The Bliss House, an oceanfront home completed in 1979 and designed by late modernist architect Norman Jaffe in Southampton, New York, has been demolished.
Today the Bliss House is a pile of rubble. Hamptons 20 Century Modern, a local preservation nonprofit founded by interior designer Tim Godbold, said on social media another house will likely be built in its place.
The Bliss House was known as a work of “organic modernism,” Godbold said, and for its “weathered cedar, soaring geometric forms” and “expansive glazing” that merged with nearby sand dunes, forming a “sculptural composition.”
The Milton Gilbert House, another home designed by Jaffe in New Jersey and completed in 1976, was also recently demolished, per Hamptons 20 Century Modern.
The demolition of the Bliss House is the conclusion to a multi-year series of court battles between the home owner, Orest Bliss, and preservationists.
The Southampton Village Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation, DOCOMOMO’s New York chapter, and others have been trying to save the house since 2021, when Bliss first shared plans to demolish it and sell the property.
Orest and Tish Bliss commissioned Jaffe to design the house in the late 1970s.
At first the Southampton Village Board disapproved of the design, and asked for the building to be setback from the street and shrouded by bushes, to remain invisible. The board later changed its opinion and embraced the house.
Jaffe was pronounced dead in 1993, after he had mysteriously disappeared the summer of that year. Barnes Coy Architects renovated and expanded the Bliss House in 2000, doubling its size.
In 2021, the Southampton Village Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation rejected Bliss’s application to demolish the house and sell the land.
A state judge in 2023 ordered the village board to reverse its decision and allow demolition to take place. The Board subsequently filed an appeal.
In 2024, the New York chapter of DOCOMOMO filed an application to landmark the Bliss House on the National Register of Historic Places, as well as three other modernist homes in Southampton.
The village board lost the case in the New York court of appeals in 2025. The next year, in 2026, Bliss sold the house to an LLC, called 88 ML Holdings.
Godbold visited the Bliss House site after it had been wrecked. He said he had contacted the LLC to get permission to photograph the building before it was demolished, but the LLC didn’t respond to his requests.
“Over the past few years, I’ve sat through countless Architectural Review Board meetings—sometimes speaking in support of preservation, other times simply watching the process unfold,” Godbold said on Instagram. “While this outcome wasn’t in preservation’s favor, it was inspiring to witness the determination of so many people who care deeply about protecting our architectural heritage. Their passion and commitment deserve real respect.”
Godbold added: “Every case teaches us something. Although not every battle is won, others have resulted in important houses being saved. Preservation is a long game, and the work must continue.”