In 1979 Michelle Murphy and Robert Strada, a young couple who’d known each other only eight months, began to look for their perfect Hamptons house. Real estate agent Ceil Ackley took them to a shingle-style Amagansett house built in 1894 to give them an idea of the sort of old-world house they sought. Alas, it wasn’t for sale. Yet the pair fell so in love with the authentic relic of times past that a deal was soon struck.

“Historic Howell House In Bridgehampton May Be Demolished,” read the January headline in 27East.com. Francois de Menil, the owner of the 1840 house (and brother of Adelaide de Menil, who famously donated a clutch of historic buildings to the Town of East Hampton), has applied to demolish the historic Quimby Lane dwelling. That announcement came on the heels of the tragic razing of the important Pyrrhus Concer House in Southampton.

What makes a house “green”? Energy efficiency is the number one feature, according to Peter Sabbeth. As head of Modern Green Home, a Bridgehampton firm since 2006, he ought to know. Following close behind, he says, are air quality and sustainable materials.

The South Fork is dotted with numerous windmills attached to houses—alas, most of them are follies, cutesy facsimiles of the real thing. But in the case of Windmill House in Amagansett, the dwelling really is built in an old windmill that once pumped water to a long ago farm.

Modern is the go-to architectural style in the Hamptons these days, at least for the uber wealthy. That’s a good thing for Bridgehampton’s Barnes Coy Architects who have been designing sleek abodes for going on three decades. While most Hamptonites were building rambling shingle-style mansions, co-principals of the award-winnning firm, Rob Barnes and Christopher Coy, were focusing on loft-like spaces with vast transparencies that merge the barrier between outdoors and indoors.