In collectors’ circles, Mark McDonald has been called the godfather of midcentury modern design. His first gallery, Fifty/50, which opened in downtown Manhattan in 1983, jump-started the market for vintage furniture by Marcel Breuer, Alvar Aalto, the Eameses and their contemporaries. Twenty years later, exhausted by the growing competition, he relocated to the upstate New York town of Hudson, where he turned a former department store into a showcase for classic modern design.
It’s becoming ever harder to make discoveries from that era, so McDonald and his partner Dwayne Resnick closed the store and commissioned Steven Holl to design a house on a vacant plot behind it to serve as an office, library and showcase for pieces they want to sell. There’s an upstairs bedroom, but their main residence is in nearby Hillsdale, and it’s there they keep the treasures they cannot bear to part with.
Walk through this furniture gallerist's dream live-work space
‘During the pandemic, I found I didn’t like working from home – too many distractions and not enough space,’ says McDonald. ‘I interviewed Steven at the beginning of his career and followed his work over the years. So, when we decided to build, I sent an email to ask if he would be interested, and half an hour later, he replied: “That would be a nice project for me”.’ Architect and client are near contemporaries – and near neighbours since Holl moved home and archive to Rhinebeck, while keeping his large office in Manhattan. Though McDonald had a limited budget and wanted something straightforward, nothing is simple when two perfectionists collaborate on a project.
There were many discussions and, as the client recalls, ‘a lot of push and a little pull – Steven can be quite persuasive’. Other architects they admired enriched the exchange, notably Rudolph Schindler, the Viennese architect who emigrated to the US to work with Frank Lloyd Wright and then had an adventurous 30-year practice in Los Angeles. Holl calls him ‘the greatest space-maker, who combined open plans with shifts of level in tiny houses that are full of energy’.
The influence of Schindler’s buildings and furniture is clear in the sharp angularity, planar composition and asymmetrical placement of windows. Named the L-House for its shape, it features a south-facing garden and reflecting pool, with an outdoor lighting fixture salvaged from a 1912 Wright house in Minnesota. The walls are clad in powder-coated aluminium, a custom design with finger-width corrugation that Holl developed for his archive building.
It’s less expensive than stucco, requires no maintenance, and the horizontal lines catch the sun and play off its clapboard neighbour. The inner sides of the ‘L’ are a soft cerulean green, the outer façades are white, and the underside of the projecting canopies are pale blue – a local tradition that may be intended to evoke the sky. An invisible asset is the geothermal well that delivers almost all the power needed for under-floor radiant heating and cooling.
Luminist paintings of the 19th-century Hudson River School are a big influence on Holl, who is himself an accomplished watercolourist. Light floods the interior from above and from the windows on four sides that open to provide cross ventilation. Soft-toned birch ply lines the open-plan interior as a foil to the colours and shapes of the furniture. Inside the entry, a pine staircase ascends from the dining area to the mezzanine bedroom and bathroom. A catwalk leads to a pop-up roof lantern from where you can step out onto a flat roof and admire the sun setting over the Catskills.
The roof slopes down over the double-height living room to the single-storey studio in the base of the ‘L’. A powder room projects from the inner angle like a hinge between the two strokes, marking the division between public and private space. To add emphasis, the door is also right-angled and a window wraps around the corner. That’s just one of the playful geometric moves of an architect who delights in complexity and surprise.
In his larger projects, Holl gives full rein to his invention and you can experience it yourself by renting the Ex of In House on his Rhinebeck estate. By contrast, the L-House is a modest 1,700 sq ft and part of the urban grid. But there’s at least one reference to the early days of his career and those of his client. In 1983, Holl designed a New York apartment as a composition of lines, planes and volumes, and a lighting sconce, custom-designed for that apartment, turned up unexpectedly and is now installed over the staircase.
A version of this article appears in the April 2025 issue of Wallpaper* , available in print on newsstands from 6 March 2025, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today
-
Year in review: the shape of mobility to come in our list of the top 10 concept cars of 2025Concept cars remain hugely popular ways to stoke interest in innovation and future forms. Here are our ten best conceptual visions from 2025
-
These Guadalajara architects mix modernism with traditional local materials and craftGuadalajara architects Laura Barba and Luis Aurelio of Barbapiña Arquitectos design drawing on the past to imagine the future
-
Robert Therrien's largest-ever museum show in Los Angeles is enduringly appealing'This is a Story' at The Broad unites 120 of Robert Therrien's sculptures, paintings and works on paper
-
Step inside this resilient, river-facing cabin for a life with ‘less stuff’A tough little cabin designed by architects Wittman Estes, with a big view of the Pacific Northwest's Wenatchee River, is the perfect cosy retreat
-
Remembering Robert A.M. Stern, an architect who discovered possibility in the pastIt's easy to dismiss the late architect as a traditionalist. But Stern was, in fact, a design rebel whose buildings were as distinctly grand and buttoned-up as his chalk-striped suits
-
Own an early John Lautner, perched in LA’s Echo Park hillsThe restored and updated Jules Salkin Residence by John Lautner is a unique piece of Californian design heritage, an early private house by the Frank Lloyd Wright acolyte that points to his future iconic status
-
The Stahl House – an icon of mid-century modernism – is for sale in Los AngelesAfter 65 years in the hands of the same family, the home, also known as Case Study House #22, has been listed for $25 million
-
Houston's Ismaili Centre is the most dazzling new building in America. Here's a look insideLondon-based architect Farshid Moussavi designed a new building open to all – and in the process, has created a gleaming new monument
-
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fountainhead will be opened to the public for the first timeThe home, a defining example of the architect’s vision for American design, has been acquired by the Mississippi Museum of Art, which will open it to the public, giving visitors the chance to experience Frank Lloyd Wright’s genius firsthand
-
Clad in terracotta, these new Williamsburg homes blend loft living and an organic feelThe Williamsburg homes inside 103 Grand Street, designed by Brooklyn-based architects Of Possible, bring together elegant interiors and dramatic outdoor space in a slick, stacked volume
-
This ethereal Miami residence sprouted out of a wild, jungle-like gardenA Miami couple tapped local firm Brillhart Architecture to design them a house that merged Florida vernacular, Paul Rudolph and 'too many plants to count’
