| Issue #31, October 27, 2006 |
ABOUT THAT NEW YORK KNICKS STAR’S HOUSE
By T.J. Clemente
The Sag Harbor Village Zoning board has just approved two variances to allow former New York Knick Allan Houston to build his Sag Harbor home overlooking the water. Mr. Houston and his wife, Tamara, purchased a modest one-story house in the Ninevah section of Sag Harbor for $1.5 million with the idea of tearing down and building something more suited to their needs. At first, the Houstons submitted a plan to build a 10,500 cubic bic-foot home in the Federal-style. Bic-foot variance is a term from the village pyramid variance law, and keeps a building’s height beneath an imaginary line drawn at a 45 degree angle from the lot’s property line. The plan projected a 3878 square foot home. It was just a fairly simple home with a planned “dog room” and two laundries. Since Mr. Houston stands six foot six inches he had planned to have nine-foot ceilings.
You may recall Wilt Chamberlain started the trend of building a home for basketball players by making every door and room scale to his seven-foot plus height. Hearing him explain it in an interview, it made sense. After all, you should be able to walk through your own front and bedroom doors without having to duck. And with the financial success Mr. Houston achieved through basketball it seemed only natural that he and his wife should like to follow in Wilt’s footsteps. Shaquille O’Neil of the world champion Miami Heat tells the story of his first flight as a teenager in a coach seat. If only someone took a photo of that! These large men need longer beds, taller showers, larger bath tubs and, of course, higher ceilings.
The Sag Harbor Village Zoning Board took all this into consideration and made a compromise with Mr. Houston, allowing eight and a half foot ceilings instead of the requested nine. If a man raises his hands to stretch he should not have to punch a hole in the ceiling of his own home. If that’s not in the Bill of Rights it should be.
Concerning the request for the 10,500 cubic-bic-foot variance, the Village Zoning Board worked with Mr. Houston’s architect, Stephen R. Connors of Warwick, New York, to pare down Houston’s request to the granted 2,678 square feet. To reduce the bic square footage, the plans for the home were adjusted by sinking the ground level of the first floor and lowering the ceilings from nine feet to eight and a half feet. Mr. Connors used all of his talents to come to terms with the village in order to build the two and a half story home on the bluff overlooking the water.
Being a sports star has its privileges and I am sure that the board went out of its way to make sure Mr. Houston’s wishes and Village logic came together in a way that would make the project not be intrusive to neighbors. It remains to be seen how high the garage doors will be and quite frankly what size bath tub will be installed.
At the Cigar Bar a patron was wondering out loud how this would affect racehorse jockeys who plan on building a house to scale. Is there a limit to how low a ceiling can be? That question will not be answered until someone requests it.
So with the variance issue behind him, Mr. Houston can start to build his Sag Harbor home. It remains to be seen if one hundred years from now when people buy or discuss homes whether they will refer to homes around the country as in the NBA player style.
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