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From the Archive: Barbara Neski Returns to a Hamptons Home Decades After She First Designed It

The boundary-breaking modernist architect was usually mentioned alongside her husband. But a solo rehab of their Formby House distinguished her.

As a part of our 25th-anniversary celebration, we’re republishing formative magazine stories from before our website launched. This story previously appeared in Dwell’s July/August 2007 issue.

"We were so involved in the architecture that we never had time for networking," says 79-year-old Barbara Neski, recalling the 40-year collaboration she enjoyed with her late husband, Julian. "That way we could have a career and children too. We were always a close-knit family." Together they designed more than 35 houses in a style that was at once urgently urban while still being approachable and sensitive to their rural sites. While grounded in the geometry of European modernism, their best designs reflected both the landscape and the social milieu that were unique to the Hamptons, where 25 of their much-lauded vacation homes were built.

The sharp-edged, boxy forms with roof decks, sun courts, shifting planes, and multiple levels were very much an expression of the times. Exterior walls of white or gray-stained cedar siding served as foils for the play of light and shadow. Ramps replaced conventional stairways, evoking a sense of perpetual motion and perpetual expectation: Le Corbusier’s idea of la vie sportif reimagined for the television age. Unlike some of their better-known contemporaries, the Neskis rarely, if ever, repeated themselves.

Barbara, known as "Bobbie" by close friends, was born Barbara Goldberg in 1928 and grew up in Highland Park, New Jersey. In 1948, during her third semester at Bennington College, she discovered the joys of good design—she was taken by the elegance of the butterfly roof of the nearby Robinson House by Marcel Breuer in Williamstown, Massachusetts—and knew she wanted to be an architect. "I didn’t know that a house could be a work of art," she confesses. "Breuer was an eye-opener."

Barbara finished Bennington in 1949 and went on to Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), then under the directorship of Walter Gropius. Women architects were still an oddity then, and Barbara’s father warned her to take up shorthand just in case. While she never studied directly under Gropius, Barbara remembers him being a very gentle man, which wasn’t always the case with GSD faculty. One of her teachers, Hugh Stubbins, refused to take her seriously. "He would come around during crits and completely ignore me," recalls Barbara. "He didn’t even look at my drawings." She was, however, accepted by the other students. "All the guys wanted to help me. I had a lot of boyfriends."

She finished Harvard’s three-year program in two, and in 1952 started in the New York office of José Luis Sert, where she worked on urban plans for Bogotá and Havana. "There were only a few of us in the office and everything was charrette. We’d always work through the night." It was also at this time that she met her future husband and design partner, Julian Neski, who was also working for Sert. They married in December of 1953 while they were both working in Marcel Breuer’s office. "Breuer always liked women as ‘things’ hanging around the office," she says. There, Barbara developed plans for a factory in Canada, a house in Connecticut, and the new library at Hunter College. She stopped working for Breuer in 1957, pregnant with her first child, Steve. "I changed his diaper on our drafting table," she recalls.

By the early ’60s, the Neskis had established their own firm. "We shared everything and presented ourselves to clients as a team," says Barbara, but clients often had a more conventional view. "Invariably the wife would direct her questions about interiors to me and the husband would bring up money matters with Julian."

The Neskis’ clients weren’t merely escaping their weekday pressures; they were out to make a statement, transplanting their edgy energy from the city to the beach. The Simon House (Remsenburg, 1972) was just such a reflection of its owners’ careers. Peter Simon starred on a soap opera and his then-wife, Merle, was a singer/dancer on Broadway. The house’s 11 rooms were stacked in spiraling order, each on its own level. As one progressed up the central staircase, the ceilings got higher and the views expanded, culminating in a panoramic view of the ocean. "It opened up nicely as a stage set," says Barbara. "We liked to imagine Merle dancing down those stairs while her husband played the piano on a different level."

See the full story on Dwell.com: From the Archive: Barbara Neski Returns to a Hamptons Home Decades After She First Designed It
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Tracing the History of Boulder Crest, a Storied—and on the Market—Altadena Home

Rumors of a secret Frank Lloyd Wright provenance. Stonework that survived a 1930s fire. When I learned this house in my neighborhood was on the market, I had to learn more about it.

