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"Symmetrical
as a butterfly, its copper roof cantilevered out 26 feet
at each end, the house, constructed of stone, mahogany
and glass,
faces south across the Navesink River in Monmouth County.
In keeping with forms the house incorporates, its architect,
Donald
Mallow, has used five tons of copper for the massive
roof, which nonetheless appears to float.
“A
roof that sails, as this roof does, needs to be copper, rather
than slate or tile,” Mr. Mallow said. Copper roofs last
for 50, 100, 150 years...
...Very
few architects have an opportunity to work in residential architecture
of this scale, said Richard B. Snow, a retired professor of
architectural design at Cooper Union. “Mallow
is a very powerful designer with great structural technique”...
...“The
site always makes its needs felt,” he [Mallow] said ... “Where's
the sun, the view, the breeze, the slope of the land?”...
...As
individual problems arose, Mr. Mallow solved them with the
whole structure in mind. Each detail, each separate solution
makes a ripple. If every solution respects the total, the synthesis
is a building that is a work of art...
...The
space is extraordinary. The foyer opens into a central hall
that rises 22 feet to a coffered ceiling. Mahogany doors, 10
feet 2 inches tall, can shut off the dining room. At either
end is a fireplace that also opens up into the bedrooms on
the floor above...
...What
is most extraordinary, what separates building from architecture,
is the way by which each detail echoes or extends the central
design, an interweaving that goes through the house. "We
feel the continuity of the plane as we move through space," is
the way Mr. Mallow described the experience of the new residence...
...Mr.
Mallow made his first commitment not to architecture but to
painting. For the three years he spent at the Music and Art
High School in Manhattan, he believed he would be an artist.
He entered Cooper Union, still believing it. But there he encountered
architecture and found himself fascinated. He went on to Yale,
where he received his architecture degree and particularly
relished his time with Louis Kahn, an architect and important
influence on Mr. Mallow...
...[Mallow's]
summer house and its studio use local materials and simple
structural technique and take landscape into account. As Mr.
Mallow said, “Designing
a house in a vacuum is not solving the problem.”"
The
New York Times
Sunday, December 2,
1990
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