Ep. 484: Scott Sottile | Ferguson & Shamamian

How to Decorate

Architect Scott Sottile of Ferguson & Shamamian discusses his firm's new book, 'Transformations,' which showcases 15 diverse architectural proje

Key takeaways

• The book 'Transformations' highlights projects ranging from subtle restorations to radical rebuilds in locations like Palm Beach and New York City.
• A primary goal in historical architecture is achieving 'timelessness,' where new interventions appear as if they were always part of the original design.

Main topics

• Architectural preservation
• The book 'Transformations'

Notable quotes

The whole goal is for it to be timeless.

Conclusion

An insightful guide for enthusiasts of historical architecture and pra

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) Welcome to How to Decorate from Ballard Designs, a weekly podcast all about the trials and triumphs of decorating and redecorating your home. I'm Caroline. I'm on the marketing team. And I'm Taryn, and I'm a product designer. Speaker 2 (0:12) I'm Liz. I head up the creative team. We're your hosts. Join the expert team at Ballard Speaker 1 (0:17) Designs for tips, tricks, and tales from interior designers, stylists, and other talents in the design world. Speaker 2 (0:22) Plus, we'll answer your decorating dilemmas at the end of each episode. We love answering your questions, so don't forget to Speaker 1 (0:27) email us at podcast at ballarddesigns.net. Now on with the show. Our guest today grew up in Virginia, surrounded by historic architecture, and has spent his career bringing old houses back to life. He's a partner at Ferguson & Shamamian, one of the country's leading residential architecture firms. His firm's book, Transformations, published by Rizzoli, follows 15 projects across the full spectrum of change, from subtle restoration to radical rebuilding. Scott, welcome to the show. Speaker 3 (0:55) Thank you so much for having me. I'm so looking forward to this conversation. Speaker 1 (0:59) Likewise, your book, well, your firm's book, obviously you are, Speaker 2 (1:02) we're Speaker 1 (1:04) not the only contributor, but I'm going to call it your book for all, for the purposes of today. But we know it's with your partners, but your book is gorgeous and follows 15 different projects across the country. And it really spans the architectural, you know, breadth of America. Like there's, you know, lots of projects on Long Island. There's St. Louis, Palm Beach. There's lots of different architectural styles and they all look so different. And the book is called Transformations. And in many of these projects, you really took us on a journey, taking the roof off or taking the top two floors off and putting in the on the lawn. gutting spaces entirely. So, you know, and I know your firm is quite large, so I'm sure there are lots of different projects to choose from for the book. So walk us through how you came on these 15 projects and what kind of joined them together for the purposes of the book. Speaker 3 (2:09) They're actually not all recent projects, which is very interesting for us. Normally, the last book was all, you know, very... recent work that had been newly photographed. Some of the, one of these projects is actually 15 years old, but we went back and re-photographed it because we, you know, still wanted pretty pictures. But the, they all tell a story of this thesis that started with transformation. We wanted the first, last book was about how we work in collaboration with other, with interior designers and landscape architects, you know, that were part of a team. And of course that holds true. That's part of our DNA. But we wanted to really focus on how we touch historic buildings or build newly in historic places. And so we looked across the firm at some of the recent work and some old work and said, these are pretty good stories. They have interesting clients that had different reasons for doing the things that they did. Location makes a difference. We like to, you know. Speaker 3 (3:10) say, building in Sun Valley is not the same as building in Palm Beach. There are very different, you know, contingencies to both of those things. So, yeah, I think it's exactly what you said, which is that there are interesting stories to tell. We wanted a narrative, which is also the reason, you know, that we hired Gartra Bay to be a writer, you know, New York Times style writer and style critic. We thought, hmm, let's see what he has to say about our work. Speaker 2 (3:40) That's fantastic. You can't tell the work is from multiple years of, I mean, it all feels so fresh and so new. And I'm shocked that the house isn't destroyed from 15 years ago. Yeah, Speaker 3 (3:54) most of our clients, they take these things on as projects that they know that they're going to have to live with and maintain. Speaker 3 (4:04) But if done well, the whole goal is for it to be timeless. That's something we talk a lot about in the book is feeling like the house has always been there and also feeling like it's all of one hand. So that something that the original architect, Burl Hoffman, did in 1916 at Villa Artemis, ultimately you can't really tell what Ferguson Shumamian did in 2015. That's the goal, is to not leave our imprint so deeply. we like to kind of leave a light touch or to leave it better than we found it, but, you know, not make it about ourselves. You know, we don't have a, we shy away from having a style of our firm in our work and think more about it in a methodology of working. Speaker 1 (4:50) You're meant to look like you were never there. Like it was easy, like it was always supposed to be like that, right? Like that's a great, that's the sign of a great architect. Speaker 1 (4:59) Absolutely. Speaker 3 (5:00) You know, I think that's the sign of good style in general, right? You know, it's what Coco Chanel tries to do. You try to make it look effortless, even though the whole thing is like designed down with an inch of its life. It's Speaker 1 (5:12) like going to the ballet. You know, you think Speaker 3 (5:14) that's hard work. Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:15) You think like, oh, gosh, they make it look so easy. And yet, no. Yeah. Speaker 3 (5:19) There's physical pain. Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:22) Or like the Olympics. Don't you remember looking, you know, you watch the people on ice skates. Every single time they need to have a normal Speaker 2 (5:30) human next to the athlete every time. This is like, yeah, put my house up against one of these images where you're like, oh, I see. I see what very, you know, fine architects can do. Speaker 1 (5:43) Okay. Take us back though, Scott, to your upbringing in Virginia, because, you know, of course, Virginia has incredible, incredible architecture, you know, both like there's the Williamsburg, but then there's, you know, like the country, like Charlottesville. So what did growing up in Virginia, what did it kind of, how did it bring you to this, to this firm and this industry? Speaker 3 (6:09) It's very interesting. So I actually grew up in Norfolk in Virginia Beach. So very modernistic places, you know, sort of late 20th century development, lots of housing developments and strip malls. So a lot of non-architecture, actually. And it wasn't until I, you know, and I had it, but I'd always have a deep want. I had known I wanted to be an architect since basically coming out of the womb. Like this is a lifelong, I'm living a lifelong dream, which is really incredible. Speaker 3 (6:35) But when I got to, I went to school at University of Virginia in Charlottesville. And when I got there, you know, that was again, one of those moments to really sink in and live in a place that is steeped in. Speaker 3 (6:49) American history, right? It's sort of a pinnacle of an American ideal. You know, Thomas Jefferson saying, this is how I think people should live and be educated. And he put that into physical form. He built several buildings around a lawn and he said, I want to do this differently than every other school has ever been built, you know, in America and in Europe to date. So, an intellectual idea, taking physical form, you go, wow, that's incredible. You know, your mind starts to get blown. And then I was fortunate enough to take some preservation classes with the architect of the lawn who had an internship program that allowed me to win a spot to build reproduction windows and mantles and touch original plaster and work with the craftsmen to figure out what it means to actually touch old buildings and make them. still useful today, right? The other great thing about all these buildings, about UVA especially, is that it's a World Heritage Site. It's on that list of United Nations, you know, buildings to protect around the world. But it's in full use. It's being used for its intended purpose still. And that's a great lesson, you know, that keeping old things alive and active, that's how you keep them going. Mothballing things, turning them into museums. Speaker 3 (8:10) That's not a great use of our resources. And so learned a lot of those lessons, both the physical history of things, like what materials work, what materials can last for 200 years, what materials don't perform well. You know, Jefferson had some ideas that didn't really work. The roofs had to be replaced on several of the buildings within five or 10 years because they started leaking. He thought he had an interesting idea and it didn't work. Speaker 2 (8:36) Wait, what was it? What was the material? Speaker 3 (8:38) It was actually the way it was. He tried to make flat roofs, but he built it in what he called a ridge and furrow system. Like he was trying to make it like planting fields, you know, where you have a mound the plants are in and the valleys where the water flows. Well, all of those valleys weren't sloped well and they collected water and they leaked and they had to build pitched roofs over top of them within a few years of being built. Speaker 1 (9:02) I didn't know that. Wow. See? Wonderful ideas. Speaker 3 (9:05) But it led one of my preservation professors to, you know, hit home the lesson, never be a guinea pig. Always let somebody else do the research. You know, if you want something to build something to last, don't be the innovator and do it for the first time. Speaker 1 (9:22) Yeah. Speaker 3 (9:24) So those are all lessons that swirl around that, you know, when you then go to Bill Artemis in Palm Beach and you're touching a hundred year old house and you say, okay, well, yeah, that concrete, that concrete's in perfect condition. It just needs to get its stucco dealt with. And, but the wood that's, that's outlived its useful life. And we, you know, tore out the interior and put back new, but we weren't. We didn't fetishize the idea of the old material, like the idea that it was going to go back and that was important, that it would feel the same, but that it could last for another 50, 75 years without the family having to touch it again. Will Speaker 1 (10:03) you introduce our listener