There are many homes that have piqued my curiosity in the few years since my wife and I bought our midcentury house in the foothills of Altadena, but none more than Boulder Crest. I can see the residence across Millard Canyon from our backyard, primarily its expansive, slanted white roof peeking out through the landscape’s mature coast live oaks. With binoculars I can make out a mottled wall and a storybook-style arched bridge surrounding the property’s perimeter, but little more. Even guarded by trees, the house demands attention whenever I scan the canyon, especially during early autumn evenings when my wife and I like to sit outside and watch the sunset.

Over the years I’d ask neighbors about the "house with the big white roof" in the hopes of learning more about the who, what, and when of the residence, but hardly anyone knew anything except that it was currently vacant and that there was a pool hidden somewhere out of view (and also that bears and mule deer regularly ambled through). One neighbor did divulge that he "heard from a friend" the home was a secret Frank Lloyd Wright—the sort of highly unlikely, but intriguing hearsay that only made me even more curious.

The house sits at the dead end of a sharply angled private road with only a handful of other neighbors, and I couldn’t muster the courage to venture up there and potentially bother any of them. But recently, I became friends with the couple who live next to the architectural apple of my eye, Greg and Sloane Mann. When the Manns invited me over, I not only got a better look at the adjacent Boulder Crest, but also found out that the property is for sale, and the realtor who sold my wife and I our home is representing the listing.

Altadena’s Boulder Crest home blends Arts and Crafts elements with midcentury-modern architecture.

Photo by Susan Pickering

1910s: Building a Foundation

Greg told me his childhood memories of Millard Canyon, but they don’t reach back to the original Boulder Crest; wildfire—an ever-present threat in these foothills, and one we have all come to know too well this year—claimed that earlier incarnation.

Boulder Crest was originally completed in 1912 as a "no expenses spared" three-story Swiss-style lodge commissioned by Los Angeles clothier and conservationist Reinhardt J. Busch. He was quoted in a 1952 Los Angeles Times story saying that the property "out-Swissed Switzerland"—a line from a pamphlet he published about the lodge, which also said, "with its many unique features, [Boulder Crest] has no counterpart in the United States."

The interiors merge arroyo stonework and old growth redwood with post-and-beam construction. — The interiors merge arroyo stonework and old growth redwood paneling with post-and-beam construction.

Courtesy Teresa Fuller

Busch claimed every block of granite was quarried or gathered from nearby hills and ravines; the terrace, bridge, and pathway were all hand-built with locally sourced rocks and stones. Two sizable boulders were positioned to form the home’s dramatic entrance. The estate’s grounds were lush with gardens and a stone bridge spanning a small creek—a retreat that embodied the emerging California ideal of architecture inviting in the outdoors.

A guest lodge "away from the noise and turmoil of city life, still easily accessible over finely boulevard drives, distanced only fourteen miles from Los Angeles," as Busch described it in the property pamphlet, Boulder Crest became the gathering place for early 20th-century visionaries—Thomas Edison and Henry Ford reportedly among them, with musicians from the Los Angeles Philharmonic holding practices in the music room.

That ideal, however, would meet its trial by fire. In October 1935, the Las Flores Canyon Fire swept through Altadena’s foothills, destroying the Busch lodge only leaving its masonry foundations waiting for another beginning.

Jade-hued concrete floors span from the living room to the kitchen.

Photo by Susan Pickering

See the full story on Dwell.com: Tracing the History of Boulder Crest, a Storied—and on the Market—Altadena Home
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The Content Creators Who Turned an Obsession With Vintage Love Motels Into One

After years spent touring America’s most fabulous—and dying out—spots, this kitsch-loving duo have distilled their favorite spots into a playful new Michigan vacation rental.

When content creators Margaret and Corey Bienert eased open the door to a honeymoon suite at Cove Haven Resort back in 2018, they had no idea just how life-changing their stay would be. Although they had seen an image online by the British photographer Juno Calypso that offered a glimpse of the resort’s nostalgic interiors, it hadn’t fully revealed the extent of what was in store. Waiting inside for them was a high-camp wonderland, complete with a champagne-glass tower bath worthy of burlesque queen Dita Von Teese herself. Over in the corner of the room, a heart-shaped tub bubbled invitingly beneath a mirrored ceiling.

