Local architect Christian Sottile speaks personally about his designs, often attributing human traits and forms to them because, as he puts it, buildings should reflect their owners.
For his latest creation, about a year in the making, Sottile has designed a lofty six-story building with glass and limestone facade that recalls the Manhattan and Greek roots of his newest clients, Tak and Ourania Argentinis.
At a small reception held Thursday evening at the Jepson Center to preview the building, Sottile said the structure would serve as a visual corridor to the Savannah River to the north and Telfair Square to the south.
“This is one of the most spectacular infill sights in all of Savannah’s National Landmark Historic District,” said Sottile. “It’s much more than just a shopfront on Broughton Street … it’s a site that really has two faces, looking in two different directions.”
The building will take up the small 2,700-square-foot lot at 215 W. Broughton St., bordered to the left by the former Goodwill with powder-blue facade and to the right by retailers Free People and Urban Outfitters. The Argentinis couple bought the lot in March 2013 for $425,000, according to property records.
It will be one of the first new buildings on West Broughton in several decades, only a block away from developer Ben Carter’s future four-story building for retailer H&M at 230 W. Broughton.
A clear-glass first floor will house a custom jewelry store owned by the Argentinises’ son and daughter-in law, Andreas and Elisha Argentinis. The second and third floors will be offices, and the top two floors a private residence for Tak and Ourania, who goes by Renee.
On the roof, a garden, terrace and glass conservatory will pay homage to Renee’s visits to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden as a child.
The only remnant of the previous building on the site is a solid steel support beam, an element Sottile plans to incorporate into the new building.
“We said wouldn’t it be amazing to turn our expression line, this remnant of a beam, and turn that into something very contemporary?” said Sottile, citing inspiration from Italian architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. “So what if this expression line became a cloud in its own right to separate the upper from the lower?”
It’s a girl
Savannah residents for nearly two decades, the Argentinises moved from Connecticut to relocate their materials engineering company, Elan Technology, to nearby Midway.
Renee was born in Manhattan while Tak spent the first 18 years of his life in Pereas, Greece, before coming to the U.S. with just $50 and a college scholarship.
When they moved to their current home in the historic district, they couldn’t fit some items, including an 1,100-pound antique limestone table purchased during a trip to Italy in the mid ‘80s that has languished in a storage facility for several years.
Tak said they looked at many houses around Savannah before settling on building their own.
“Everything we saw needed alterations and renovations, and we figured we would live the rest of our lives in Savannah … so I said to Renee, ‘Why don’t you just start with a blank sheet of paper and design what you want, and that’s how it started,” he said.
Renee said she had a list of about 100 architects and conducted several interviews before settling on Sottile.
“When I first met him, we talked about graceful lines; I wanted those lines to curve in so the building, if you could actually describe it, had a sensual feeling to it,” said Renee. “I said, ‘Oh, by the way, the building is a she.’ And I went, ‘What did I just say?’ I gave the building a sex.”
Luckily, Renee said, Sottile understood exactly what that meant and said he often categorized his buildings by gender.
The couple did not reveal the price tag for the project — “it goes up by the day,” Renee said — but emphasized they are not taking shortcuts.
For example, the lane side of the building will be finished in the same manner as the front to give the structure duality. They’re also pulling the structure in, shifting the weight of the walls in from their neighbors to keep from touching.
“It’s being a good neighbor, but it’s also costing me more,” said Renee.
“We’re not doing stucco, we’re doing limestone, it would be lot less expensive if we were using cheaper materials,” said Tak.
Height
The building would be in a four-story height zone but could qualify for a bonus fifth story for having ground-level retail, according to Ellen Harris of the Metropolitan Planning Commission. The Argentinises will have to seek a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals for the sixth-level conservatory.
Height has been a touchy subject of late since hotelier Richard Kessler was granted a controversial height map amendment over the summer for his West River Street project, also designed by Sottile.
Anticipating some pushback, Sottile included historical photos of the 11-story beaux-arts National Bank building that once stood at the intersection of Broughton and Bull, now home to the squat SunTrust parking deck.
“What an amazing building, and it’s a shame we lost it,” he said. “It shows that cities grow and cities shrink.”
Members of the historic board will have a chance to weigh in with a recommendation for the height later this month. The Argentinis Building will be on the Nov. 12 agenda of the board, where it will be reviewed for both height and mass.
After the building receives the proper approvals and permits, Sottile said, they’ll break ground in 2015 and expect to take 12 to 18 months to complete.
Tak and Renee said they have been diligent in reaching out to community stakeholders, including city staff, the Historic Savannah Foundation and local merchants — many of whom showed up Thursday. The response, Tak said, has been overwhelmingly positive.
“We wanted to show them the thoughtfulness and planning that went into this just to get to this point,” said Tak.
Although the building has a challenging footprint, they hope it will serve as an example for future infill projects in the historic district. Big ideas, Renee said, can fit in small spaces.
“I call it the little building that could,” she said.