Shelter Island deck house, listed for $925,000 was custom built

While reading the newspaper one Sunday morning 30 years ago, Alan Friedman saw an advertisement for new houses that captivated him. The company designing the homes was in Pennsylvania, and the following week, Friedman’s brother-in-law offered to fly him there in his single-engine Piper airplane.

“I thought he was nuts, but I said OK,” Friedman says. “We went there, spent the day, looked at some of the plans they had for these deck houses and we really liked them.”

Soon after, Friedman and his wife, Arna, had one built on a plot of property they had previously purchased in Shelter Island. Now the California-style, post and beam house, with a wall of glass overlooking the back of the .9-acre property, is on the market for $925,000.

The cedar and mahogany home, built in 1986, has three bedrooms and 2 1⁄2 bathrooms. It features an open floor plan that includes a living room with a brick fireplace, a kitchen with a center island and a dining room. A full wall of floor-to-ceiling westerly facing windows looks out to an in-ground pool with surrounding trees in the backdrop. The master suite, which includes a built-in platform bed and a full bathroom, offers balcony views of the wall of glass.

“The house is all wood and all glass and seems to conform with nature and being in the woods,” Friedman says. “It’s the only deck house on Shelter Island, as far as I know.”

A circular driveway leads to a carport on the property. The backyard includes a deck that surrounds the pool and a full outdoor bathroom that is attached to the house.

“When you’re sitting in the house,” says listing agent Penelope Moore of Saunders & Associates, “you feel like you’re in the woods, you feel like you’re by the water, you feel like you’re either outside or in.”