to the Villa Artemis project? Oh, sorry. No, no. I mean, you just you flip to that page and it's just such a wow moment. That iconic shot with the. Speaker 1 (10:18) You know, with the marble focal point. And tell everybody about the project because it's really special. The little round temple. Speaker 3 (10:24) It's one of the original houses to Palm Beach. You know, it was one of the major houses to Palm Beach. It was designed for the Phipps family. They were developing Palm Beach. It was on a very large tract of land. It was a classical house, a dork at the base, ionic at the top. The house had been significantly altered in its history. Which is another interesting lesson when dealing with old buildings, right? Is they're rarely, again, they're rarely ever mothballed. You're really like, you're realizing that you, when you come into it, you're dealing with a new chapter. And so, you know, this was about the new family that lived there. This is about the family that had had it actually, you know, just as long as any other family. They, you know, and it was inherited by two daughters. And they wanted to take the house and make it useful for them and their family. you know, now 15 years later, they're grandchildren. You know, it's a continuation of a generational house. So, oceanfront Palm Beach, you know, it's just, it's got an iconic image that goes along with it. And it's one of those like storied houses that, you know, people go, did you go to that party at Palm, Bill Artemis? You know, that kind of thing. Speaker 2 (11:37) And you're like, I didn't go to it, but I helped make sure that party was perfect by building the most perfect interior. Speaker 3 (11:44) Yeah. And building a building to fit in to continue on. The house was originally built in front of the ocean. A pool was eventually added. The temple was eventually added. It wasn't there originally. A pool house was added to one side. And then we came and added in a whole new building for another member of the family. To sort of complete the picture. Speaker 2 (12:09) Wow. I mean, it is truly just so decorative and stunning. There's just not a lot of this in the States that really speak to just even, like you said, all the architectural details that really are so historic that you feel like this could be anywhere. You're like, was this in Athens? I don't know. Speaker 3 (12:31) Are we Speaker 2 (12:32) in Miami? What? Speaker 3 (12:33) Yeah. Speaker 2 (12:35) It's beautiful. Speaker 3 (12:36) Thank you. Speaker 1 (12:37) When you are working on a project like this where you're essentially turning one house into two in a way, right? You're making it comfortable multi-generationally and for two separate families. What are some things, I mean, how do you even approach it? Speaker 1 (12:58) I'm not necessarily sure this is a scenario in which many people find themselves, but it is interesting just because what a puzzle. Speaker 1 (13:07) And decorative wise, which, you know, obviously the designer, but how do you even decorate it to where it feels like one, but it's actually two, you know? Well, Speaker 3 (13:17) I think that's where the architecture has to come in to be cohesive. And so that you take the idea of the sense of place, right? You're trying to figure out what's the DNA, what drives the character of it. And this happens at this house. It happens at the... house in Sun Valley in the book where there's, you know, multiple buildings, guest house, and this happened in the house on the Hudson River. I think this happens in a lot of places where you have multiple buildings on a property, and it can be small scale or, you know, a large estate, where you're finding out what the architectural character is, what's the driving sort of thesis of it, and how those buildings... stitched together to tell a story, like where you're going to go for what thing. And in this case, it was, okay, well, one film is going to live in one building and other film is going to live in another building. And there has to be some hierarchy. You know, you can't have everything be the same note. Clearly the main building is the most important building. And so that dominates, but you want to give special character to the other so that it feels special. It doesn't feel like. You know, you don't want it to feel like we got the bad child. Yeah, exactly. You say, I want to live in a beautiful house, too. So finding that through way of architectural language and then figuring out how to. say something different with it. You know, how are the moldings different or the window sizes are different or the, you know, the, but there's some commonality there. There's still white stucco buildings with the same blue trim. And, you know, but then interior wise, you get to, that's the exterior side of architectural character. Interior wise, you can sort of become a little more free because you don't see them together. So you're beginning to set up. an experience of what it means to move throughout the buildings and for personal character to show through. And what was very interesting on that project is that we actually worked with two different interior designers, one for one sister's house and one for the other sister's house, so that we were, there were definitely, we were building in to the DNA that there was going to be differences between the two. Speaker 2 (15:21) That is wild. When you speak to the interior, because I fully get that it is different than being outside. How do you integrate, how do you figure out what you want to integrate inside to make