G. P. Schafer Architect
G. P. Schafer Architect is a New York City-based architectural firm established in 2002 and led by founder and principal Gil Schafer III. The practice is known for new houses and residential renovations that combine American classical and traditional styles, historical and regional precedence, and contemporary preferences. Its work has been featured in publications such as Architectural Digest, Town & Country, Veranda and The New York Times, and in books on classical and residential architecture, restoration and interior design. G. P. Schafer Architect has won Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, Palladio and American Institute of Architects awards, as well as the Veranda "Art of Design" Award in Architecture. Architectural Digest has named the firm to the AD100 since 2012 and describes its residences as contemporary tributes to traditional craftsmanship that are "appreciative of the vernacular expression of 18th- and 19-century design movements." Architecture critic Martin Filler writes that the firm's work is distinguished by its "sense of proportion and restraint, not only in measurement but also in terms of what is correct in a given setting." Rizzoli International has published two books by Gil Schafer, The Great American House and A Place to Call Home.
Office and founding principal
Architect Gil Schafer III founded G. P. Schafer Architect in 2002 in New York City. The firm occupied space in a SoHo high-rise on Lafayette Street for several years, and by 2007, had executed 25 projects with a staff that had grown to fifteen. By 2018, its staff numbered thirty-five, and the practice took over a fourth-floor aerie on Union Square West in Manhattan as raw space; the new office was designed with a library at the spine and decorated with classical details matching the firm's residential aesthetic.Founder and principal Gil Schafer is the grandson and great, great grandson of architects. He spent his childhood in many places, including New Jersey and the Midwest, California, and the Bahamas; he attributes an awareness of place, context and vernacular tradition to the many houses he experienced, particularly, his grandmother's antebellum plantation in Thomasville, Georgia. He studied Growth & Structure of Cities at Haverford College and Bryn Mawr, before attending Yale School of Architecture. At Yale, he trained as a modernist under Thomas Beeby, Frank Gehry, Josef Paul Kleihues, Bernard Tschumi and Robert Venturi, and earned the school's H. I. Feldman Prize for studio work in his final semester.
As a student, Schafer worked for Charles Moore and William Turnbull Jr., and upon graduating, for Tschumi, a leading Deconstructivist. By 1990, however, he was drawn toward work in a more traditional rather than theoretical vein. He joined Ferguson Shamamian & Rattner in 1991, working there until 1999, when he started his own practice. Between 1999–2006, he was president, and then chairman, of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, helping to build the organization to a nine-chapter, 2,500-member nonprofit with training and educational programs. Schafer writes and lectures on traditional residential architecture, and has served on nonprofit boards and advisory councils, including Yale School of Architecture’s Dean’s Council, the Dutchess Land Conservancy, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
Work and representative projects
G. P. Schafer Architect has realized a wide range of projects, but is best known for what writers call "new old houses"—contemporary adaptations of classical styles suggesting long histories and regional authenticity—and restorations of historic homes. Architect and architectural historian Robert A. M. Stern places the practice among the "leaders in a new generation of Classical and traditional architects." The firm's influences include 18th- and 19-century American design movements and figures such as Colonial Revival architects Charles A. Platt and William Lawrence Bottomley, Sir Edwin Lutyens, and David Adler and Frances Adler Elkins.Architecture critics distinguish G. P. Schafer Architect's approach by its concern for context, climate, and lifestyle; interplay between historical precedent, details, materials and craftsmanship; mix of classical order, proportion and contemporary function; and integration of architecture, landscape and decoration. The latter aim often involves collaborations that serve as complements or foils to the firm's classicism, such as those with interior designers Rita Konig, David Netto, Miles Redd and Michael S. Smith, landscape designer Deborah Nevins, decorator Bunny Williams, and color consultant Eve Ashcraft.
"New old houses"
Schafer's early project, Middlefield, demonstrates the holistic approach elaborated in his first book and set the mold for the firm's new-old aesthetic. Following a long and unsuccessful attempt to find a suitable nineteenth-century Greek Revival house to renovate, he decided to design and build a new, modern rendition, carefully sited to integrate into a 45-acre land parcel. The residence combines contemporary features and regional farmhouse vernacular, with classically proportioned details derived from 19-century builder pattern books by Asher Benjamin and Minard Lafever and a two-story, Greek Doric columned entry portico that Martin Filler wrote "would likely win the approval of Thomas Jefferson." Other historical elements include re-salvaged elements, patinas, custom mercury glass hardware, and a multi-level design implying evolution over time. Writers note the house's integration into the landscape through surrounding precincts of terraced stone walls and hornbeam-hedge garden rooms and its view upon approach.Several later projects demonstrate the firm's creation of organic, architectural mythologies in new constructions. Architectural Digest described the amalgam of styles at Longfield Farm as embodying "a picturesque historical narrative" of successive additions—Colonial Revival main house of rugged fieldstone, Federal-style wing, neo-Victorian carriage barn, and Greek Revival entry portico and back porch—blended into a "transcendent whole." New Plantation Residence combines an "original" mid-19th-century Greek Revival structure with what appears to be a 1930s Colonial Revival hunting lodge addition.
