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Little Glover House by Steven Gambrel is for Sale

by habituallychic

05 . 25 . 21

No one renovates Sag Harbor houses better than Steven Gambrel and a house he designed from the ground up at 52 Glover Street has just come on the market for $6,995,000. Considering that it’s turnkey ready and within very easy walking distance Main Street, makes it a pretty good deal. If you’re not convinced, you might be after seeing the photos.

52 Glover Street had been offered together with 56 Glover Street as a compound with guest house. I think it’s nice that it’s available alone now because it’s a manageable sized house and property for a couple or small family.

52 Glover Street has a smaller lot than its neighbor but they are both on a lovely street that sees beautiful sunsets across the water.

Steven Gambrel has worked on a lot of old captain’s houses in Sag Harbor so he knows the layouts and details that make them so special so this new build has all those attributes too.

52 Glover Street is referred to as Little Glover by Gambrel and is given an entire chapter in his last book Perspective where he talks about why he built a new house on the site, “a small house of a later date was not in keeping with the saltbox purity of the surrounding buildings and was structurally unsound. I purchased the site, which is visible from my primary house, and proceeded to design a cottage. With Historical Concepts, I studied the massing and setbacks required for the Architectural Review Board, but generally it was an easy process because I was eager to create a house that would blend in with the handsome neighborhood structures.”

“The front parlor has rough-coat plaster walls and a simple mantle made from ancient marble.”

“As the house developed it was dubbed “Little Glover” and became a bit of a laboratory for some of my latest architectural and design interests. I sketched rooms that would require specialty millwork and stonework and began collecting reclaimed materials as a starting point for the design process.”

A detail of the door to the dining room from the entry hall from Steven’s Instagram.

I purchased the pine paneling of an eighteenth-century room from a house in Salem, Massachusetts, which has been acquired by a museum and deaccessioned in the 1930s.”

“I designed a room large enough to reinstall the paneling, along with several additional walls of new panels and trim to match the eighteenth-century originals.”

“I worked with a very accomplished craftsman, William Suchite, who was equally enthusiastic about the challenge; his skill and ingenuity further influenced my use of complex details. We would meet at the house and I would draw directly onto the unfinished walls. He would then build mock-ups of the proportions until we were satisfied with the results. This on-site process was a refreshing departure from office projects that require multiple sets of drawings and workshop diagrams before construction.”

“Irreverent details in thee kitchen suggest age.”

According to the real estate listing, “the kitchen is equipped with top of the line appliances and intuitively designed with chefs in mind.”

This is an ingenious solution for the sink since the windows in old Sag Harbor houses always sit below counter height.

The kitchen connects to the dining room to the front of the house, a breakfast room beside, and a large room to the back of the house.

“Our breakfast room has a large built-in vitrine full of oddities collected over the years. Light streams through the Dutch door on the front of the house, which faces the west.”

Gambrel’s labradoodle, Sailor, makes an excellent model.

“Little Glover evolved one room at a time and soon took on a distinct personality. I was more inspired by stories of sea captains returning from expeditions with new found wealth and inspiration to build their dream houses than with specific features from local interiors.Little Glover was to be my version of a travelogue, filled with the simple details that I sketch when visiting historic houses.”

“The paneling for the large sitting room was completely built by William Suchite, based mainly on my sketches of eighteenth-century paneled rooms in Virginia. We studied books and photographs but were more intent on capturing the essence of how such details were interpreted in rural settings of the period. The simplicity of the room makes it feel more authentic, and the atmosphere seems entirely real.”

While visiting my stone fabricators’ warehouse and stone yards, I came across remnants of the marble facade of a demolished Fifth Avenue mansion built at the beginning of the twentieth-century. The giant carved columns, cornices, and blocks of stone were beautifully worn from a century of decay. I selected fragments of egg-and-dart cornice, which were recut into an oddly scaled bolection to frame the oversize firebox. The combined play of scale and materials seems the perfect backdrop for the spare collection of my favorite furniture, arranged with deliberate irreverence.”

A detail of the fireplace from Steven’s Instagram account.

You can definitely get a feeling of Southern historic homes in this photo. “The walls are finished in layers of gently sanded and waxed limewash.”

Sailor sitting pretty on the sofa.

The upstairs hallway leads to a series of guest bedrooms and because it’s a new build, there are no wonky stairs or sagging areas in the house. And better yet, there is central air conditioning.

“The master bedroom paneling was inspired by a visit to a historic Colonial revival house by Delano & Aldrich. I was fascinated by the raised panel ceiling and had to give it a try myself.”

Another view of the master bedroom.

Another view of the master bedroom.

A detail of the master bedroom fireplace from Steven’s Instagram.

“In the master bathroom, a grid of paneled walls is a theme I reference often for its simplicity and graphic impact.”

Usually bathrooms in historic houses are very small but here you get a bathtub and a separate shower.

More details of the master bathroom paneling,

A view of the master bathroom from Steven’s Instagram.

Many Sag Harbor homes have low ceilings but this guest bedroom feels light and airy.

All of the bedrooms have working fireplaces.

The third bedroom.

Another view of the third bedroom. Each bedroom has an ensuite bathroom.

I think this view from Steven’s Instagram is of the door out the back of the house.

A detail of the Dutch door details from Steven’s Instagram.

A view of the organic vegetable garden. You won’t even have to plant a garden yourself.

There is also a small heated pool but you have all the best beaches a short drive away including Cooper’s Beach in Southampton which is voted one of the top beaches in the United States every year. But Sag Harbor also has a marina if boating is more your style.

The antique garden gate is a reclaimed stall door from a horse stable.”

The house was built in 2017 so the landscape has filled in since its completion.

Another view of the vegetable garden.

One of my favorite things about Sag Harbor is the light. It glows in the evenings as you can see in the photo below. If you decide to buy the house, I hope you will invite me over.

Photos via Corcoran, SRGambrel.com, and @stevengambrel