Gardeners will understand when I say I was elated last Thursday afternoon when it seemed the snow might actually accumulate. That was not to be. The so-called Sunday-night storm was a bust, too. It has been a week of the worst of all possible worlds for our gardens: temperatures plunged with no renewal of the poor man’s compost, snow.

    Most people have had their fill of snow this winter, but our gardens would fare much better if they remained covered by a blanket of snow until the jet stream changes and the cycle of freeze-thaw gives way to stable, moderating temperatures. 

    In all my years gardening in East Hampton I don’t recall a winter with as many days as this year with temperatures under 25 degrees, let alone around 15 for days on end. But since January the thick layer of snow insulated and protected plants by maintaining the soil at a constant temperature.

    Yes, many gardens have suffered damage, with trees and branches breaking under the weight of recent heavy, wet snow. We’ve all probably lost some trees or shrubs. I certainly have. People who select plants that push the hardiness zone may have lost more.

    A tip for limiting damage to conifers is to try to grow those with only a single trunk. Arborvitae tend to come with two trunks; you can provide yourself with some insurance if you tell your landscaper you want single trunks only.  They won’t be happy, but after all it is your place and you are paying. If the snow has bent but not broken trunks and branches, cabling can salvage them.

    Witch hazels are the flowering workhorses of winter. Perhaps they opened a week to 10 days late and the flowers curled up on frigid days, but otherwise they have been veritable flowering machines. They’ve been in bloom for two months and show no sign of quitting. The late-flowering Arnold Promise is just opening, and as soon as it warms up a little, will fill the air with fragrance. 

    Some of the earliest snowdrops, crocuses, and hellebores were just opening or had plump buds when the snow arrived in January. Two weeks ago when the snow began to melt and the temperature warmed up briefly, the flowers opened fully in less than a day. It is a mystery to me how plants continue to develop while they are covered with snow. A new crop of snowdrops and crocuses pushed out over the last 10 days and will be pristine when they open, given a brief exposure to improved weather.

    Without the insulating effect of snow, desiccating strong winds and wide changes in temperature could make March and April more treacherous for our gardens than the winter. Perhaps the thoroughly wet soil may ward off damage to trees from winds during any cold spells. But heaving soil bodes ill for perennials.

    I read once that the best thing you can do to help your garden is to leave home in winter. That might well apply this year to March. Try to avoid stomping on the beds. If in doubt, wait.

    If you didn’t have a chance to compost your beds last fall, that would be a good March chore as soon as the snow melts. We never seem to make enough of our own compost and supplement it with that from the dump, which has worked very well. I’d be reluctant to use it on the vegetable garden without seeing test results first.

    The rule of thumb is to plant pea seeds on St. Patrick’s Day. That might be optimistic this year.

    If you did lose some trees and shrubs, this is the perfect time to redesign and seek alternatives. Check the websitesfor Rare Find Nursery in New  Jersey and Broken Arrow Nursery in Connecticut; they are filled with goodies.  Each makes a great (but long) day trip. That makes the garden happy keeping you out of town, and makes you happy finding new and exciting plants to fill those open spaces.

    Spring may officially be only three weeks away, but take your cues from the actual weather before heading out to the garden.

    St. Luke’s Episcopal Church’s annual house and garden tour, this year including six private properties in and around the village of East Hampton, will take place on May 10 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The evening before, May 9, from 6:30 to 8:30, a cocktail party will be held at a newly built classic cottage-style house on Ocean Avenue as a fund-raiser for the church’s community outreach programs.

    Jim and Linda Brandi’s property on Dune Lane includes the only remaining elements of the original Italianate sunken walled garden that was part of the 600-acre Wiborg estate. The pool, arbor, and arboreal bench, designed by Victoria Fensterer, were installed in 2006.

    Another site belongs to Monica Graham, who combined two properties on Inkberry Street, leaving an existing house for guests and building a modern home in the spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright for herself. Ms. Graham created an Asian-inspired tiered stream and pond, and, working with Liz Curtin of Iron & Ivy, added specimen trees, a shade garden, a greenhouse, and a formal cutting garden.

    Jack Ceglic and Manuel Casteliero live on two secluded acres on Huntting Lane, in the heart of the village. Mr. Ceglic is an artist and one of the founders of Dean & DeLuca, and Mr. Casteliero is an architect. The property includes a 1,000-square-foot studio with glass garage doors at either end, and a house with a large living room, stainless-steel kitchen, and book-lined side rooms.

    Craig James Socia has been creating unique gardens on the East End for more than 20 years. Known for customized stonework, twig-style constructions, and topiaries, he lives on three linked properties on Accabonac Road, whose main house is furnished in hues of gray, white, and black. Among the furnishings are a classic leather Chesterfield sofa and a breakfast table from Lee Radziwill’s tag sale.