It was love at first sight, Margaret recalls. "It was like walking into an entire world I didn’t realize was still alive. It feels like there was my life before we went to Cove Haven, and then life after."

The resort is in the Pocono Mountains, tucked into a sleepy corner of rural Pennsylvania, an area that, in the 1970s, became a surprising hotspot for newlyweds. Many of these fantasy-themed motels in the self-proclaimed Land of Love have since shuttered or are now struggling to keep the lights on. Sensing the urgency of their discovery, the couple set out to document this slice of not-quite-past Americana.

Couple Margaret and Cory Bienert as seen in one of the bedrooms in the house they’ve spent few years turning into their dream home—and hotel. — Margaret and Corey Bienert, who have long been fans of vintage, have spent the past few years turning The Sweetheart Hideaway into their dream home—and hotel. "The good thing is that we learned so much from project," Margaret says. "But the sad thing is that if we’d known the things we know now, it would have taken half the time. But you don’t know what you don’t know."

Photo by Jenn Goz

Their visit sparked a creative journey that sent the pair traveling coast-to-coast, staying in over 50 of the country’s most fantastical themed suites. Their adventures are chronicled for their 1.4 million followers on TikTok and more than 700,000 fans on Instagram. A glossy coffee-table book, Hotel Kitsch, followed in 2023. Then, earlier this year, the duo surprised their community by switching sides of the check-in desk and opening their own more-is-more rental home in Southwest Michigan.

The Sweetheart Hideaway, a four-bedroom house set within the woodlands of St. Joseph—rates start at $600 a night, and fluctuate throughout the year—features vintage relics salvaged from historic motels, an outdoor hot tub, a theatrical performance stage draped in dazzling gold curtains, and, of course, a cherry-red cupid tub. Dwell sat down with the couple to talk about their design inspiration, renovation realities, and how a passion project became a business.

The home has a number of unique touches, including a stage they built in the living room for guests to do karaoke on, complete with a custom heart rug on top. — The home has a number of unique touches, including a stage the couple built in the living room for guests to do karaoke on, complete with a custom heart rug on top.

Photo by Margaret Bienert

Why do you think A Pretty Cool Hotel Tour became such a viral hit?

Margaret Bienert: I think it’s really all about escapism, about wanting something outside of the current reality. When we started the account in 2019, it wasn’t an overnight blow-up, but the followers and interest grew steadily. Our audience is a mixture of older people who might have once stayed at these motels on their honeymoon, and younger people who work in fashion or photography and are looking for creative inspiration. We get people commenting that they’re buying heart-shaped dishes or painting a room a different color after seeing our page.

Corey Bienert: But as we have found out for ourselves, recreating these themed rooms is difficult to execute. Due to necessity, people often have to incorporate it in a more subtle way.

The bedrooms all have names; this one, called Star-Crossed, required some careful positioning to avoid putting the bed against the windows. They ended up covering a door that led to a small storage attic, using curtains to completely hide it from view. Inspired by a room at Cove Haven Resort, they were determined to install a star ceiling, which are a regular feature at kitschy hotels, and used Flex Ceilings to get it done. — The bedrooms all have names; this one, called Star-Crossed, required some careful positioning to avoid putting the bed against the windows. Margaret and Corey ended up covering a door that led to a small storage attic, using curtains to completely hide it from view. Inspired by a room at Cove Haven Resort, they were determined to install a star ceiling, which are a regular feature at kitschy hotels, and used Flex Ceilings to get it done.

Photo by Margaret Bienert

See the full story on Dwell.com: The Content Creators Who Turned an Obsession With Vintage Love Motels Into One
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This Minimalist Black Ski Cabin in Tahoe Feels as Fresh as a Powder Day

A family’s cluster of shed-roofed structures on a small lot bucks the conventions of the traditional mountain retreat.

Snow guards create seasonal insulation, and stormwater runoff is directed to infiltration systems to protect Lake Tahoe.

