Architect Christian Wassmann’s self-styled masterwork is also his unforgettable Ulster County residence.
By James Long
I’m not an architect—but my ex was. My former partner taught me more about cantilevers, concrete and, er, collecting fees than I ever expected to know as he interpreted his clients’ visions into built designs. And for what it’s worth, my mother once dated the pioneering architect Paul Rudolph in her debutante days (finally conceding he was gay long before she did with me).
Nevertheless, between friendship, osmosis and family lore, I’ve developed a deep appreciation for how architects express themselves, especially when the client is themselves, with a space that reflects their obsessions, experiments and identity. Philip Johnson had his Glass House, a study in minimalism and transparency. Frank Lloyd Wright’s house-studio, Taliesin, evolved with his life, blending nature and structure. Frank Gehry wrapped his Santa Monica residence in industrial materials as did Charles and Ray Eames, who turned their Case Study House into a midcentury icon.
Christian Wassmann’s Rock’n’House, tucked between Woodstock and Saugerties, NY, belongs in that lineage. The house is wrapped quite literally around a massive boulder that bursts through the first floor. Rather than avoid it, Wassmann embraced it, letting the rock anchor both the home’s structure—its interior walls curving like tree bark, blurring the lines between built and organic, its radiant geometry spiraling upward to a rooftop terrace with views across the Catskills—and its spirit—with its ingenious energy solutions, the house is sited with an exuberance of celestial and terrestrial ties.
The Rock’n’House is undeniably part shelter, part sculpture, and is Wassmann’s private thesis etched into wood, stone and hillside. It isn’t just a home—it’s a philosophy. Like the best self-designed architect dwellings, it whispers: This is what I believe.
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