Bates Masi + Architects

Bates Masi + Architects is an East Hampton firm with two eras. Harry Bates, who had worked under Gordon Bunshaft at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, founded his practice in 1965 and moved it to Southampton in 1980. Paul Masi, who had worked for Richard Meier, became his partner in the late 1990s and now leads the firm, which works from a building of its own design in East Hampton. Bates retired in 2017 and died in 2022.

Its houses have won repeated AIA Peconic, AIA Long Island and AIA New York State awards as well as national design awards, and one was an Architectural Record House in 2012.

Harry Bates, 1965–1997

Bates (1927–2022) trained at North Carolina State's School of Design, joined SOM in New York in 1955, and was known for modernist houses on Fire Island before he started building on the South Fork. His houses there include a 1965 house on Springwood Lane in East Hampton, a 1973 house in Southampton on part of the former Grosvenor Atterbury family estate, and the Mecox Landing condominium development in Water Mill (1982). Two of his houses — a 1968 house on Roxbury Lane in Wainscott and his own 1979 house on Hedges Banks Drive in East Hampton — have been demolished.

Bates Masi, 1997 to the present

The partnership's catalog is long. Representative award-winning projects:

• Assembled House, East Hampton (2005). AIA New York State and AIA Long Island awards in 2005, Residential Architect in 2006, AIA Peconic in 2007.
• Northwest Road, East Hampton (2008). AIA Long Island award; 2013 Crittall Prize.
• Genius Loci, Startop Drive, Montauk (2011). An Architectural Record House of 2012.
• Elizabeth II, Main Street, Amagansett (2014). Paul Masi's own house.
• Amagansett Dunes (2014) at 1,725 square feet, and an Ocean Lane house of about 600 square feet built under tight restrictions near the beach.
• Stony Hill, Amagansett (2021 AIANYS award). On land once part of a communal grazing meadow; the planting is zoned the way pasture was rotated, and the house is a cluster of gabled volumes in oversized shingles.
• Milestone, Springs (completed 2019). Three equal 13-foot volumes clad in metal, designed by a firm architect for himself.
• Wainscott (2021 AIANYS Honor Award). 11,445 square feet on 2.7 acres, three gabled structures linked by a gallery, designed to anticipate rising seas and to light an art collection through clerestories.

Renovating the ordinary

Two projects stand out for buyers of older South Fork houses: a 2010 renovation down to the studs of a 1960s kit house on Robins Way in East Hampton, and a 2012 doubling of a 1970s kit house on Far Pond Road in Southampton using a panel system. Both won AIA awards. They show a route other than demolition for the region's many modest postwar houses.

What to look for

• A single material or construction idea carried through the whole house — exaggerated shingles, metal cladding, panelized walls.
• Gables and barn forms drawn from local agricultural buildings, rendered in modern detail. See contemporary modern and farmhouse vernacular.
• Landscape and site history used as the starting point.
• Recent houses designed with flood and sea-level rise in the brief.

How to verify an attribution

For a living firm, ask the firm directly and get the drawings. Then confirm the architect of record on the building permit, distinguish new construction from renovation or addition, and check award records (AIA chapters publish winners) rather than relying on listing copy. A Harry Bates house from 1965–1997 and a Bates Masi house after 1997 are different bodies of work.

Considering a Bates Masi house?

Request a property brief from The Roebling Research Desk that confirms the firm's role from the permit file, documents the design's specific systems and materials, and compares the house against other architect-designed South Fork modern houses.