    The garden of Dianne Benson, also known as Dianne B, is located on David’s Lane near the nature trail, and is the second garden she has created in East Hampton. Originally a fashion designer, Ms. Benson’s passion for gardening is based on the principles of fashion: form, pattern, shape, color, textures, and layers. Her property is reportedly home to the largest magnolia tree on the East End.

    Kenlynne and Bill Mulroy’s East Hollow Road house, purchased in 2010, has a Japanese-style serenity reflected in the shaping of the trees, koi pond, gates, and roof. Focusing on an inner courtyard, the Mulroys added a pool, hot tub, Ping-Pong table, mahogany deck and pergolas, and a pool house. The additions were planned and are maintained by Carol Mercer and Lisa Verderosa of the Secret Garden.

    Tickets to the tour are $75, $200 including the cocktail reception. More information is available at stlukeseasthampton.org.

The seamless integration of house and garden with the landscape is the ideal, even the Holy Grail, of garden and landscape design. Here on the East End a few jewels meet the challenge.

    Recently, I was introduced to a place on the bay in Springs that meets that ideal. Thanks to the Cultural Landscape Foundation, one of a series of garden dialogues throughout the country was held at the home of Bob and Margo Alexander in which Thomas Balsley, a prominent landscape architect who helped create the Alexanders’ garden, spoke about the process.

    The couple began planning their house and thinking about the grounds 23 years ago and met Mr. Balsley early on. The landscape-garden is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and appears as fresh and inspirational today as it must have 20 years ago. Or perhaps the world is only now catching up. 

 Durell Godfrey

A reclaimed meadow is framed by a wisteria-covered stone folly.”

    East Hampton Town zoning restrictions were a blessing in disguise. The house could not be built on the crest of the dunes overlooking Gardiner’s Bay. Rather, it is nestled down into the rear of the dunes. The land slopes away from the house with the natural landscape dovetailing with the man-made, as Mr. Balsley described it.

    The impact and power of an abandoned hay field overgrown with Virginia cedars to the south was quickly seized upon. Today the field is a meadow that shimmers with rippling grasses almost as far as the eye can see, the edges softened and surrounded by woodland. To the uninitiated the expanse looks untouched by human hands. The reality is that almost as much was spent restoring the field as was invested in the rest of the landscape. Thousands of cedars were hand dug for removal and native grasses were sown.

    On a sunny day in June, alternating waves of amber and yellow grasses transform the space to a higher realm. A few native trees remain as solitary architectural shapes or clusters in strategic areas. The result is one that nature itself would be pleased to claim. The meadow is mowed once a year in autumn and it is given a good weeding in early spring. Michael Blake, who has gardened there since the beginning, is in charge.

    The transitional area between house and meadow is given to sweeps of smoky blue and purple perennials that resist deer predation. Close to the house, a large area is planted with a variety of lavenders, and across a grass path, two forms of catmint are in bloom, to be followed by Russian sage. The catmint vignette is worthy of emulation: It combines masses of the dwarf Nepeta x faassenii Blue Wonder with the taller N. Walker’s Low. They sway in the breezes, echoing the grasses in the meadow beyond.

    The area is overrun by deer. The Alexanders’ philosophy is if the deer eat it, try something else. In this environment, the visitor is totally unaware of compromises, however.

 Durell Godfrey

Chairs are the only structures on the dunes.”

    The house’s long, rectangular, glass-walled living and dining space floats on a steel bridge above the ground.  It appears nearly transparent and is connected by three supporting structures, or towers. Inside the largest one, to the north, you see the water view, and turning south, the meadow. Looking back toward the house from the meadow you see the dunes through the space beneath the living area. From the dunes through a transitional mass of bayberries and rugosa roses, you can look back at the swimming pool and the meadow.

    The Alexanders did not want a fence around the swimming pool to interfere with the integrated landscape or the views. The solution to the south was fairly easy: The house is built on a platform, or terrace, running perpendicular to it with a swimming pool in the center. The grade was manipulated so the terrace is edged with a fieldstone sitting wall, the required four feet above the ground level and the pool.

    At the north end of the terrace, under the bridge, a sinuous lily pond, which may resonant as a moat, was dug at the base of the dunes. The distance from the bottom of the pond to the terrace is the necessary four feet.

    A narrow planting bed runs nearly the length of the eastern wall of the terrace. This year it is given to a variety of salad greens, ruby chard, and colorful annuals. Herbs grow in containers in another sunny area on the terrace. Nothing can or ought even to try to compete with the drama of the meadow, so a few simple containers are clustered in the southwest by the pool house.

