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"Six Find Profit in a Series
of Harbor Makeovers"
by Amanda Star Frazer
The East Hampton Star,
June 24, 2004
This 19th-century house
on Sag Harbor's Glover
Street will rise in value
once
Bob Tortora
and his friends
get through with its
historical renovation.
The
house was basically a teardown,
he said, "but it would have been
a nightmare" to remove it all.
"So we kept the same footprint
and went from there."
What
was a separate garage is now a
luxurious kitchen, facing Upper
Sag Harbor Cove. A loft was
added to the second floor to
allow for a walk-around cupola.
On a clear day, you can see The
Bridge golf course in Noyac, he
said, and at night, you can see
the lights from "City Hall," as
he referred to the Sag Harbor
Village Municipal Building.
The
architectural review board did
not protest. "They were so
thrilled," said
Mr. Tortora. The
house, which had no landscaping,
looked like the Department of
Public Works garage, he said.
The
next project was a modular house
on Rysam Street, which he
renovated and resold. That was
followed by a house on Suffolk
Street that he picked up and
moved to replace with one of
more "historical correctness."
In
the 1990s,
Mr. Tortora, a
nonpracticing attorney, worked
for Prudential Douglas Elliman
in New York. When he moved to
Sag Harbor, "1 was doing so many
transactions that they hired me"
at the Sag Harbor office, he
said.
In
designing each renovation, he
"tried to copy what I thought
were the best houses in town,"
he said. There's a market for
it, he said, referring to a book
on "creating a new old house."
He stressed that projects are a
group effort among the six
Glover Street friends. "I was
the architect, but I
collaborated with my friends."
he said. "We try to keep it
simple, and at the same time
moderate."
Steven Gambrel, a New York
interior designer, is "our color
guru,"
Mr. Tortora said. (Mr.
Gambrel and his partner are
working on their second Glover
Street renovation, across the
street from their first.)
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