The simple exterior shapes, ambience and details of the Colonial Revival Willow Grace Farm were modeled after a nearby dilapidated, loosely Federal-style dwelling its client had purchased; the 9,000-square-foot residence and outbuildings incorporate wide-plank floorboards, door hinges, beams and fixtures salvaged from the older structure alongside elements detailed to match. New Classical House blends Jeffersonian palladian classical precedents and regional Greek Revival elements in a five-part symmetrical design with a contemporary interior layout in a palette of teals, blues, and greens.
Restorations & renovations
Whereas G. P. Schafer Architect's new houses purposely suggest renovation and imperfect quirks, its restorations are intended to be seamless. The firm executed a four-year restoration of the 1843 Greek Revival William C. Gatewood House, a four-story residence whose Tuscan columns, arched colonnade and multistory piazza, and high second-floor parlor rooms typify the antebellum Charleston single house. The commission stipulated the retention of all original walls, but entailed a literal disassembly and reconstruction, as well as detection for traces of original features that had been altered. The restoration integrated modern function and flow patterns into the original historic framework with Greek Revival and vernacular decoration, period furnishings and fixtures, Charlestonian pumpkin-hued walls, hand-painted scenic wallpaper, and restored nine-foot triple-hung windows, mantels and woodwork.The Georgian farmhouse Boxwood involved working on a residence designed by one of Schafer's influences, American classicist Charles A. Platt. The renovation sought to restore the understated classical formality that had been diluted by significant alterations, while contemporizing the home with modern living space, decoration and detail. On the exterior, the firm created a more unified aesthetic by redesigning a 1950s portico to match Platt's vision and painting the re-clad brick white. Inside, it restored the loggia's French doors and eliminated outmoded barriers between utilitarian, formal public and informal areas by opening the space and adding enfilades.
The renovation of Schafer's House by the Sea represents a departure from the firm's historical houses that The New York Times describes as "breezily modern." Initially an undistinguished, early-1990s chalet lacking an architectural back story, the barn-like near-A-frame offered the opportunity for experimentation. It was gutted to the timber frames and rebuilt inside and out, with large windows, tall glass sliding doors, and dormer windows installed to maximize light and views of Blue Hill Bay. The interior—painted all white to enhance the light and views—bridges New England tradition and modernity with painted wood-plank walls and hardware reflecting rural history alongside eclectic, centuries-spanning furnishings.
Additional residences
Schafer's second book, A Place to Call Home, explores the roles of geography, place and lifestyle in design, a theme visible in several projects that draw on regional vocabularies and context. The new Waterfront House in the Adirondacks is a modern adaptation of the Gilded-Age family compound that combines classical and vernacular elements and a client preference for formality with the region's relaxed camp aesthetic; the exterior of the asymmetrical structure employs a tailored, less-known Adirondack-style of brown clapboard siding, green-shingled roof and white trim. Its formal front façade features a classical Serlian second floor window, fluted Greek Doric columns and rustic stone chimneys, tied together by a long porch with two entries; the more informal rear employs a Chippendale railing pattern drawn from a Native American textile. The house's siting, thin plan, and light-filled rooms emphasize the lake and Whiteface Mountain vistas and allow circulation; sea-influenced details, such as blue cloth wall coverings and playroom bunk nooks that flank French doors opening to the shore, further aconnection to place.Mill Valley Hillside Residence entailed the transformation of a derelict assemblage of structures on a small, sloped lot into a larger, modern family cottage. The design preserves the property's rustic, rambling character, history and connection to the natural California vernacular style with simple materials and finishes and elements such as reclaimed random-width floorboards, casement windows, restoration glass and historic hardware; a cramped floor plan and zoning that restricted the footprint were resolved by adding a floor of rooms beneath the structure, which stands on stilts.
Two New York residences demonstrate the firm's approach to city life, which writers describe as seeking a balance between traditional and modern, sophistication and comfort. The renovation, Greenwich Village Townhouse Apartment, restored period style and craftsmanship to an 1850s residence covered over with modernist additions, while updating its layout. The Greek Revival design balanced the apartment's 13-foot ceilings and 12-foot windows with a classical frieze above the door, a nine-foot mahogany bookcase, and Ionic columns and folding shutters based on 19th-century townhouse pattern books; other details, influenced by Adler/Elkins interiors, included a custom scagliola mantelpiece, a cross-hatched terracotta wall glaze, and hand-crafted, faux-grain mahogany doors. Fifth Avenue Apartment combines formal architectural details—including a columned entry foyer right off the elevator framing a panoramic view of Central Park—with a relaxed, open plan and modern colors to create a residence amenable to formal entertaining, family life, and a contemporary art collection.