When is a Barn not a Barn?

When it's translucent.

Amazingly, deciding to build myself a translucent 'barn' (with white gossamer-like walls and roof) I completely forgot that more than 40 years ago I designed and built a series of translucent 'barns' (though we call them 'conservatories) in Sagaponack. Recently, while researching the cost of a alternative translucent skins, and arriving at corrugated fiberglass (at a fraction of the cooler cellular polycarbonate) Imy earlier experience finally came to mind. Acting as architect and contractor (on my then-boss Paul Segal's behalf) and still in my 20's, I was somehow trusted enough to build three houses on a densely wooded site in the Hamptons. Each house had a 3-season space, the conservatory, attached to a modest sized 3 bedroom house. The 1,000 sf 3-story high single volume was be the perfect expansion/intermediary space for the house in most seasons, on a site where a porch was both impractical and inappropriate.

Fast forward 45 years and I will finally have a version for myself, and It started with a case of garage-envy. I've never owned a home with one and was tiring of my electrical system being chewed on by mice, and the chore of freeing my car from a layer of ice and snow. A barn would be a perfect place for car(s), motorcycle(s), a shop and storage, plus a cool place to have a party or photograph things in perfect shadowless diffuse light. 

By day the outside would resemble a fairly typical barn rendered in solid white, like my house. With the walls, roofs, doors all covered in a standard industrial material, the light inside would be that magical soft radiance. At night, with the lights on, it would glow up like a Noguchi lamp! Using a steel frame instead of wood would change the skin from gridded to diaphanous, with various densities of material and support shadowing the rippled surface. I expect it to be thrilling, turning the objects in the barn (like cars and shop equipment) into a sculpture garden.

I grew up in a suburban household with an automotive obsession; my father simply loved cars and always seemed to have something cool, even when (as a divorced dad) he had less than abundant funds. I can remember our family of four, plus an Italian Greyhound, piling into his MG TD, a car as small as its name. He drove home a hearse once, and my mother refused to get in it to drive to a dinner party nearby. He had a gorgeous Mercedes 300SL, a spectacular Porsche 356B, a living room sized Thunderbird convertible, a funky little Nash, a gaudy gold Rolls, a cute little Honda motorcycle and an assortment of similarly quirky, beautiful and iconic cars. I counted 14 before their divorce, and it must have been even more after that.

I learned to drive on a stick shift (three-on-the-tree!) Rambler Classic, which was anything but classic. My mother, going out on an occasional date at night, would leave the keys on the same counter she always did, and at 13 I thought it would be fun to drive around at night. And so, with my little brother in the passenger seat (and possibly no seat belts?) I taught myself to back the car out of the garage, up our narrow walled in driveway, and out of our dead end street to the main roads beyond. There was a lot of stalling (the car, not me) and forgetting to turn the headlights on, and fear of cops, as well as a huge thrill, but through the panic I learned to drive a manual transmission. When it was time 3 years later to actually drive legally, my mother attempted to teach me to drive and was astonished how well I did the first time out! I explained that I had been watching her drive, so got the basic idea. I think I told her years later just how that happened...

I inherited that Rambler, and followed it with a 1960 Mercedes 190D, a bulbous matte finished black sedan with red interior and a way to adjust absolutely everything. When I had to replace a brake and was shocked at the expense of the part (which I would install myself) I remember the auto parts guy saying "if you want to dirve a Mercedes you gotta pay the freight", something I have never forgotten and never outlived.

Next it was a Rabbit, still a stick. but with AC, and a capacity so large a contractor freind told me he fit an entire kitchen's worth of cabinets in his! I managed to fit the debris from my demolition of the gypsum block wall between my rental apartment and the one Carin rented next door, to enlarge our space when Julian was born. Utterly illegal, of course, but the trip into the coat closet and into the apartment next door was a very Narnial! 

What followed were a long line of Volvos, as nearly everyone our age with children drove. They were dull, safe, dependable and signals of both 'baby on board' and social status. Ever since then I have coveted a car that is fun to drive, entirely impractical, and absolutely gorgeous. That is what the garage is really for, and I realized that given my actuarial status (17.2 years according to the IRS) why wait for it? Despite its screaming 'midlife crisis on board', and considering the vanity plate 'CL1CHE'', I got a 20-year-old Porsche 911; hardtop, silver, and perfect. It is so much fun to drive that I may just dispense with the motorcycles. Well, at least with one of them, because once I have a garage, you know...

The barn will hold them all, and soon an EV, though a friend warned me to provide clearance for a lift (where else can you put another car in a suburban garage?)...just in case. Apparently cars can become quite addictive.