This article is part of a special design section on water as a source of creativity.
The first thing you see when you enter Long Pond Studio are the glass windows and doors. They are huge, the doors measuring 8 feet by 8 feet, framing an idyllic landscape of grass, trees, and water. A picture window overlooking a pond would be simply beautiful to have in your home. But in this setting, a recording studio in the countryside near Hudson, New York, they do something surprising.
That’s because recording studios are generally similar to gambling dens. It’s a dark, airless space, with light and views of the outside world providing a distraction from the high-stakes act of making music. Large glass surfaces are also prohibited. This is because glass surfaces can refract sound waves and allow outdoor noise to leak through.
But Long Pond Studios, owned by musician Aaron Dessner, a founding member of the rock band The National and a popular record producer, features Scandinavian and Japanese design, with a cozy kitchen and It has a very residential quality, even having a kitchen. A view of the bedroom upstairs.
In fact, the focus on architecture and design has resulted in a building that is suitable for music production, not because it is acoustically correct, but because it evokes feelings of clarity and tranquility.
Long Pond, completed in 2016, has already achieved some fame in the music world. The first album recorded inside was the National’s “Sleep Well Beast,” which won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 2018. The jacket features a black and white photo of the building taken at night. It’s a cedar-clad, barn-like structure with a steep metal roof. The rectangular windows provide a bright view of the musicians playing inside. The same mysterious image appeared on the band’s tour T-shirts.
The studio was also used as a set for the Taylor Swift documentary Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions. Mr. Swift, Mr. Dessner and producer Jack Antonoff collaborated on the album “Folklore” remotely during the pandemic, and the film, which was produced and directed by Mr. Swift, features the musicians naked for the first time. playing songs together. -Down fashion.
It’s a rare recording studio that becomes a famous building, but its reputation is still largely due to the music made there, not the architecture. But Long Pond, with its wooden interior filled with guitars and pianos and string lights on its deck, appears in the film as a rustic Shangri-La.
Erlend Newman, a Hudson Valley-based architectural designer who founded Two Form Inc., led the design of the studio, which he said grew from a modest idea and budget.
Mr. Dessner, 48, has lived in Brooklyn for many years, recording first in his attic and then in a small garage studio. “There was no real light or air in there. We had to go outside,” Dessner said by phone.
He and his family eventually moved from the city to the Hudson Valley for a more relaxed life. He knew Mr. Neumann because he designed a home for another parent at Mr. Dessner’s children’s school.
On a summer day in 2015, Mr. Neumann and Mr. Dessner strolled through the property, which sits on 10 sloping acres in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains. The grounds include a finger-shaped pond and a farmhouse built in 1791 (currently Dessner’s main residence). ).
Mr. Newman, 49, a strappy, bearded man who prefers canvas pants and chamois work shirts, is also a sculptor. He had never designed his recording studio before. But while in college, Neumann volunteered for five months on a project to restore the Goetheanum, a concrete spiritual center in Switzerland designed by architect and educator Rudolf Steiner, and with little practice, Neumann began welding. I had experience in carving and carving. Since then, he said, he’s no longer afraid to try new things.
“I like to say to my clients, ‘Don’t tell me what you want. Tell me why you want it,'” he said on a recent afternoon on a tour of Long Pond. He said while leading the way. “Why is it special to be here? What makes it better? Ask why and set direction.”
Guided by Mr. Dessner’s guidance — he wanted “a creative oasis where you can feel disarmed, vulnerable, and relaxed” — Mr. Neumann moved to the edge of a pond downhill from his home. A studio was set up in.
“The land creates this oasis for the band,” Newman said. “Having this space allows for that kind of community.”
Due to a limited budget, Newman used industrial materials such as cement floors and painted joists rather than specialty finishes. A small abandoned 1980s pole barn on the property was demolished and its rafters were repurposed as stair treads and paneling for living quarters walls. The barn’s metal roof has turned patina over time, and part of the exterior has been replaced with siding.
Long Pond has a total of 1,800 square feet and is divided by walls, with a large, open recording room with a cathedral-like ceiling on one side, and a cozy recording room on the other. There is a living area. Aside from those big views, what’s immediately noticeable is that there’s no old-fashioned glass-walled “control room” like you’d find in many recording studios. Dessner wanted an open-concept atmosphere where artists could collaborate without barriers.
Other thoughtful design elements by Neumann help foster creative flow. For example, there is no direct line of sight from the Long Pond recording room to Mr. Dessner’s home, separating work and home life. The unattractive sound-absorbing panels typically plastered on recording studio walls have been replaced with a wavy cedar pattern inspired by a similar design in Mr. Dessner’s studio in Brooklyn. Additionally, the cedar-covered sound panel mounted on the wheel similarly fits into the ambiance of the room, allowing for more focused sound control.
Long Pond breaks many of the conventional wisdoms of sound engineering. “No acoustic engineer was excited about having an 8-foot-by-8-foot glass door here,” Neumann said, adding that with Dessner’s approval, form over function was the priority in most cases. Ta.
“We wanted this feeling,” Mr. Newman said, raising his arms in the air as if in an ecstatic church ceremony. If the recording room had been covered by an acoustic ceiling cloud, as the sound engineer suggested, “that feeling would have disappeared.”
The construction of Long Pond coincided with a creatively rich period for Mr. Dessner. The song “Cardigan,” which he wrote with Swift, became a No. 1 hit, and he teamed up with Justin Vernon, the founder of the band “Bon Iver,” to form the indie folk group “Big Red Machine.” He also welcomed Gracie Abrams to Long Pond, producing and co-writing her 2023 debut album Good Riddance. And he continues to record and tour with national tours.
“Having this space has definitely fueled my creativity,” Dessner said. “I feel like the studio itself is an instrument. It’s a place I want to be.” (He’s not the only one inspired by this setting; many artists have come to record, and He said he never leaves the premises while he is working.
For Newman, Long Pond’s fame led to an unexpected career collaborating with musicians in his home studio on Orcas Island, Washington, including Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist and producer Rob Muth. He has also been commissioned by Mr. Dessner to create large sculptural installations for several music festivals.
Mr. Neumann went outside and led visitors through a long grassy field to the edge of the pond. The silhouette of Long Pond Studio emerged in the late afternoon light. Nearby was a fire pit circle that was the setting for a creative discussion between Mr. Swift, Mr. Dessner and Mr. Antonoff in the documentary.
“I know that this building owes its reputation to the people who worked here,” Newman said. “But there’s something about this building. Aaron put it on an album cover, and Taylor Swift made a movie here. It becomes a character.”
Without a trace of ego, he added: “It’s because of the architecture. Architecture subconsciously influences people, so they stay here longer and produce more.”