 Durell Godfrey

”

    This is a family with children and grandchildren so a circular area of lawn was located to the east of the house. Not taking themselves too seriously, a light touch was added on the far side of the lawn, a folly of a stone ruin, echoing a stone pool house tower. The arched doorway of the wisteria-covered folly frames views of the blue nepeta and grasses in one direction, and in the other of a partially shaded, deep border of purple salvias and angelonias with golden Hakkone grass to the rear. You also can look through the arch toward the meadow.

    In our highly urbanized society and in a highly developed community where only vestiges remain of East Hampton’s rural landscape, the Alexanders and Thomas Balsley have indeed created a vision of paradise by walking lightly on the land.

 Durell Godfrey

A sinuous lily pond, at left, nothing can or ought to compete with the drama of the meadow, which stretches as far as the eye can see, middle. At right, the living area is above the pool and its windows are angled so that they reflect the landscape.”

 Abby Jane Brody

You can see the dunes from poolside.”

 Durell Godfrey

The dune-side of the house.”

   Last year, my brothers and I sold our family home: a little 100-year-old pink stucco house at the end of a road, surrounded by a golf course and water. Exquisite. It was a painful time whose time had come. I was ready for a little “city living,” having neighbors close by, restaurants that stayed open year round, and no pop-up shops for twerking tweens. (Sorry, East Hampton Village, but you have become dismal in winter and downright silly in summer.) I made plans to move to Sag Harbor.

    I fell in love with a house on Route 114 and moved last September. It is a beautiful old house built in 1880, with wide pumpkin pine floors, fireplaces, and the first big kitchen I have ever had the good fortune to work in. My block on 114, excuse me, Hampton Street, is as neighborly as can be. I met everyone next to me, across the street from me, and around the corner, before I had even moved in: Adrienne, Starr, Joy, Gahan, Robert, Nancy, Beatrice, and so on. Hurricane Sandy preparations were done together. Advice was proffered.

    “Don’t park your car on the street in summer. Fold down your rear-view mirror; it’ll get clipped off.” For some reason, the low speed limit close to the elementary school stretch of 114 is a magnet for moronic driving. I had no idea how moronic until one night in early December.

    I was awakened by what I was sure was an explosion within the house, or at the very least, a heavy piece of furniture filled with dishes had decided to topple over. I crept downstairs in my pajamas, sniffing the air for gas, smoke, fumes, furniture in smithereens. Nothing. I turned around to return upstairs. Then I saw headlights shining through my front window — about five feet away from my face. I’m pretty sure I immediately went into some form of shock, and I tore upstairs to bundle up in warm clothes.

    By the time I get back downstairs and open the front door, flashing red lights and a gathering of police and emergency personnel are already on the scene. They yell at me. “Don’t come through that door! Is there any other way you can exit the house?!” A car has smashed up onto the porch, crushing the foundation, toppling the pillars supporting the roof and shoving the entire structure sideways, and down. I go through the back gate and come out to see a substantial S.U.V. (natch) crushed against the front corner of my house. The driver is fine, hunky dory in fact, saved by the airbag and calmly calling his boyfriend to come and pick him up.

    He had fallen asleep at the wheel, taken out a streetlamp and  a tree before swerving into my charming, old, old, innocent, wooden house. That dude must’ve been bookin’ it!

    I basically just stood there crying while my neighbor Adrienne tried to comfort me. The police took pictures, the totaled car was towed away. The building inspector came to ensure I could safely re-enter the house for the rest of the night. Orange cones and yellow police tape were stacked and wrapped around the holy mess. I texted my friend and contractor Sal because he is a Sag Harbor volunteer fireman.  Eventually, the scene attracted a crowd. One strange fellow showed up with a small child and took pictures. To add just another soupcon of Fellini-esqueness, a deer bounded across 114, up onto the shattered, jagged chunks of porch, danced a confused little jig, and then clattered back across the highway. We all crack up, what else can you do?

    Here’s a piece of advice: When someone else’s insurance company balks at your estimate for repairs, sic your own insurance company on them, they speak the liability lingo. My peeps at Amaden Gay made mincemeat of those fellows at Geico.

    The porch was rebuilt, slowly and carefully, by Sal and Dave, the whale and spout railing duplicated beautifully, the stone foundation stronger than ever. Terry, the painter, told me stories of having coming to my house long ago, to play with the Earley boys. He had an idea. He described the oldest house in Bridgehampton. “It’s gray and white like yours, but it has this unique green door. I think it would look beautiful on your new porch.”

    On the night of the accident, long after the flashing lights and policemen and tow trucks and moronic driver and curious neighbors were gone, Sal knocked on the door. After giving me a hug he quoted John Irving’s T.S. Garp. “It’s been pre-disastered! You’re safe now!”

