Julian and Barbara Neski

Julian and Barbara Neski designed about 35 houses, 25 of them in the Hamptons. Their 1964 house on Terbell Lane in East Hampton was published in Look and Architectural Record and exhibited at the 1970 World's Fair in Osaka; their 1968 house on Dune Hill Road in Amagansett fit 1,262 square feet onto a quarter-acre lot in an ordinary subdivision and won national awards.

The Neskis worked small, in wood, and inward. Many of their South Fork houses survive with additions; at least one, in Remsenburg, has been demolished and replaced. One, in Amagansett, is reported to carry a preservation easement.

Who they were

Julian Neski (1927–2004) studied at Rensselaer and changed his name from Skrzynecki. Barbara Neski (1928–2025) studied at Bennington and at Harvard's Graduate School of Design under Walter Gropius. They met in José Luis Sert's office, married in 1954, and worked together in Marcel Breuer's office before founding their own firm around 1957. Julian was partnered with Peter Blake for several years in the late 1950s; houses from that partnership are on Blake's page.

The documented South Fork houses

Terbell Lane, East Hampton (1964). The house that, in the archive's words, put the Neskis on the map. An addition was built in 1991.

The Neskis' own house, Westminster Road, Water Mill (1965).

Dune Hill Road, Amagansett (1968). Published as the "Inward-Turned Beach House at Amagansett." A quarter-acre lot in what House & Home called an undistinguished subdivision; the house turned away from the neighbors around sheltered outdoor rooms, with clerestory windows — high windows above eye level — bringing light into the interior, and unfinished cedar walls left to bleach.

Skimhampton Road, Amagansett (1971). Published as the "Free-Form Vacation House in East Hampton": 2,787 square feet in three two-level wings, with a bridge linking upstairs rooms and a spiral stair outside. A 1993 addition was designed by another architect.

Waters Edge, Amagansett (1970). Reported to carry a preservation easement placed to prevent demolition; an addition followed in 2015.

Little Noyack Path, Water Mill (1970) and Sandune Court, Sagaponack (1970). The Water Mill house was published in Architectural Record's houses issue of 1971 and renovated in 2022.

Timber Trail, Amagansett (1982). Two houses; one published in Architectural Record in 1982, the other later renovated with the Neskis' involvement.

Nickerson Lane, Remsenburg (1972). Published in Architectural Record in 1973. Sold in 1999, demolished and replaced by a traditional house.

What to look for

• Compact, sculptural wood houses; cedar cladding left to weather.
• Plans that turn inward to courts and decks for privacy on small or exposed lots.
• Clerestories, bridges, exterior stairs and split levels in place of large glass walls.
• Core examples of South Fork postwar modernism.

Alteration and protection

The Neski record splits three ways: houses enlarged by later additions (Terbell Lane, Skimhampton Road, Waters Edge), houses renovated with the architects' involvement (Timber Trail), and houses lost (Remsenburg). The easement reported at Waters Edge is the counterpoint to the Bunshaft house: protection exists only where someone recorded it.

How to verify an attribution

Use the Architectural Record annual houses issues and House & Home, which published most of the major Neski houses with photographs and plans; Alastair Gordon's Weekend Utopia; and the town or village building department file for the original permit and each addition. For any house said to carry an easement, pull the recorded instrument from the Suffolk County Clerk and read what it restricts.

Considering a Neski house?

Request a property brief from The Roebling Research Desk that matches the house to its published plans, separates additions from the original, and confirms any recorded easement before value is assigned to either.