on one floor, contains a large dining/sitting room with wood-burning fireplace, a framed wall of glass looking out onto the terrace with spiral staircase, Bauhaus-style metal-framed casement windows, and “Norwegian pearl” blue and black granite counters. This family-style-room communicates easily with the kitchen, which has a pass-through, custom-designed cabinetry, metal-framed casement window, and top-of-the line appliances. The core house also contains a downstairs bedroom suite, with distinctive ribbon window and other casement windows, full bath and dressing room.
In 1946, the Bogies, with the assistance of International Style architect John Hancock Callender, of Jackson and Callender, New York City, added the present large living room, study and entry hall. The living room is surrounded on three sides with huge expanses of glass that draw in the out-of-doors. It has a wood-burning fireplace with Heatilater, shoulder-high bookcases, built-in window seat on one side for storage and on the other, built-in counters for storage and display of magazines. The size and views of this light-filled room provide a sense of instant refreshment. The adjoining study, with equally large windows at right angles and floor-to-ceiling bookcases, has an ancestor of today’s home entertainment centers – a movie projection cabinet within the bookcase and between the study and living room. When the Bogies showed home movies, the study became the projection booth and the living room the theater. The Bogies loved photography and they loved invention.
The steel spiral staircase, steel columns of the covered terrace and steel beams in the basement came from a well-known modern house of 1932, the Starrett-Lehigh house, a house of advanced design worked on by John Callender. The deck over the living room and study is a direct descendant of the Kocher and Le Corbusier decks and provides beautiful views of the landscape under a canopy of giant trees.
In 1954, the upstairs was built over an extension of the original carport, adding to the horizontal planes and modular clean, crisp lines that were typical of the Bauhaus and early International Style. The upstairs contains two very large, airy bedrooms, a large ceramic tiled bathroom and a center hall. Closets extend the entire width of the bedrooms, and the master bedroom contains a window seat at one end for storage.
The bedrooms have one of the most notable features and rare inventions of the house – namely, its electrically operated windows. Three six-foot windows and one eleven-foot window, suspended from screens, lower and rise electrically with the flick of a wall switch. Each window is set in motion by a hidden motor. When the glass lowers into the wall, bringing down a screen in its place, there is a feeling of being in the tree tops. The windows were the invention in l950 of Larry Vita, contractor for the two additions in the house, and exist in only a few homes built at that time.
A side terrace was added with this addition, as well as a utility/laundry/mud room off the kitchen and a tool closet off the carport. In later years, a one-car garage was built within the three-car carport.
Since l994, infrastructure has been upgraded to include a new hot air furnace for the lower floor, new boiler serving the baseboard heating of the upstairs, separate central air-conditioning systems for the upstairs and downstairs, a comprehensive security system; cable for TV or computer in almost every room; in-ground lawn sprinkler system, new asphalt driveway, and pagoda lighting along the driveway. All roofs have been covered with a leakproof surface of liquid-applied rubber embedded in a polyester acrylic liner. There are two basements, one smaller one housing most utilities and a large one for storage and workshop.
Home Features:
Electrically operated windows, spiral staircase rising to roof deck, “Norwegian pearl” granite counters, two wood-burning fireplaces, three terraces and roof deck, hardwood floor in downstairs bedroom and dressing room and wall-to-wall carpeting throughout most of the house, custom cabinetry in kitchen, huge closets upstairs and downstairs, window seats for storage, and bookcases currently holding 3,000 books. The interior is ideal for the display of a modern or eclectic mix of furnishings as well as art and book collections.
Community Features:
Rural environment of historic Fort Salonga has immediate access to beaches, boating, golf and parks. Northport provides lively Norman Rockwell atmosphere with one of the most beautiful harbors on Long Island, attractive shops, band concerts, year-round Broadway theater, fine art and fine dining. Excellent public and private schools. Proximity to varied North Shore cultural centers. One hour from New York City by car or train.
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