David Tang and Edith Tom, both software engineers, had an interesting take on their cross-continental move. Back when they lived in Sydney, Australia, they would routinely travel five hours to visit the Snowy Mountains, reveling in its rugged outdoor beauty. When their company offered to relocate them to San Francisco in September 2017 to assist with a new project, they said yes. The way they saw it, the California city is only three hours from the Sierras.

Minimal hardscaping was done to keep natural ground conditions as is, and fallen trees were left to decompose. The home was built on the slope of the lot to minimize how much land was moved. — After moving from Sydney to San Francisco, David Tang and Edith Tom built a family ski cabin in South Lake Tahoe designed to fit within its site instead of dominate it.

Photo: Joe Fletcher

In the spring of 2020, after years of visiting South Lake Tahoe whenever they could, David and Edith purchased a plot where the edge of the town meets the base of the mountains at Heavenly Mountain Resort. Ready to build a vacation home that made their trips from San Francisco even more worthwhile, the couple got in touch with Mork-Ulnes Architects.

"There were big Jeffrey pine trees, lots of boulders and logs, and a gentle slope," remembers project lead, architect Colin Griffin. "When we got started, they were clear about wanting to celebrate the site."

Sliders on either side of the living room aid in cross-ventilation. The ladder leads to a small office space. — The home comprises four shed-roofed structures connected at their corners, with the living area at the center. When open, sliders on either side create cross-ventilation. The ladder leads to a mezzanine office space.

Photo: Joe Fletcher

David and Edith hired Mork-Ulnes knowing that the firm is split between San Francisco and Oslo, Norway, and exemplifies the mindsets of these locales. The group envisioned a home that has a Scandinavia-meets-California appreciation for the outdoors, one that didn’t sprawl across the mountainside but rather existed within it. After so many years of treasuring the Tahoe landscape at a distance, in a way, David and Edith asked for a property that would envelope them within it.

Douglas-fir open shelving and cabinetry were designed to match the wood in the rest of the home. The refrigerator is hiding beside the hallway entrance. — Open shelving and cabinetry in Douglas fir were designed to match the plywood in the rest of the home. Caesarstone countertops in Blizzard were installed alongside Jenn-Air appliances. The refrigerator is concealed next to the entry hall.

Photo: Joe Fletcher

See the full story on Dwell.com: This Minimalist Black Ski Cabin in Tahoe Feels as Fresh as a Powder Day
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L.A.’s Famous Stahl House Should Belong to You

We do a disservice to modernist homes—and the public—when they are priced as private portfolio pieces for the rich.

As any regular reader of this publication is likely aware, there is a robust economy for modernist houses by significant architects. The most recent home to come to market is the iconic Stahl House for $25 million, designed by Pierre Koenig in the late 1950s as part of the well-known Case Study Houses, which advocated for mass-produced, affordable housing in the postwar period. Like many modernist houses, the Stahl House’s quiet story as an affordable and experimental model home for the postwar working class has bifurcated from its current, very audible, very unaffordable sale price.

From a real estate perspective, the price of the Stahl House is reasonable in comparison to recent historic house listings, such as the Ennis-Brown House by Frank Lloyd Wright asking $23 million (it sold for $18 million), or that of the Brown House by Richard Neutra, once owned by designer Tom Ford and after, writer and producer Ryan Murphy, who recently listed it at $33.9 million (it went for $24 million in September of 2025). These sales make the $8.75 million sale of Richard Neutra’s Lovell Health House to the Wirths (of Hauser-Wirth notoriety) and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Freeman House sale at a reported $1.8 million seem almost affordable. Like much of Los Angeles’s speculative real estate market, the prices of significant architecture are not established by rational means but by irrational notions of celebrity and desirability; these houses and their association with a particular mode of artful living drive up their prices, transforming previously humble family homes into coveted and rarefied assets. Historical value does not correlate with market value, but the bibliographic length of a house well published doesn’t hurt.

