Green Renovation

The Allegria Hotel & Spa is set to open up this May on Long Beach in Nassau County. Developed by Long Island-based Alrose Group, the 150-room project is actually a conversion of the somewhat gaudy looking King David Manor, which was formerly a 170-room nursing home. Alrose purchased the property back in 2007 for $22 million and engaged Midtown-based Tommy Sadha Interior Design for the gut renovation. Specific green design features don’t appear available yet, but the project will pursue an unspecified level of LEED certification.

Although the design is much more modern than the former nursing home facade, Alrose head Allen Rosenberg told the New York Times in late 2007 that the design intent was not to make the Allegria "ultrachic or ultrahip" and described the project as a combination of the Delano Hotel in Miami Beach and the W and Marriot hotel chains. Alrose was aiming for rates in the $250 range for rooms before the economy collapsed; the Allegria will also offer a rooftop swimming pool, a Todd Jacobs restaurant, and 200-person capacity ballroom and meeting space. The hotel is located on the beach at 80 West Broadway in Long Beach.

There are only four Frank Lloyd Wright -designed houses in the state of New Jersey. One of them- located in Millstone, in Somerset County and dating from 1954- was purchased by architects Lawrence and Sharon Tarantino back in 1988. The couple’s restoration work on the house was recently featured in the New York Times after the house won a merit award for preservation in the AIA-New Jersey’s 2008 design competition. In addition to restoring the house’s kitchen pursuant to Wright’s plans (the original kitchen was destroyed in 1999 by Hurricane Floyd), the Tarantinos also installed a historic barn from Vermont on the property that will serve as a design studio.

The Ericsson Barn at Milo Vineyards is a 5000-square-foot, four-bedroom home that’s currently for sale in the town of Milo in western New York State, just to the southwest of Rochester. The barn itself was actually salvaged from nearby Watertown in 2007 and was originally built in the 1800s. The project is the brainchild of Tom Johnson, a Parsons-trained designer who completed a similar renovation for himself back in 2005, spending $175,000 to relocate a 150-year-old barn from Canada and refurbish it on a separate plot in Milo.

Hamptons Cottages & Garden magazine is sponsoring the 2008 Idea House in Sagaponack on Long Island. The house is actually a Victorian farmhouse that was formerly owned by novelist James Jones. Sag Harbor developer Peter Sabbeth and his ModernGreenHome company have put a two-story, modern green addition on the back of the house and placed the property on the market for $12.9 million, without any furniture. The antique furniture you'll find inside the house right now (it's $30 to enter and open Thursday through Sunday until August 24) was chosen by local designers selected by the magazine. Other items have been created from recycled materials; architect Campion Platt, who fitted out the family sitting room, formed three rugs from discarded cowhide scraps. You can find the house at 151 Sagg Main Street in Sagaponack (646-723-7501 for more details).