Studying the site, which abuts the noisy highway and Long Island Rail Road to the north, Mr. Masi noted that the cottage seemed to be pushed into a dark corner of the lot to keep it as far from the traffic as possible. For better light and air, and to expand the usable portion of the yard outside, he proposed putting the new house closer to the center of the lot. Because it was in a flood zone, the land would also have to be built up about six feet higher than it was. To deal with the noise, Mr. Masi wanted to design a house with a thick front wall that would create an “acoustical shadow,” he said, to shield the interior spaces and the new backyard behind it.
“The simplest way to control sound is just with mass, whether it’s stone or masonry,” Mr. Masi said. “We looked at stone, concrete, brick, but it was really just out of our budget.” Then he found a soundproofing material called mass loaded vinyl, more commonly used on interior floors and walls, and devised a method for building it into the facade by clamping sheets of the material between vertical weathering-steel brackets and covering them with cedar siding.
The resulting 1,762-square-foot house is opaque in front, with no openings except for the front door, which is protected by its own wall of cedar and mass loaded vinyl. When you step inside, outdoor sounds fade away and the house opens up with a view through a 28-foot-long expanse of floor-to-ceiling sliding-glass doors that connect to a new deck and firepit. A combined kitchen, dining and living space is at the center of the home; the primary suite is on one side, and a guest bedroom and den is on the other.
Together, Mr. Berryman and Mr. Masi developed a minimalist material palette. Interior walls are finished in the same white cedar as the exterior; floors, walls and cabinets are white oak; and the stone in the kitchen and bathrooms is sandblasted Gaja Venus quartzite. Mr. Berryman, a design aficionado who chose all the furniture, didn’t want to see many light fixtures, so Mr. Masi recessed light boxes into the ceilings and vertical light slots in the walls.