With the listing of the Stahl House, Bruce Stahl and Shari Stahl-Gronwald, the children of the original owners, are purportedly searching for an institution or individual who promises to preserve the house, as they have for the past six decades using much of their own resources (much applauded). The question is not if the house will sell—the question is to whom? By its price point, private ownership is inevitable. There is no public institution or nonprofit organization capable of acquiring it for this amount, so the asking price sets the terms of ownership: an individual buyer, likely a billionaire, of which Los Angeles has plenty. The high asking price all but guarantees the Stahl House will remain private, raising the question of whether and how critical public access to the house will be continued. (The Stahl family has not responded to request for comment.)

Los Angeles’s Stahl House, a Case Study house designed by Pierre Koenig in the late ’50s and completed in 1960, recently went up for sale by the children of the original owners for $24 million. — Los Angeles’s Stahl House, designed by Pierre Koenig in the late ’50s and completed in 1960, recently went up for sale by the children of the original owners for $25 million.

Photo: Cameron Carothers

Koenig designed the residence as part of Los Angeles’s Case Study Houses, a postwar experiment in creating affordable, easily replicable homes. — Koenig designed the Hollywood Hills residence as part of Los Angeles’s Case Study Houses, a postwar experiment in creating affordable, easily replicable homes.

Photo: Cameron Carothers

The modernist residence features a steel-and-glass construction and an open floor plan.

Photo: Cameron Carothers

See the full story on Dwell.com: L.A.’s Famous Stahl House Should Belong to You
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Can Netflix Revive Mall Culture? Plus, Everything Else You Need to Know About This Week

A billionaire investor spearheads an affordable housing project in Colorado, how Frank Gehry became a household name, and more.

Netflix is betting that immersive, in-person fan experiences can help revive struggling malls, rolling out massive attractions inside shuttered department stores. The strategy is similar to escape rooms or themed bars in that it strives to get viewers off their couches and into the real world. (Bloomberg)
A Colorado billionaire bought a 104-unit apartment complex in Steamboat Springs for $95 million and listed its units at prices well below market rate. Here’s how the purchase, backed by tech investor and philanthropist Mark Stevens, turned existing luxury apartments into affordable workforce housing seemingly overnight. (Colorado Sun)
The first completed building at the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago is Home Court, a 60,000-square-foot, all-electric facility anchored by an NBA-size basketball court with views of Jackson Park. The space was designed by Black-owned firm Moody Nolan with input from Barack Obama himself. (Chicago Sun Times)
The New York transit system’s chief accessibility officer, Quemuel Arroyo, knows the subway’s failures firsthand—his own commute from Harlem requires multiple buses just to reach an elevator-equipped subway station accessible for his wheelchair. Now he’s lobbying for billions to fix a system where nearly two-thirds of stations remain inaccessible. (The New York Times)

Frank Gehry, who died this month at 96, reshaped Los Angeles and cities around the world by treating buildings as playful, people-first experiments, from his radical Santa Monica home to Bilbao’s Guggenheim. Here’s how he became the first true "starchitect." (Dwell)

Top photo courtesy Netflix

Want an Escape From NYC? Here’s a $675K Cabin in the Woods

The revamped forest hideout is just an hour from Manhattan, but it feels a world away.

This revamped forest hideout is just an hour from Manhattan, but it feels a world away.

Location: 29 Tyler Road, Putnam Valley, New York

Price: $675,000

Year Built: 1969

Renovation Date: 1990

Renovation Designers: Dean & Dahl

Footprint: 2,671 square feet (3 bedrooms, 3 baths)

Lot Size: 2.78 Acres

From the Agent: "Perched at the edge of the 400-acre Granite Mountain Preserve, 29 Tyler Road is a masterfully reimagined home that blends bold, expressive architecture with an unparalleled connection to nature. Originally designed by architects in the 1970s and now completely transformed by award-winning design studio Dean & Dahl, this glass-walled sanctuary spans 2.78 private wooded acres and feels like a retreat in the treetops. Outside, moss-covered boulders and stone paths lead to a private deck—ideal for morning coffee or evening cocktails under the stars. Located just 2.7 miles from the Taconic Parkway and 10.8 miles from Metro-North, this is a one-of-a-kind escape where exceptional design meets wilderness—just an hour from Midtown Manhattan."