$5.25 million West Hills home has Latin American, Spanish style
Built around a verdant interior courtyard with two Magnolia trees, a 15,000-square-foot house on 1 acre of West Hills represents a style common in Latin America and Spain. Access to nature comes in the form of the central courtyard — a green and grounding space penetrable to only those already inside.
On the market for $5.25 million, the seven-bedroom home has seven full bathrooms and four half-baths. Annual taxes on the Westwood Drive property, which falls within the Half Hollow Hills Central School District, total $52,141.
"We enjoy the green all year round, this beautiful courtyard and all our rooms revolve around the courtyard," said Angela Duque, who built the home with her husband, Andres Patiño, for their four children.
Patiño and Duque, of Cali, Colombia, moved to the United States in 1999. The pair purchased the Huntington property after seeing it in a newspaper advertisement, and lived there for seven years before making changes. The house was in need of repair, which created the opportunity to change the style entirely.
The couple hired Colombian architect Juan Pablo Ortiz, who suggested building a house that would take up more of the property.
"He said, in Long Island, you have a few months of summer, and you spend a lot of time inside the house," Duque said. "We brought the outdoors indoors."
The courtyard is surrounded by windows and accessible through the living room. An indoor-outdoor bathroom attached to the primary bedroom is a continuation of the concept.
"This is very common in our country, to have open bathrooms, to have gardens in the bathrooms," Duque said. "So when you think about it, how can you adapt those ideas to the New York weather?"
A collaborative process completed in 2011, the redesign and renovation of the house involved Ortiz and local architects David Resnick and Iwonka Piotrowska, of Piotrowska+Resnick Architects. Associate architect Janice Camarillo helped throughout construction.
A wide, wood-paneled door opens into a foyer with a shallow pool of water over a bed of stones. In a Latin American climate, Duque said, this water feature would connect to an outdoor pool. Here, jets project narrow streams of water, emulating the sound of a babbling brook.
Two of the bedrooms each have a spiral staircase that leads to a living area for the corresponding sleeping quarters. A laundry list of other amenities includes a cafe-like room — known to the family as "tienda," Spanish for "store" — with a refrigerator case, a movie theater, a bar, a gym and a party room.
"It takes you an easy hour just to tour the whole house," said listing agent Sandi Polinsky, who has co-listed the property with Holly Gottlieb for Goldilocks Real Estate. "It’s so personality-filled."
Outside, a rectangular pool is surrounded by wooden decking and lined with lounge chairs. There is also a basketball court.
"At a given moment's notice, she could entertain 100 of her closest friends," Polinsky said.
That was the idea, said Duque, who has hosted many guests over the years. Today, Duque and Patiño are primarily based in Ecuador, and their children are adults.
"The concept is to have a house with open arms for all our friends and family, and we always have company," Duque said.
Arielle Dollinger joined Newsday as a staff reporter in 2022. Previously, she covered local and national news as a freelancer for The New York Times, Newsday and other outlets.
