Architecture Wednesday: The Rubber House

There are houses for everyone and this one, well, this is so not for me. I don’t care for much of it, save the master bedroom and feel like it needs a good cleaning and a fresh paint job and a whole new kitchen and a reimagining of spaces and, oy, that is too much work for this queen.

But this is the  Rubber House, sort of a case study architectural project of landscape architect Tom Pritchard, who built it in 1981 for choreographer Eugene Loring and his partner, a chef. That explains the upstairs dance studio.

The Rubber House in Accord is completely covered in a grey-black neoprene skin and features a contrasting colorful, postmodern interior, filled with glazing and dappled light. It has a double-height staircase void capped with a curving glass roof, glass-to-glass corners and a roof terrace, connecting it to its wooded setting. Actor Willem Dafoe, who once called the property home, remarked that “nature has a dialogue with it… the inside looks out, the outside looks in”.

I love the glass, and the setting, and the boulders littering the property, but the house needs a fresh paint job, something that won’t detract from the view, and the kitchen, well, I’d keep the stove, but it needs an updating if I were to live there. I get modern-day Winchester Mystery House vibes what with the curving staircases and stairs behind doors and terraces and balconies and studios and bedrooms and how do I find my way around!!!

Pritchard embraced eco-friendly techniques such as a paint-free neoprene exterior—hence the ‘Rubber House’—and natural ventilation to create the home, which has a vaulted chef’s kitchen, a freestanding geometric fireplace, and a two-person bathtub.

The rural two-bedroom property is about 100 miles from New York City and lies on prehistoric boulders in seven-acre grounds, just outside Accord and the Mohonk nature reserve. It is available to rent as a creative retreat for about  $600 a night.

I don’t think I’d sleep a wink.

 The Spaces