Keith Scott Morton first spied Orient, New York, in 1980, while sailing around the eastern tip of Long Island’s North Fork. “There were wooden boats, and sailboats, and a wharf from the 1800s,” Keith recalls seeing in the town’s namesake harbor. “I thought, ‘Man, this is it—I just found heaven.’” A follow-up trip by land confirmed that, unlike the Hamptons to the south, Reagan-era consumerism had not touched this hamlet of cauliflower and oyster farms. In 1985, the New York City–based photographer began constructing a small house designed by his cousin on two acres within walking distance of the historic downtown.

Since then, Keith—individually, and then with editor and stylist Christine Churchill—dedicated more genuine custodianship to Orient than you might expect from weekenders. The couple purchased an adjacent 18-acre working farm from a neighbor, transformed that property into a four-parcel conservation subdivision, and built a home for themselves and their newborn daughter on one of its smaller lots. Simultaneously, Keith replanted the remaining acreage as Old Orchard Nursery, a wholesale tree farm that largely specializes in native hornbeam and beech hedging. About three years ago, the husband and wife decided to live in Orient full time.

That timing coincided with their daughter’s preparations to leave for college, which also prompted Keith and Christine to reflect on their existing digs. “I have one set of nieces and nephews who grew up with our daughter, and everyone would crash there,” Keith recalls of the 3,400-square-foot residence. “It wasn’t a huge place, but as the kids got their own things going, the house felt too big.”

He also notes that he and Christine were slightly concerned about the three remaining parcels’ destiny: Even with an easement in place, there were no guarantees that another homeowner would preserve the ambience they had worked so hard to create. “We wanted to protect the visual landscape, and we wanted the 18 acres to be self-contained without feeling exclusive.”

Christine and Keith decided that the most stewardly solution would be to sell the existing house and build anew on one of the three remaining parcels, so they turned to their friend Bill Ryall for feedback. With Ted Sheridan, Ryall runs Ryall Sheridan Architects, a New York–based firm that has completed multiple, critically lauded works in Orient—including a 2002 home that Ryall shares with his husband, art historian Barry Bergdoll. “We wanted something that was pared down and modern, and where you could reach out and touch the outdoors,” Christine says. “Bill was excited about the immediacy of that relationship to the landscape.” (So excited, in fact, that Ryall and Bergdoll ultimately purchased the third of the subdivision’s four lots in 2021.)

“He was enthusiastic, and he had so much energy about the project’s sustainability,” Keith adds. “When you talk to Bill and grasp his depth of care and knowledge about sustainability, how could you go in another direction?” Christine agrees that “Bill had all the answers about efficiency, and that was the biggest draw of all.”

Ryall Sheridan has been designing homes to Passive House standards since 2008. According to associate partner Niall Carroll, who worked alongside Ryall on Christine and Keith’s commission, the homeowners’ desires jibed with the architecture firm’s longtime experience with energy efficiency. For one, Carroll says, “An interest in sustainability lends itself to more compact space.”

Ryall Sheridan in turn developed a streamlined program of approximately 2,200 square feet, composed of L-shaped and bar volumes which slide past one another along a central corridor. The architects also placed a freestanding garage and in-ground pool close by.

“We wanted to create small moments in this vast landscape,” Carroll says of the home’s intricate footprint, which yields courtyards where the volumes pull away from one another. “Meanwhile the garage, house, and pool relate to one another like semienclosed outdoor rooms. Overall, the project feels nestled into the farm rather than imposed on it.”

Whereas Christine and Keith’s previous house stands in the northeast corner of the reimagined farm, client and architect decided that the scheme should anchor an acre in the site’s southeastern quadrant. The narrow parcel runs in a south–north direction, and this axis makes for a tremendous western exposure for the bar volume, where a soaring living/dining room and an adjacent porch sit beneath a shed roof.

“We wanted the sunset views,” Keith says of the two vignettes, adding that they also face rows upon rows of nursery specimens in the largest, undeveloped parcel in the center of the subdivision. “These may be the public spaces, but I feel most like myself here. We live connected to our special wilderness.”

“We swore we were never going to do a double-height interior, because our last house had a clerestory—as well as a heating system that didn’t adequately compensate for it,” Christine says. “The envelope and the systems in this house are so great that it’s a completely different experience.”

Although the parallel, east-facing volume overlooks the edge of Old Orchard Nursery, it is only slightly less open to nature. Its southern end is configured as a primary suite that blends into stands of hornbeam and tulip trees via a second porch. In the middle of the volume, the kitchen boasts a sprawling window at eye level, which looks upon river birches. Even the mostly opaque north room, a commodious ground-floor office that occupies the arm of the L footprint, has its own outdoor access. This half of the house, which is also topped with a shed roof, includes a modest upper story containing a guest suite. On both sides of the building, the shed roofs are folded at their uppermost points to create flat surfaces where Ryall Sheridan mounted 26 inconspicuous photovoltaic panels that allow Christine and Keith to consume about 60 percent less electricity than their neighbors.

When its many ground-floor doors and windows are open, the home quite literally “breathes” on a pleasant day, Keith says. Metaphorically, the place pulsates with life, as he and Christine easily weave in and out of the building’s porous perimeter. Life here resembles a sailboat in fair winds and following seas. Yet thanks to Ryall Sheridan’s ecologically responsible design, the residence can be airtight on demand, too. “When the wind is blowing at 50 knots, you wouldn’t know it from inside,” Christine says.

A Hamptons Beach House Gets a Minimalist Makeover With Midcentury Vibes

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: William Ryall, Ryall Sheridan Architects / @ryallsheridanarchitects

Builder: Mark Kaffaga

Structural Engineer: Ed Armus Engineering

Interior Design: Christine Churchill, @christinecsmorton / @oldorchardnursery

Cabinetry Design/Installation: Robert Russell Design

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A Tree Farmer’s House Is Rooted in the Landscape