    So when you pass the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home (that oughta slow you down!) and the elementary school, please drive carefully. And take a second to admire the sweet little house with the cool green door. My mantra has become “it’s pre-disastered. We’re going to be safe here.”

    The house is purple. Inside and out: painted cedar planks on the exterior and tongue-in-groove millwork in the interior. The overarching aesthetic is startling given the setting in tall white-pine woods in East Hampton’s Northwest — a setting that prompted the modernist architect Don Chappell to suggest vibrant color for dramatic contrast. At least that’s how it all used to be. Today, if you take a careful look you will find a recent addition that has a calming effect.

   Sandra Thorn, now a retired attorney who had the house built in the 1980s, recalls the architect’s insistence. “It needs to be purple,” he said.

   “Are you crazy? I spend all day wearing black,” was her response. But she decided to go along with it anyway.

    “I had seen Don’s houses and they were all white and gray, which is what I thought I’d get,” she said. “It’s taken me 30 years to get used to it.” Thirty years — and some new wings along the way.

   At first, Ms. Thorn would refer to the color as periwinkle, but others didn’t recognize that nuance. When a grandson said the house was purple, his dad shushed him so she wouldn’t hear it. Eventually she faced the facts. Even the fuel deliveryman identified the house as purple on receipts.

    Not only did Mr. Chappell dictate the color, he chose the furnishings. “I’m not interested in interior design,” Ms. Thorn said, explaining that she entrusted it to him. He gave her three choices for each piece, from sofa to side tables to a handsome coral and lavender built-in seat.

    The only feature of the living room he didn’t choose was an Oriental rug. “He’d kill me if he saw it,” she told a recent visitor.

    In the ’90s, about the time Ms. Thorn and Mike Flynn, a lawyer who is now also retired, were married, they built the first of two additions, a large kitchen and pantry. The architect Kenton Van Boer took over after Mr. Chappell moved to Florida. (He died unexpectedly at the age of 55.)

     The addition connects with the main house seamlessly, helped by similar cabinetry, in this case white-painted maple.

Despite some neutral hues — the ceiling is rough-hewn natural cedar — strong color is still a reigning motif. Cupboard doors open to reveal a burst of bright orange shelving.

    The formidable pantry contains dovetailed cabinets built by Mr. Flynn, who humbly calls himself a “down in the basement woodworker.” His handiwork is evident throughout the house, from a tricked out dressing room to a simple bench.

In 2005 the couple felt the need for another addition. This time they built an airy refuge that became the principal living area. It wasn’t the color purple that drove them out of the original house, but the cube-like living room, which reflects a lovely light in summer yet becomes cavernous in winter. As they began to spend more and more time in East Hampton, they wanted space that was light but cozy year round.

    When planning this addition, Mr. Van Boer suggested they choose between adhering to the aesthetic of the purple house or going with something totally different. Opting for the latter, they chose an elliptical mini house with two almost round rooms and an exterior framed in copper. The contrast is distinctive.  

    Unlike the main house, with the color purple inside and out, the copper siding doesn’t flow indoors. There are white walls, blond bamboo floors, and lots of butterscotch basswood on a barreled, or curved, ceiling as well as on pocket doors and baseboards. And lots of skylights.

     The entrance leads directly to a TV room with his and her swivel lounge chairs and a floor-to-ceiling bay window. “The whole purpose of the addition was this room,” Mr. Flynn said. A wood-burning stove sits in a small alcove. Visible outside the window, and framing its top, is a copper overhang that blocks out harsh summer sun and prevents rain from coming in when the windows are open. It apparently was the couple’s only contribution to the design.

   The master bedroom, a minimalist, anti-purple room with whites and beiges and ethereal curtains that drift in the breeze, is in this addition. Its windows overlook the woods, and the couple often wake up to see browsing deer.

   Despite the new look, brilliant color has definitely infiltrated Ms. Thorn’s world. Friends have noticed a decided trend — one she had not noticed herself — as she gradually replaced much of her black wardrobe with lavenders, fuschias, and other shades of purple.

 Durell Godfrey

The house opens to an outside eating space and pool.

 Durell Godfrey

The cube-like living room is sparsely furnished.

 Durell GodfreyThe copper panels of the addition were a challenge to install.

 Durell Godfrey

In the dining room, a 10-foot-long painting of a bluefin tuna by the Connecticut artist James Prosek is flecked with shades of purple.  In the copper addition, a wood stove is tucked into its own alcove. An open stairway leads from the living room to upstairs bedrooms.

