“The idea I had for the design of this house was a more contemporary design. I think of myself as a contemporary architect so I originally started designing the house as a combination of flat roof volumes. As I got closer to the reality of actually building and submitting the house to Greenport Village for approval, I realized that I might have a problem being in the historic district. Flat roofs are not historic and my assessment after talking to a number of the townsfolk was that it would not be approved. Trying to reconcile my contemporary design aesthetic with the historic requirements I turned to historic barns which I had always admired for their utilitarian beauty. I have a great book, Barns of Cape Cod by Schiffer that had some really beautiful barns that I used as inspiration. My solution was to marry the shape and volume of barns with contemporary detailing. The historic committee thought that this was a very good solution and the Greenport passive house contemporary barn was born.”
– Wayne Turett