Scott and Meredith Lipnick have a few theories about the eccentric 1970s vacation home they bought on Cape Cod, in Massachusetts. With angular shed roof-lines and weathered cedar shingles, the 2,500-square-foot structure read as modernist from the outside, but in spirit “it looked like a big-time party house,” Meredith says. Among the clues? A cutout between the kitchen and entry area where martinis might have been passed through, a wraparound deck, a promenade extending from the second story, and a series of puzzling ladders in the hallway that let you peek down through the oversize bathroom’s clerestory windows. The couple fell for these details, but the house’s quirks soon went from charming to frustrating, especially the meandering layout, lack of privacy, and minimal storage. With two children, they needed something more family friendly. “Even though we had so much space, it wasn’t usable for much,” Scott says.

An addition seemed to be the answer, but the Lipnicks worried that an architect would give them a cookie-cutter one that wouldn’t respect the house’s unconventional spirit. They knew they would need to hire someone who could honor what was there, and they found that in Ted Baab, a childhood friend of Scott’s.

Baab—who worked at the Brooklyn firm SO – IL for 11 years before launching his own practice three years ago—recently reconnected with Scott at a school reunion. They got to talking about the house, and Baab was hooked.

“The house was very strange, but in an incredible way,” he says, remarking that it felt more like a Sea Ranch house than a Cape Cod. “It immediately told me that they were interested in a different perspective of what a house could be or what a house should feel like in this area.”

Making Scott and Meredith’s home more livable while working within the context of what was already there enticed Baab. “We didn’t want something that was totally disconnected from the spirit and idea of the house but at the same time would not try and replicate something from the seventies,” he says. The problem was well defined, but the solution wasn’t.

At SO – IL, Baab primarily worked on multifamily housing in New York, which involved figuring out how to make a new building work within the constraints of the city’s complex zoning and building codes. He conceived of Scott and Meredith’s renovation as an infill project, adding rooms that “plug into” the existing roofline and feel distinct from, yet complementary to, the original house.

“There was the puzzle of how to make something that was different, but at the same time totally part of the existing building.”
—Ted Baab, architect

The new spaces include a guest suite and an office with interior windows that look down into the entry hall. Baab also reconfigured the staircase as a spiral and knocked down a wall in the kitchen to make the ground floor more fluid. He also designed an architectural Easter egg: Subtle curves create a motif in the additions, to distinguish them from the hard-lined original spaces.

Now, the house still has personality but is more functional for the family. Scott likes how he can entertain much more easily upstairs, now that there are a bathroom and a bar there. Meredith enjoys how she can see a nearby creek from her bed, thanks to an extra set of windows. And their daughter still delights in scrambling up those built-in ladders but now has a secret hideout in a new storage area to play in, too. “Ted made all the things we had usable and all the new things fit in perfectly,” Scott says.

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: BAAB

Structural Engineering: TYLin (formerly Silman)

MEP Engineering: ABS Engineering

Metalwork: 3-D Welding Inc.

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