The house reveals itself slowly. On a remote stretch of the Dominican Republic coast, a stone footpath winds its way through a dense landscape of old-growth trees, zamia, and native flowers. Gradually, a timber structure comes into focus, its undulating form seemingly afloat above the jungle floor.
Only upon stepping past that wood-clad volume, under a 70-foot-wide span and up into the central courtyard, do you see the ocean.
That progression is all expert choreography on the part of architect Bryan Young, principal of the Brooklyn-based studio Young Projects and nowadays very much a name to know. “Every decision facilitates the experience of the landscape,” he notes of the property, which includes two additional houses of his design. One is a low-slung string of four adjoining stucco bungalows, the other a monolithic enigma—chamfered at the corners and covered in graphic, almost pixelated tile, earning it the name Glitch House. Together this trio of buildings provides the ultimate escape, a place for friends and extended family to come together and decompress, as envisioned by his intrepid clients, Mike and Sukey Novogratz, a New York City couple with wellness on the brain.
