Architect builds model houses that turn into East End homes

Gary Lawrence is an architect that builds tiny models of homes in advance of the real things — not to be confused with the increasingly popular real houses that are actually tiny — that primarily turn up in the Hamptons (see video from Plum TV above). Lawrence said he became an architect because he always loved big houses, and remembers admiring them as a child during trips to upstate New York and the Hamptons. Now, he saunters through the East End admiring houses that look astonishingly familiar — they’re real life replicas of his models. The models start at $3,000, which led Curbed to deem them nearly as expensive per square foot as the real things.

“I always say, a successful house is when it looks like the model,” Lawrence joked. But perhaps the strangest sensation, according to Lawrence, is walking through a completed house based on his model. “You feel like you’re in the model sometimes,” he said. “It’s very strange.”