Jamie Drake Conceives an Art-Filled Recreation Center at a New York Retreat
Working with architects Barton Myers Associates, the designer embellishes the latest structure on the Columbia County estate with convivial spaces for entertaining and decadent rooms for rejuvenation
Just like a curated collection, a residential compound is often assembled over time, piece by thoughtful piece. Such was the case for one couple’s bucolic estate in Columbia County, New York. The homeowners, repeat clients of Manhattan designer Jamie Drake, started with a one-bedroom home Drake describes as “a 1980s version of a 1940s or ’50s Philip Johnson or Mies van der Rohe glass house,” set among towering trees on a pastoral stretch of rolling landscape.
“They bought the house on a whim,” Drake recalls of the project, which his then firm, Drake/Anderson, completely reimagined for the family in 2018. “They fell in love with it, they bought it, and they ended up enjoying being up there.”
As neighboring plots became available, the homeowners acquired more and more land, totaling 42 acres, which now support a working vegetable farm and barns as well as houses for guests and staff. Recently, they decided to add a seventh structure to the property to function as a multipurpose recreation center with room for an indoor lap pool, a gym, steam and massage rooms, and a golf simulator. “It’s a fun playhouse,” says Drake of the addition, which includes a sculpture garden and a bocce court, all skillfully set on a scenic knoll adjacent to a lake.
The owners already had an extensive portfolio of homes, many of them conceived in collaboration with Drake, including a loft in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood, two units in the same community’s famed Jenga Building, an apartment in Paris, and a modern Santa Barbara, California, house by Barton Myers Associates. Infatuated with the style of their West Coast residence, they recruited the architects to create this latest free standing building on their upstate New York estate. “These clients understand that Barton Myers’s vocabulary and voice is a very modernist, ‘mechanistique’ style, and this is in a way a very high-tech barn,” explains Drake.
Once the building itself was nearing completion, Drake got the call to help imagine the interior. The only rub: The wife was phoning in August and hoped to entertain family and friends in the space come Thanksgiving. “I agreed but explained chances are the rug wouldn’t be there—and it wasn’t—but I could get everything else if we were open to choosing from things that are artisan made, off the floor, and vintage,” the designer says. “So that really drove the project selections.”
As such, Drake didn’t find that limiting to his creative vision. “To stand up to the muscularity of the space, the interiors needed warmth,” he says. “They needed strength, they needed scale, and yet the clients also wanted it to be open.” To achieve this, he opted for personality-filled pieces rich with point of view. He acquired a pair of daffodil yellow Blowing lounge chairs by Seungjin Yang at The Future Perfect, which add a chromatic splash to the pool surround, and a Louise Nevelson sculpture at Pace that towers over the garden. In the dining area, a table by Hudson Valley artisan Christopher Kurtz nods to the outdoors, with its sculpted wooden base recalling stepping stones. Drake paired the work with Holly Hunt chairs whose sprightly hairpin legs juxtapose the monolithic honed silver soapstone kitchen island.
Perhaps one of the interior’s most striking moments is a lustrous Tomás Saraceno artwork, which hangs in an area with a dramatic 27-foot drop. “We needed something to anchor that volume and give it some interest and intimacy,” says the designer. “This enormous Saraceno was available, and it was just perfect for the center of the space.”
Below the mesmerizing piece, Drake formulated a convivial seating area, pulling from the colors of the breathtaking scenery outside. He paired a glassy duo of bronze and acrylic Mattia Bonetti cocktail tables from David Gill Gallery in London with an expansive shearling Rogan Gregory sofa, vintage Ward Bennett reclining chairs, and a Hans J. Wegner Papa Bear chair. The grouping is set upon an exuberant custom Stark rug Drake designed with a palette inspired by a photograph he took of fall foliage, with its saturated hues of pomegranate red, ocher, and goldenrod. And in a structure constructed almost entirely of transparent walls, it’s just one more detail that lets nature shine through.
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Late Fall Issue under the headline “Clear Vision.” Subscribe to the magazine.