The structure of dreams
The dynamic between Roger Bartels and Christopher Pagliaro is one of those idiosyncratic partnerships that works. The two have taken on some of their most ambitious projects in this past year and are going to continue to look to the future hoping to build communities and expand further into commercial architecture.
Roger Bartels, 66, began the business in 1974 as a design-oriented studio in Garrison, N.Y. It moved to downtown Westport in 1979 and then finally to South Norwalk in 1997. It now occupies the second-level loft of a coastal building on Elizabeth Street in a bright open office that reflects Bartels consistent artistic ventures as the “mad scientist” of the firm.
Bartels who received his Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University, is a native of the Frank Lloyd Wright community in Oak Park, Ill. He is trained in styles of Andrea Palladio, who greatly influenced Thomas Jefferson”™s masterpieces, CFA Voysey, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Stanford White, perhaps America”™s best-known Gilded Age architect. He and Pagliaro became partners soon after he came to Fairfield County. Â
“It was a perfect opportunity for me,” said Pagliaro, 43, a partner at Bartels-Pagliaro. “I was in Westchester for a dozen years before that and I was doing a lot of commercial work, medical offices, gas station approvals, and it wasn”™t quite the way you envisioned an architectural career. When I met Roger, it was just a ray of sunshine because everything you always envisioned when you wanted to be an architect and studied architecture really does happen in this office. It was a very exciting time for me, different ages, different generations, different periods of being educated and the difference between our personalities: It”™s like a good marriage.”
“Bartels-Pagliaro, is a prestigious, well-respected architecture firm, producing award-winning projects that are innovative and exciting,” said Diane Harp Jones, CEO and executive vice-president of American Institute of Architects Connecticut.
According to Bartels and Pagliaro, the example of their architectural style that resonates most with residents of Fairfield County is the small coastal community of Rowayton. They say they find many people referring to it as “Bartelsville” because so many of the firm”™s projects have risen there. They say that repeatedly architectural enthusiasts and future clients will tell them how they walked through the town attempting to point out which buildings are Bartels”™ and which aren”™t.
“Though it”™s not like we went in and bought the projects, it was done on a one-on-one basis, a lot of word of mouth in the area,” said Pagliaro. “And we sort of honed our shingle style there.”
“The designs keep evolving, and the beautiful thing about Roger is that he”™s constantly bored, and looking to get to the next thing,” said Pagliaro.
While Pagliaro describes Bartels as the mad scientist experimenting in his lab, there is a third younger partner, Nicholas A. Sajda, 40, trained by Bartels and described as the perfectionist of the three.
“Nicholas is the one who gets hung up on a 16th of an inch, where as I”™ll only go down to the inch,” said Pagliaro. “He”™s the real technician of the office.”
Though the creative work of the office is centered on Bartels, he welcomes everyone”™s opinion and is proud of the open-room environment and freedom of discussion. According to Bartels and Pagliaro, if you are part of the office, you will have a chance to design.
“It”™s really the blending of different personalities that makes is tick,” said Pagliaro. “Pretty much everybody in the office we”™ve trained and they”™ve grown with us.”
The firm has projects across the east coast, from Bear Mountain, N.Y., and Quebec, Canada, to Washington, D.C. and Lake George, N. Y.
The two lead architects are adamant that their style is adaptable and that each location will complement their widely varying projects. They are currently involved in a shoreline project on Rowton Point in Rowayton where an amusement park used to stand. They are also working on a traditional Lake George camp, on the east side of the lake, incorporating Bartels”™ take on the Adirondack style.
“I reflect with pleasure on one particular project for which they were recognized with a design award,” said Jones. “It was for a Merry-Go-Round in upstate New York and simply a wonderful, small, charming project. The firm is admired for their residential projects and their work in the restaurant-entertainment market. They are valued members of the Connecticut Chapter of AIA.” AIA is the American Institute of Architects.
The firm”™s Windermere on the Lake project, a sustainable private community it undertook in 2007, is the largest of its recent projects, going beyond the architecture and venturing into organized town planning.
“We”™re going to look for more large neighborhood planning projects like Windermere nationwide,” said Bartels. “That project is one of the highest-rated conservation developments in the nation.”
“It”™s the concept of the village and the town and the neighborhood with Windermere,” said Pagliaro. “Everybody in Fairfield county lives in these back lots with two, four, six acres and when we vacation, where do we go? Nantucket, Cape Cod, Italy, France, and you”™re going to these villages, so there”™s a desire to be part of that scale and that pedestrian lifestyle that we don”™t experience here. Yet we still have all this zoning that separates everything, we don”™t have enough community. That”™s one of the reasons why Rowayton became what it became; people would go there just to walk. You weren”™t just looking at one tree after another tree, you were looking and experiencing something.
“A lot of these houses in the spec market are just sitting out there and I think it”™s because they”™re all pretty much the same, and they”™ll argue with you that they”™re different, and I think they follow a formula of, ”˜this is what”™s selling, this is what the realtor wants to do,”™ so they”™ve created a market where they”™re competing against themselves.”
“We see them teaming a lot in a design-build combination with Brindisi & Yaroscak Custom Builders Inc. and, though our awards are for builders, some of Bartels and Pagliaro”™s buildings over the past few years have been really prominent,” said Joanne Carroll, director of the Conneticut Home Building Association, which runs the Home Building Industry Awards.
Bartels”™ love of architecture as a craft is apparent in the media he chooses to work with.
“I”™ve always worked with my hands since I was a little kid, so I started off doing carpentry, so then all my houses were wood,” said Bartels. “Then, one summer I did a patio out of brick so then I could use some masonry in my designs, but I”™ve never felt comfortable doing anything unless I could figure out how to do it with my hands. Then I started getting interested in steel. It”™s amazing; you can do anything in a house in steel ”“ it”™s as plastic and as easy to work with, if you find the right people, as wood used to be. The Northeast is filled with wood houses, but now we have a lot of immigrant workers coming in from Eastern Europe who have all these metal skills and it”™s very easy to really start to change the aesthetic of what the culture has become. It”™s very subtle, but it”™s making a difference.”
“The signature metal railing and light cages that they use are beautifully done, very sleek,” said Carroll. “We see the firm a lot in custom homes on the water and the style lends itself well to the shingle style. They also accomplish a very high-gloss interior finish that almost looks like a laminate.”
“We”™re trying to try to get in some other things, maybe do some furniture,” said Bartels. “We design a lot of light fixtures, gates and different kinds of metal details for the house. It starts off with me doing it for myself and my wife and then we do it with the clients to see how it works. Maybe there could be a future in trying to market some of these things as retail products.”
Bartels and Pagliaro say they are involved far past the drawing board as a full-service architecture firm, designing details like cabinets, lighting and flooring.
“You pay a bit more for the architecture up front, but that extra you pay for the architecture is a fraction of what you would pay for not properly planning,” said Pagliaro.