win a statewide architecture prize<\/a> in 1982.<\/p>\nA Jersey Shore native, Mr. Wilson had \u201cfloated down\u201d to L.B.I. in the 1970s with a design sensibility shaped by pioneers like Frank Lloyd Wright (his \u201cguiding light\u201d) and Hamptons modernist Norman Jaffe. When Gym Wilson Architects put up its first shingle in 1978, he was at the dawn of a new era for architecture on L.B.I.<\/p>\n
As the 1980s construction boom hit, there were still only two architecture firms on the island: Mr. Wilson\u2019s and a rival office led by another local, Oram Tonge. A decade later, their former interns would take the baton. Mr. Tonge\u2019s firm begot Studio Tagland, responsible for madcap designs like the Chicken Bucket. Mr. Wilson\u2019s early hires, Michael Ryan and Mr. Midouhas, became L.B.I.\u2019s pre-eminent modernists, racking up architectural awards.<\/p>\n
They soon found themselves building on top of their own work. In the 1990s, Mr. Ryan was hired to expand Mr. Wilson\u2019s prizewinning Bleachers House, and designed an expansive round room addition \u2014 only to be hired again a few years later to design an entirely new house on the very same site. The new owners, willing to give up conveniences like a garage for their architect\u2019s vision, wound up with a bright red box that hovers 11 feet above the sand.<\/p>\n
Built in 2001, the award-winning home, which appears to float over the dunes, looks like nothing else on the island. But it\u2019s now shadowed by an enormous new shingle-style compound next door. The two houses offer competing visions for the future of L.B.I.<\/p>\n
And the writing seems to be on the wall: The red house just sold, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuying or building a Mike Ryan house is like buying a sculpture,\u201d said Joy Luedtke, an L.B.I. broker who sold the house in 2024 for $6.75 million.<\/p>\n
Increasingly, though, her clients have other priorities, namely a laundry list of amenities. Since the pandemic, buyers want annexes that can fit their extended families, and homes are seeing more year-round use. \u201cAn elevator is a must,\u201d Ms. Luedtke said. \u201cA pool is a must. An outdoor backyard Shangri-La is a must.\u201d<\/p>\n
A short bike ride from the Chicken Bucket House, another zany home, alternately nicknamed the Crooked House and the Leaning Tower of Loveladies, used to lean precariously over the boulevard like a melting sand castle. Designed by Studio Tagland, it was sold in 2017 and replaced by a sprawling spec house with the Hamptons-style gambrel-roof look.<\/p>\n
The compound embodies the latest L.B.I. homebuilding trend: a massive increase in scale, in this case from 2,900 square feet to 7,000, and from zero pools to two. And while the tendency on L.B.I. has always been for bigger homes, the style, scale and speed of development over the past decade has felt different.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince Sandy, it\u2019s been at a breakneck pace,\u201d said local architect Jay Madden, another of Gym Wilson\u2019s original hires. The 2012 hurricane walloped the island, igniting a 1962-like surge in construction. Experimentation was no longer the goal, and increasingly, the Nantucket-shingle style that blankets the Hamptons and Cape Cod took over.<\/p>\n
\u201cModern goes in and out of style,\u201d said Michael Ziman, a prolific high-end developer on the north end. \u201cAs prices are going up, people want to protect their investment. They don\u2019t want to step too far outside the box.\u201d (The island\u2019s average sale price last year was nearly $2.5 million, up more than 250 percent since 2014.)<\/p>\n
Developers also have to be able to sell the properties they build. \u201cIf a developer is going to build a spec house, he isn\u2019t going to hire me or Steve Midouhas,\u201d said Sam Gordon, who\u2019s been designing modernist homes on L.B.I. since the 1990s. \u201cIt\u2019s got to have mass-market appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n
That appeal tends to exclude the island\u2019s more inventive architects. Mr. Ryan lamented that everything today has to be \u201cmaxed out,\u201d writing off these colossal new constructions as \u201cpiles of house.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Adrian and Christine Aery, who wanted to remodel their 1970 Loveladies home \u201cto make it big enough for the grandkids,\u201d Mr. Aery said, the project came down to one factor: cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would have loved to have gone modern 20 years ago,\u201d Ms. Aery said. \u201cBut the price was exorbitantly higher.\u201d Instead, they hired a builder to put up a more traditional house in its place.<\/p>\n
Losing more modern homes on the north end, particularly the historic midcentury holdouts, is a sobering thought for architecture fans. \u201cWhen you lose them, you lose a huge piece of humanity and innovation,\u201d said Daniella Kerner, executive director of the L.B.I. Foundation, an arts and community center that nurtured the area\u2019s earliest experimentation.<\/p>\n
\u201cArchitecture adds so much value to a community,\u201d Ms. Kerner said. \u201cIt\u2019s not about how many TVs or bathrooms you can stuff into one house.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the erasure of modern architecture on L.B.I. is far from a fait accompli. Mr. Midouhas \u2014 whom Mr. Madden said \u201ctorches himself, leaves blood on the drawings, to make a true artistic statement\u201d \u2014 just broke ground on his biggest project in 50 years \u2014 his first on the oceanfront in Loveladies. As for the neighborhood\u2019s existing modern homes, their fate rests in the hands of their future owners.<\/p>\n
One afternoon last fall, Mr. Ryan, recently retired, was walking the beach in Loveladies. As he approached the recently sold red house \u2014 perhaps his masterwork \u2014 he braced himself for signs of an impending demolition. But he was surprised to see workmen carefully touching up the red paint. The new owners had decided to keep the house.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re restoring it,\u201d he told his wife later that day. \u201cIt looks great.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Lori and Joel Kaplan bought their house on Long Beach Island, they didn\u2019t need to think up…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":815948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[32],"tags":[2513,648,1032,1033,171,331202,11228,633,67,132,68,331203],"class_list":["post-815947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-architecture","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-long-beach-island-nj","tag-real-estate-and-housing-residential","tag-robert","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-venturi"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116621704305351091","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}