    In a grove of cedars in the woods of Springs, Marcia Previti and Peter Gumpel have taken architecture into an unexpected, although appropriate, realm: the outdoors.

    The couple, who are architects, have lived in a “raised ranch, split-level, postmodern bungalow” (in their words) for 22 years. In the course of those two-plus decades, they have taken the art and science of constructing buildings and, one could say, turned it inside out, creating a series of outdoor “rooms” filled with surprise.

    “We’re doers,” Ms. Previti said as she showed a recent visitor around. “We like to work and create. We like the outdoors, so we were always outside tending to the grove. It’s a nice space, now what are we going to do with it? We make a room out of it, for a purpose. It developed one to the next.”

    Ms. Previti and Mr. Gumpel had separate architectural practices in New York. She concentrated on corporate interiors and residences but gave it up about five years ago, although she continues to work under her husband’s umbrella, PMG Architects.

 Durell Godfrey

A hammock crosses the path from the Shade Garden to the Fire Pit Room.”

    The couple first came to East Hampton in 1981 as co-owners of a boat docked at the marina at Duck Creek off Three Hile Harbor. Five years later, they went in on a house at Lion Head in Springs with another couple, renovated it, and began alternating their summer weekends between land and sea. After their son was born, however, they decided it was time to build their own house.

    “Being architects, we decided jointly that we didn’t want to do a traditional East End garden with lawns and selective planting,” Mr. Gumpel said. “The natural instinct was to take advantage of the environment that we had by doing clearings, spotting rooms — outdoor rooms — that had different character to them.”

`    The overall garden, which has been on the Garden Conservancy’s “open days” tours and is opened occasionally for benefit performances, now has some nine distinct spaces, not to mention a wisteria arbor and a greenhouse, and each has a given name. The grounds and plantings occurred with no articulated master plan. “It’s not as if there’s a target, and we’re 90 percent there. It’s an evolving, iterative process,” Mr. Gumpel said.

    The couple’s son was 2 when they moved into the house, Ms. Previti said, “so we wanted a piece of lawn. . . . We limited it to that, put up posts, and called it the Games Lawn.” But it was a birthday party for Ms. Previti shortly after they took up residence that was the real genesis of the garden.

 Durell Godfrey

Outdoor lighting makes the Shade Garden cozy in the evening.”

     “I said, ‘If you have to bring something, bring me a plant.’ People did. Twenty-two years later, I know a little more about plants, and can put things in a place where they should be, and know I’m going to get a bloom cycle through the season.” Today the grounds are filled with flowers: foxgloves, daylillies, peonies, irises, nepeta, gooseneck and purple loosetrife, lespedeza, crepe myrtle, and many, many more.

     The Sun Garden came next. “I got the stones, some dirt, started raking these forms, and ended up with an area in the middle. I knew that some feature should be here. We went to Agway, and they had this fountain. That became a real feature,” Ms. Previti said.

    Rhodo Walk, an S-shaped path amid the cedars and rhododendrons on one side of the house, leads to a Treehouse, high above the ground, which is even appropriate as an adult retreat.

    What was literally glaring in its absence, Ms. Previti said, was shade. The first rooms had “hot, searing sun all the time.

    There was no escape from it. Peter cleared an area, and we realized that would be a nice shady nook. We developed that room, and it became the Shade Garden.”

    Vacations to Caribbean resorts inspired a Ping-Pong Pavilion, a tent-covered space with table tennis, seating, and lights for nighttime play. “When we have parties, friends come out here and play. It’s a lot of fun,” Ms. Previti said. Throughout the property, sculpture reflects and complements the surroundings. Red dragons are in the trees at Pop’s Garden.

 Durell Godfrey

Beams under the tree house, above the Rhodo Walk, have whimsical ends. Willow and grapevine spheres are decorative.”

    A traditional space on the property is a garage with a studio above it, accessed by a circular staircase. The wisteria arbor is at one side. “The house is very small, and we’re a creative family, always doing projects, so we needed a project room,” Ms. Previti said. Another seating area, beneath a pergola, is adjacent, at the far end of the swimming pool.

    Although active as an architect — Mr. Gumpel was responsible for everything within the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago and has designed houses on the South Fork for Ian Schrager, among others, for example — he also does watercolors. Portraits and paintings of seascapes, landscapes, and some of the couple’s travel destinations, particularly India and Nepal, cover the studio walls; others are in the house.

 Peter Gumpel

A Kimberly fern is on a pedestal in the Fire Pit Room.”

    Finally, deer fencing was moved to free up space for a Fire-Pit Room. Inspired by visits to the LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, Ms. Previti asked herself why they shouldn’t have one. Lighting makes it a cozy nighttime environment, and it is perfect in autumn, she said.

