Ridge House
Columbia County, New York
Completed 2024
Design Team
Jejon Yeung, Max Worrell, Beatriz de Uña Bóveda
Collaborators
Interiors: Jean Lin (Colony)
Structural Engineer: Silman
Civil Engineer: Crawford Associates
Mechanical Engineer: Baukraft
Landscape Design: Understory
Meadow Consultant: Pennington Grey
Contractor: Heitmann Builders
Set within an 88-acre ridgeline property in Columbia County, New York, this project consists of a Main House, a guest house Barn, and a separate pool structure. Organized to celebrate the site’s remarkable landscape and expansive views to both the Taconics and Catskills, each structure is formally similar but materially differentiated and unique.
Atop this ridgeline, the main house's simple, 128’-long gabled structure is threaded within the landscape, emerging from the woods into a clearing that looks out to the mountains. Accessed from a lower area via the ‘trench walk;’ an element of the environment co-created with landscape architect Understory, the trench walk is carved into the land and creates a unique pathway between the house and barn.
The austere outer form of the house is split to create a social wing framing the vistas, and a private bedroom wing that extends into the woodlands. The separate wings also shift in plan, creating opposing verandas along the length of the house, expanding the interior spaces into the landscape.
Inside, the main social space consolidates the kitchen, dining area, and living room into a single lofted room anchored on either side by white-oak clad volumes. One end is a custom concrete kitchen island while on the opposite side of the space is a concrete fireplace. On either side of these two extrusions, large expanses of glass highlight unimpeded views in either direction to the two mountain ranges.
Acting as a threshold between public and private, a covered porch looking west allows for indoor/outdoor enjoyment of the landscape. Two bedrooms and a primary suite compose the more private wing of the house. Accessed on the opposite side of the entry’s dynamic threshold, a long hallway runs along the east side of the house, with views to the Taconics and surrounding woods on one side and a long wall of white-oak cladding on the opposite, with doors to the bedrooms subtly indicated by metal hardware.
A utilitarian material palette is a hallmark of the house, wrapped in zinc corrugated metal and bookended with board-formed concrete walls. The structure, with its efficient configuration and elemental, untreated materiality is meant to weather at different rates and be a barometer to the elements of the surrounding site over time.
Photographs by Rafael Gamo