During demolition of a renovation on a beach shack’s bedroom on Long Island, the homeowners, contractors, and architects Garnett.DePasquale were surprised to find not one, not two, not three—but four layers of finished flooring. Such was the developer-led damage of the home after many renovations built atop one another, in addition to water and mold damage from the proximity to the ocean. The project thus evolved from a one room renovation to a full blown reimagination of Oceanfront Residence. Garnett.DePasquale, one of The Architect’s Newspaper’s Twenty to Watch firms for rising residential New York architects, led the charge with equal parts expression and restraint.

“It was littered with light fixtures and devices, and the geometry of the ceilings was just bananas,” said Rebecca Garnett, cofounder of the firm. After remediating the interior walls, the architects focused on correcting the scale of the home from its former open floorplan and mismatched volumes. “Our first step was to introduce walls back, reduce the scale of the space,” continued Peter DePasquale, the other half of Garnett.DePasquale.

The architects reinterpreted the original geometry of the home and its dormer windows into a smoother, cleaner vision. They sculpted ceilings which vary from angular to curved. The design uses each to heighten moments of transition between newly defined rooms or ease the flow from one to another. How did the architects decide just how far to take the vaults? Consider the scale of the occupants.

“The scale of those dormers and the vault felt like the right thing that you can appreciate as a person, versus the extremely tall sequence where the geometry is sharper,” said Garnett. “I think the more systematic approach to the dormers having the vaulted geometry created some precious moments in places where you’re close to them, like the primary bedroom and the dining room, versus the living room.”

The millwork acts as a complement to the contours and ceiling heights. On the stairs, for instance, sharp geometric millwork gives way to subtle curvature. In the kitchen, clean cabinets, which pair with the use of white stone, reflect the lines of the vaulted ceiling it falls beneath.

Applied alongside white walls, the sculpted planes cast light in meaningful ways. It also helps create transition between the first and second floor. As the higher floor has the advantage of looking over the dunes and onto the water, the detailing strips down as you go up, moving from inward reflection at the lower level to an outward panorama of light at the upper level.

“One of the other techniques we used in the layout of the house was that it’s actually between the ocean and the bay, and so it has these long views. We were able to create the feeling of a pretty wide floor plate by having light from both sides,” said Garnett. Finely woven mesh screens help diffuse this light in the residence, lit from either end.

Moments of pale blond wood and handcrafted metal details lend Oceanfront Residence an elegant charm. The soft seating, wicker barstools, and walkway to the beach bring in elements of traditional beach-front homes, but placed under abstracted geometries.

“All that makes it feel old and new, familiar and strange,” said DePasquale. The design marries the traditional style of its clients with the minimal and formal sensibilities of the architects.