Good Works

The Small Design Community of Bellport, New York, Is Coming Together to Save a Town Landmark

Architects Elizabeth Roberts, Vishaan Chakrabarti, and Chris Fogarty are all helping rethink a beach pavilion in Bellport
Chris Fogarty's site plan for his beach pavilion proposal in Bellport New York. You take eight or nine people and give...
Chris Fogarty's site plan for his beach pavilion proposal in Bellport, New York. "You take eight or nine people and give them a problem, you’ll get eight or nine solutions back," Fogarty says. "I just love that."Photo: Courtesy of Chris Forgarty / Fogarty Finger Architecture

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy ravaged the East Coast. And while many instances of damage have since been repaired, its continuing legacy lives on in myriad ways. One example is the Bellport, New York, beach pavilion. A beloved site for residents' cocktail hours, birthday parties, and the like, the pavilion was one of the many structures that didn't survive Sandy.

But here, the story gets more complicated. Federal funds were acquired to rebuild the pavilion, and at first, its 2.0 iteration adapted to the area swimmingly. Flash forward just a couple of years, though, and the beach's dunes have receded back, meaning that the pavilion is often quite literally out to sea. Clearly, a creative solution is in order—and one that marries architectural principles with creative thoughts on a potential relocation.

Luckily, Bellport has two secret weapons up its sleeve. The first is its under-the-radar design community brimming with some of the most recognizable names working in architecture, interior design, and fashion today. The second is Georgia Read, a local architect and member of Auto Body, a revolving Bellport arts space. Recently, Read used her organizational talents to harness the collective intellect of the town's community. She tapped individuals like AD100 architect Elizabeth Roberts; Vishaan Chakrabarti, PAU Studio architect and new U.C. Berkeley dean of the College of Environmental Design and his wife, architect Maria Alataris; and architect Chris Fogarty, founder of firm Fogarty Finger Architecture, to come up with their best and brightest ideas. All in all, ten Bellport architects and designers, including Read, created proposals for her "Ho-Hum Open Call" exhibition at the Auto Body space. The other participants were Nick Czarniecki, Brian Sawyer, Mary Knowles, Bella Guinness, and Sam Friedberg and Andrea Recalde.

A rendering of Chris Fogarty's design.

Photo: Courtesy of Chris Fogarty / Fogarty Finger Architecture

In his own design, Fogarty opted for a scheme that emphasized the pavilion's boardwalk. He also felt deep appreciation for the other proposals he ultimately saw. "I loved Elizabeth's scheme," he tells AD PRO of Roberts's minimalist, do-nothing design. "It was what I think is probably the right solution, which is to just wait. And in the meantime, to just put up some umbrellas."

The call for proposals was also a chance for Bellport's design community to grow. "I definitely met more design professionals through this," Roberts tells AD PRO. "But it was a different type of getting to know each other. It was the first time a lot of people in the community were invited to see my work in a way that was meaningful to them."

Both Fogarty and Roberts point to Chakrabarti's proposal as being particularly interesting, with Roberts adding that it really "struck a chord." For his design, Chakrabarti opted to move the pavilion away from the beach entirely. More specifically, he suggested relocating it to the town's train station, where it would be able to serve the North Bellport village community as well.

"Bellport beach’s beauty is actually the absence of architecture," Chakrabarti comments to AD PRO. But the roots of his proposal go far beyond land preservation. "So many of us today get in an Uber and go off to have our glass of rosé, and we turn our eyes away from some real distress," he says, noting that North Bellport's poverty rate is at 20%, while that of the beach community is only four. Chakrabarti notes that the essential aspect of his concept lies in the fact that the two populations would have more contact with one another. "What’s fundamental to me is the idea of positive social friction where people are seeing each other eyeball to eyeball," he says.

Vishaan Chakrabarti's idea was to move the pavilion into town.

Photo: Courtesy of Vishaan Chakrabarti / Pau Studio

Bellport's mayor came to the opening of the exhibition, which clearly made Read, Roberts, Fogarty, and Chakrabarti quite happy. But the question remains—what's going to happen now?

When reached by email this week, Read had a couple of updates to share. She's currently working on a booklet of all the proposals created, to share with Bellport's trustees later this fall. In other words, it's an ongoing conversation and process.

But in the meantime, the weather might not be able to wait. Read shared an image of the pavilion taken by Bellport resident Howie Guja during a storm that hit the region this past weekend. As the photograph indicates, when it comes to this preservation project, time is very much of the essence.

The Bellport, New York, beach pavilion seen in the midst of a recent storm.

Photo: Howie Guja / Courtesy of Georgia Read