    They also have walking paths through an adjacent wooded area. “It was really dense, and we couldn’t use it. . . . It took several years to clear and connect the deer paths,” Ms. Previti said. Now you can just about circumnavigate the property, resting perhaps in the hammock that crosses one of the paths or stopping at the pergola.

    “It’s the idea . . . of creating a journey, of flowing from space to space,” Ms. Previti said.

 Durell Godfrey

Aganthus in two pots frame the Games Lawn.”

 Durell Godfrey

Like other sculptures, the couple made the red dragons that guard Pop’s Garden.”

   One person’s trash is another’s treasure was Bryan and Michele Gosman’s mantra as they assembled the pieces of what is now their dream house.

    On a cul-de-sac called Beach Hollow Court, nestled next to a reserve in Montauk, the land was once part of a 25-acre estate with a storied past. It was known as the Jackson estate, for the artist Elbert McGran Jackson, and was quite a showplace. Originally laid out by Andrew J. Thomas, an architect, he had “a main house, a greenhouse, and a watchtower,” Ms. Gosman said last week. And there was more.

    Photographs at the Montauk Library taken in the 1920s show llamas and peacocks roaming the grounds and other animals in a private zoo. By the end of the 1950s, the buildings had fallen into disrepair. The land was subdivided into 15 lots in 1988, with more than half the acreage remaining in open space.

    The Gosmans, who have been together for 18 years, fell in love with the place and bought one of the sites in 2003. It would be almost 10 years — and lots of do-it-yourself effort — before the house was finished.

    They had already built one house, on the Old Montauk Highway in 1999, sold it, and moved into a cottage on Sheperd’s Neck, which they rented at first and then bought. Its cost put construction of the Beech Hollow Court house on hold. Nevertheless, they began designing it themselves, and literally putting the pieces for it in place.   

    “This guy had these beams and was looking to get rid of them. I knew they were long-leaf yellow pine,” Mr. Gosman, who is the wholesale manager in the family’s fish empire, explained last week, adding that this particular strain of pine is almost as hard as oak. “When the guy told me he had 200 old beams, I said, ‘Okay, I’ll go get them in a pickup truck.’ ” Their use began to take shape in his mind.

    The beams, stored in Brooklyn, had come out of an old Patchogue lace mill. When Mr. Gosman showed up, he realized a pickup wouldn’t do. “Each beam weighs 200 to 300 pounds apiece,” he said. “You need a tractor-trailer.”

    Transporting them wasn’t the only problem: Every inch of beam had to be gone over with a metal detector to remove the nails. Mr. Gosman took the lumber to a mill in Connecticut where it was cut into tongue-and-groove flooring. He had a 40-foot container brought to Beach Hollow Court and loaded the wood into it.

    “That was 10 years ago,” he said.

    “The floors were hard pine. I wanted to do the beams in hard pine. I didn’t have any more left, so I bought them from a company in Springfield, Mass.” These beams, which are about 10-by-12 inches around, form the exposed skeleton of the A-shaped ceiling, which visually dominates the 1,250-square-foot open living area of the L-shaped structure. Cross beams hold it all together. “They act as collar ties,” Mr. Gosman said.

     The halls of the house have wooden walls and terra-cotta flooring, which were other finds. “The wood in the hallway is old cypress from a former distillery in Brooklyn. They had 25,000-gallon vats for sherry from the early 1900s,” he said. The owner of the building wanted to get rid of the wood to make way for a renovation. “I did the work myself. I bought a planer and a tongue-and-groove machine.” The clay-tile flooring, originally from France, had once been sub-roofing.   

    The exterior required choices to be made. The couple didn’t want shingles. “Too traditional,” Ms. Gosman said. Instead, the exterior wood is cedar. “All the outside siding and roofing I got from a company in British Columbia,” Mr. Gosman said. “I had it all pre-dipped in bleaching oil.”

    While he was gathering the materials for the structure, Ms. Gosman, who is a sales associate with Martha Greene Real Estate in Montauk, was gathering furnishings and hardware.

    She said she was an early eBay junkie, and started buying things on the site in the late 1990s. “There were some losses,” she said, laughing. “It was great. You’d order something online, and it would just show up at your house.” Her initial yen was for carpets, but they are nowhere to be seen today. “Well,” she said, “three dogs later, little is left of those early rugs.”

    “We were building a modern house, but I didn’t want all modern furniture,” she said. Instead, she assembled an eclectic mix of mid-century modern and early 20th century pieces along with a few antiques.

    One of her coups was a brass ceiling fixture in a Sputnik starburst pattern. About the size of the first space satellite, which was launched by the Russians, the fixture dates from about 1960. She said you could find one on eBay now for upward of $1,600. Her cost was $425. The cast-iron firedogs for the fireplace were another find. So, too. was the Roche Bobois couch, which came from Craigslist for pennies on the dollar.

