Business

Update: Herrmann's Castle owner agrees to signficant changes

AMBROSE CLANCY PHOTO | Architect Guillermo Gomez discussing the Herrmann’s Castle project before the Town Board April 5.

That didn’t take long.

The public and the Town Board gave representatives of Zach Vella’s ambitious expansion of Herrmann’s Castle on Shore Road a barrage of complaints on Friday over space and aesthetics. By Tuesday Mr. Vella said he’d heard them loud and clear and was doing something about them.

At Friday’s Town Board meeting there was a long discussion on when a stone wall is just a wall and not a fortress for 85 Shore Road, also known as Hermann’s Castle, the idiosyncratic white structure rising above Crescent Beach built in 1973.

Also asked was when a media room is just that and not a bedroom in disguise.

At the board’s Tuesday work session a representative of Mr. Vella said there would be no wall, and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms on the project would be reduced.

A consensus was formed by both the board and residents attending the Friday meeting on the makeover and new construction of the property. Without exception, everyone said it was just too big and out of character for Shelter Island.

Guillermo Gomez, Mr. Vella’s architect, said his client wanted the community to be satisfied with the final plans for the property.  And Mr. Vella was true to his word, when his representative, Kieran Pape Murphree, a Sag Harbor Attorney, agreed Tuesday to significant changes.

Mr. Vella wants to improve the 3.3-acre property by constructing an additional 5,734 square feet of space to the existing 4,764 square feet. (Mr. Gomez disputed those figures, which were in an April 4 memo from the Shelter Island Planning Board to the Town Board, saying an honest error had been made and the actual numbers were lower, but still over the 10,000 square foot mark.) When finalized, the house would have seven bedrooms with a four-bay, 2,280 square foot garage with two bedrooms above, a two-story tennis pavilion, two swimming pools, two spas and nearly 10,000 square feet of patios.

Included in the original plans were 14 bathrooms. Ms. Murphree said the applicant was willing to reduce that number to nine, and reduce the square footage of the patios.

Councilman Paul Shepherd, prefacing his remarks Friday by noting he’s a staunch defender of property owner’s rights, said the project “scares the hell out of me.”

With a possibility of having more than ten bedrooms and ten or more bathrooms in the house, Councilman Ed Brown said Friday those numbers were precedent setting. He worried about rejecting future applications with bathrooms hitting double digits if this one was approved.

As for the number of bedrooms, Mr. Gomez said rooms could be construed as bedrooms, even when the spaces are used as media rooms or libraries.

As for the stone wall, which would run along Shore Road, the architect said a four foot high wall — the height limit by code — was necessary because the steep elevation required a berm to slow water runoff and the wall would protect the berm. He also noted it would be for safety to keep children off the property and to mitigate liability if someone got hurt entering the grounds.

Supervisor Jim Dougherty observed that four feet wouldn’t stop kids today. He also later said the project was, to his mind, “not Shelter Island.”

Members of the public remarked that a stone or rock wall would take away the character of Shore Road and leave the impression of a “castle” or a “fortress.”

But Tuesday, Ms. Murphree said there would be no berm and no wall.

There was also a question of parking. At a ZBA hearing neighbors requested 20 spaces to eliminate vehicles clogging up the neighborhood’s streets. The Planning Board memo reported that some board members said this “leaves open the possibility of a future commercial facility.”

At Tuesday’s work session Councilwoman Chris Lewis wondered if a stipulation by the board for final approval should be included that it can never be zoned anything but residential.

Councilman Peter Reich noted this was unnecessary because it would be akin to “saying you can’t murder someone in your house.”

The board will revisit the application next week.