    The couple were constantly revising their plans to fit the pieces they accumulated. They drew in pencil, ready to revise at a moment’s notice. One of those moments came when Mr. Gosman bought a stove on eBay.

    “He didn’t know much about eBay,” Ms. Gosman said. He had placed a bid on a two-oven Bluepoint stove. A week later, Ms. Gosman noticed an e-mail from eBay. “Congratulations, you are the winner of a Bluepoint Five Foot Stove,” it read.  

    “We hadn’t designed for a five-foot stove,” Ms. Gosman explained. Pencils out, plans were changed. They swung the refrigerator around the corner, into the pantry, creating an open area around the stove, with a 4-by-9-foot island for friends and family to gather at while the couple cook. The top of the island was paid for in an unusual form of coinage.

    Mr. Gosman had walked into a lumber mill. “They’d just cut down an old walnut tree from somebody’s yard. I traded a few lobsters for the tree itself. They cut it for me into three-inch stock, and I let it air-dry for about a year.” Now they set their plates on a walnut top.   

    In 2011, the couple sold the house at Shepard’s Neck. They were ready for the big plunge. Temporarily homeless, they moved in with Mr. Gosman’s mother, Marjorie Gosman. They took their plans to a draftsman, who turned them into working blueprints. Construction began on their dream house at the end of that year.

    Ever flexible, they made changes on the fly. When their mason was putting in the fireplace, he suggested another on the exterior wall. It made sense to the Gosmans, and is now the centerpiece of their patio. Similarly, when the stairs were being built, the builder suggested enclosing them, something he’d seen in the Stanford White houses on the Montauk bluffs.   

    Positioning the house on the property presented a challenge. Normally, Ms. Gosman said, you’d want to maximize exposure to the sun, perhaps placing the house to catch the sunrise. In this case, though, they would look out at Montauk’s huge water tower in the distance. The tower is a sterile structure that looks like a huge rocket, perhaps about to launch the cherished Sputnik fixture back into space. So they changed the position of the house.    

    The old wood throughout the house gives it a warm feeling. Otherwise, the interior is spare, which highlights Ms. Gosman’s finds. Spare, that is, everywhere except in their son’s, Richard’s, room, which has the chaotic look of most 8-year-old boys’ rooms.

    Now, Ms. Gosman said, they will take their time, allowing their new surroundings to soak in. She wants to get a feel for the house over a couple of years before making any more changes. The pencils have been put away — for now.

 Durell Godfrey

Open to new ideas during years of planning, Bryan and Michelle Gosman said yes when a contractor suggested an outdoor fireplace. ”

 Durell Godfrey

The master bedroom gets western light.”

 Durell Godfrey

The 1,250-square-foot open living area from another perspective. ”

 Durell Godfrey

At left,Dixie Cup, one of the couple’s three dogs, stands guard between the patio and main living area. Right,The walls of the hall are cypress from antique sherry casks, the Sputnik chandelier was an eBay find, and the clay tiles are from France. ”

 Durell Godfrey

At left, a 10-foot-long monastery table is used for dining. The chairs, by the Danish firm Hay, were designed by Hee Welling. Right,Cast-iron German shepherd firedogs are antiques, too. ”

   Six noted designers and decorators who live or work on the South Fork have staged an unusual showhouse that will open this weekend as a benefit for the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons. They have taken over six rooms in the organization’s thrift shop, on the Montauk Highway in Sagaponack, and decorated them on intriguing themes. Grace Coddington, the creative director of Vogue, is the honorary chairwoman.

    Unlike traditional showhouses, which are usually in mansion-size houses that are for sale, the third annual showhouse for ARF is in twin Dutch colonial-style buildings with small rooms. They will be filled with objects and furniture from the thrift shop, which will all be for sale rather than the house. The idea, Sarah McConnell, the event’s co-chairwoman and an interior designer herself, said, is that “there are endless opportunities for things that once seemed old.” The weekend will kick off with a cocktail party on Saturday and the rooms will open to the public on Sunday, remaining on view until Tuesday.

    In a reference to the once-notorious house called Grey Gardens in East Hampton, Annie M. Napoliello has chosen “Little Edie’s Boudoir” as her theme. Ms. Napoliello’s work has been described as “high-end glam with tag-sale chic, boho-hippie with sleek modern edges.” Elizabeth Dow, who is known for hand-painted wall coverings and textiles and has a studio in Amagansett, is offering “50 Shades of . . . Grey.”

    Preston Phillips of Bridgehampton, a well-known architect who enjoys interior design, is creating a room for a “Party for Two.” Barbara Ostrom, whose book about more traditional designer showhouses is due out next year, has created “A Writer’s Room.” Ms. Ostrom has frequently been seen on television design shows.

    James Huniford, of the Huniford Design Studio, who has been cited as one of 10 top designers by Architectural Digest and has a Bridgehampton house, has titled his room “Sagaponack Serenity.” Finally, Ann and Susan Madonia, a mother-and-daughter team of the eponymous shop in Southampton, have settled on “A Quiet Summer Interlude.” All of the designers are reported to be animal lovers, and they are donating their time and expertise.

    Almost 20 percent of ARF’s $2.4 million operating budget comes from the shop. Funds are also raised at its “Bow Wow Meow Ball,” which will be held on Aug. 17 this year, from a garden tour, set for June 15, as well as from individual and corporate donations. It receives no government assistance.

    Lisa McCarthy, the president of the board, said the operating budget always has a shortfall, and she noted that ARF had had a 65-percent increase in the number of animals it accepted for adoption this year — with concomitant increases in food and medical costs.

    Saturday’s cocktail party will begin with a $250 per-person preview hour at 5 p.m. Otherwise, the party costs $150 and will begin at 6. Wines from Channing Daughters and hors d’oeuvres by the Dancing Gourmet will be served.

    The showhouse will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday and Monday, with a $10 donation suggested. Children will be admitted free.

    After a sojourn in Southampton last year, the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons’ garden tour, now in its 27th year, returns to East Hampton on June 15. The tour features six private gardens, complimentary admission to the Much Ado About Madoo garden market sale in Sagaponack, and a separate cocktail reception.

    Highlights include the gardens of two landscape designers, Craig James Socia’s Craigmoor property on Accabonac Road and that of Michael Derrig and his wife, Dwyer, on Buell Lane Extension.

    The Derrigs’ residence will also be the site for free refreshments during the tour hours, which are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., rain or shine. Among the other properties are those of Barrie Berg and Antonio Munoz, Alexandra Munroe and Robert Rosenkranz, Peter Wilson and Scott Sanders, and Jan and Randy Slifka.

    The tour is self-guided, and ticketholders can see the gardens in any order. A cocktail reception immediately follows, from 4 to 6 p.m., at the iconic home of Mary Jane and Charles Brock in the Village of East Hampton. Barbara Slifka and Mark Fichandler are heading up this year’s event.

    There are properties in Georgica, in the woods, off the ocean, and on the beach itself. Many of the gardens incorporate formal, more casual, and organic sections. Specimen trees, lily ponds, stacked stone walls, water features, and unique pool, hot tub, and outdoor shower designs are some of the inspirations awaiting.

    Tickets for the tour cost $75 each and can be purchased through ARF by phone or on its Web site, arfhamptons.org. They can also be had in person at the adoption center at 91 Daniel’s Hole Road in East Hampton, the organization’s thrift shop on Montauk Highway in Sagaponack, and at the following garden centers: Lynch’s and Mecox Gardens in Southampton, East Hampton Gardens, Bayberry in Amagansett, and the Sag Harbor Florist.

    Tickets for the tour and cocktail reception cost $175 and must be purchased in advance by phone, online, or at ARF’s adoption center. All proceeds from the tour benefit ARF.   

    The Madoo Conservancy is celebrating its 20th birthday with a two-day gardening event that will combine socializing, shopping, and education all in the verdant and captivating environment of Robert Dash’s home and public garden in Sagaponack.

    The event kicks off with a cocktail party tomorrow from 6 to 9 p.m. on the back lawn overlooking the Foster family’s farm fields. It will offer Wolffer Estate wines, special “Madoo cocktails” made with Hendrick’s gin, and hors d’oeuvres by Gorgen Tiden, an award-winning Swedish chef. A silent auction and a live one conducted by Jamie Niven will feature garden-related objects of desire, from the prized chicken manure fiercely fought over every year to a pair of trips to Sweden.

    On Saturday, a garden market will have rare and unusual plants and garden tools and accessories. Vendors include Seibert & Rice, Hunter Boot U.S.A., Haven’s Kitchen, Joy Newton, the New General Store, and Madison James. They will donate 10 percent of their sales that day to Madoo. There will be activities for children throughout the day as well.

    During the day there will be classes and workshops on flower arranging, rose cultivation, tree management, cooking, and, much in the spirit of Madoo, mixology from the garden. A lunchtime lecture and book signing with Mac Griswold at noon will focus on the history of Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island, the topic of her forthcoming book, “The Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island.”

    A full schedule and information about reservations are available at Madoo.org. Space is limited and advance purchase has been recommended.