Selected work
New construction, restoration and adaptive reuse
Residential and institutional work on the Connecticut shoreline. The oldest building here was framed in 1746; the most recent was finished this year. In between: a savings bank turned into a restaurant, an assembly hall lined in cherry, a barn taken down in one town and stood back up in another, and houses on both sides of two hundred years of building practice.
Since 2016, 12 of our buildings have been blower door tested by an independent rater. They average 1.8 ACH50 against a code limit of 3.0. The tightest measured 0.62.
By what it proves
Newest
Deep River, Connecticut · Hanby Lontine Architects · 2024
A long modern bar on a shelf of blasted ledge above the river. Board-formed concrete, a rain screen held off the wall, and reveal details that leave a builder no tolerance at all.
Barn re-raised
Old Lyme, Connecticut · Tom Lontine Architect · 2026
A new house detailed so that nothing in it reads as new, and an 1880s barn shored, dismantled in another town, trucked down and stood back up on new engineering.
Project of the Year
Essex, Connecticut · Scot Samuelson, AIA · 2019
Three floor systems taken out of a post-and-beam frame and rebuilt dead level inside it, with the house standing the whole time.
Antique restoration
Essex, Connecticut · Anthony Vermandois · 2014
A 1746 gambrel that was meant to get a bedroom over the kitchen, and ended up stripped back to its post-and-beam frame with one wing rebuilt from the foundation.
Institutional
New London, Connecticut · Centerbrook Architects · 2018
An assembly room stripped to the studs and rebuilt in cherry over a single summer, between the last day of school and the first.
Adaptive reuse
Chester, Connecticut · 2012
An 1871 village savings bank turned into a restaurant: three vaults, a floodplain lot, and a clock put back into the pediment.
Estate
Old Lyme, Connecticut · Scot Samuelson, AIA · 2023
A 1932 J. Frederick Kelly house on the Lieutenant River, with a new carriage house, pool house, pool and dock, and the view given back to it.
New construction
Niantic, Connecticut · Hendricks Churchill · 2020
Main house, guest house and garage on Old Black Point, framed and finished by the same crew, with trim from the Sapia shop.
Certified
Niantic, Connecticut · Trillium Architects · 2020
A tear-down and rebuild on the point: HERS 39, 0.62 ACH50, all electric, DOE Zero Energy Ready.
Two eras
Essex, Connecticut · Schappacher White (2015) · Sapia Builders design (2024 to 2026)
A mid-century modern house rebuilt underneath a folded mahogany ceiling, and a decade later a garage, a lower building, a pool and a guest house drawn in our own office.
Eleven years
Essex, Connecticut · Stephen L. Lloyd · 2009
A new carriage house on the Connecticut River, and then eleven years of work on the house beside it, ending with the whole roof.
On the river
Old Saybrook, Connecticut · KV designs · 2016 to 2017
A new house above the Connecticut River: gambrel roofs, a curved copper roof over a stone entry, a barrel-vaulted family room.
House and barn
Killingworth, Connecticut · 2009 to 2010
An antique house joined to its barn by a new breezeway, with the barn converted to a main bedroom suite.
Occupied building
Old Lyme, Connecticut · Centerbrook Architects · 2017 to 2018
Charles A. Platt’s 1921 gallery, re-shingled and re-trimmed in kind one elevation at a time, with the galleries open.
On the water
Clinton, Connecticut · 2013
Four bathrooms, a new kitchen and exterior rot repair in a house on the rocks over Long Island Sound, all inside the existing footprint.
Designed in-house
Chester, Connecticut · 2011
A skylit gallery joining two buildings on a village lot, ending in an octagonal room under a pyramid skylight.
Historic district
Old Saybrook, Connecticut · KV designs · 2016
An antique house in the North Cove Historic District, renovated to KV designs’ drawings after the Historic District Commission approved the exterior changes.
Design-build
Essex, Connecticut · 2014 and 2021
A new Cape built design-build in 2014 and, seven years later, a two-bay garage with a room above it and a copper-roofed cupola.
Commercial
Deep River, Connecticut · 2025 to 2026
A working marina on the Connecticut River: the office, the front desk and the docks, designed and built in-house.
Renovation
Old Lyme, Connecticut · 2009
A gambrel house taken back to its frame and extended, re-shingled in red cedar, with a covered porch carried on fieldstone columns.
Wings at 45°
Old Lyme, Connecticut · Scot Samuelson Architect · 2025
Half the house came off and went back on at 45° to what stayed, with the terraces drawn out stone by stone before a mason touched them.
Old Lyme, Connecticut · 2009
Tantummaheag Road
A renovation and addition on a wooded lot above a fieldstone wall. Sapia carried the demolition, excavation, concrete, masonry and carpentry: a new foundation off the kitchen, the porch columns laid up in fieldstone, and the whole house re-shingled in red cedar with green sash.
Clinton, Connecticut · 2013
House on the Sound
Permit B-12-0948, issued December 2012, describes the job in one line: four bathroom renovations with no change in footprint, exterior rot repair and new kitchen cabinet installation. The stair was built in-house as part of the same job. The house sits on ledge at the edge of Long Island Sound.
Chester, Connecticut · 2011
Connecting Addition
The gallery runs between the house and the building beside it, lit from above by a row of skylights set between the rafters and from the side by a wall of French doors. It ends in an eight-sided room whose ceiling rises to a glazed pyramid. We designed it and built it.
Old Saybrook, Connecticut · KV designs · 2016
North Cove House
The Historic District Commission approved the exterior changes on November 19, 2015. Inside, the new kitchen opening is carried on a flush beam and the living room on a dropped beam, both sized that December.
Essex, Connecticut · 2014 and 2021
Cape and Garage
The house was built under a design-build agreement in 2014. In 2020 and 2021 we built the garage addition: two bays below, a finished room with a wet bar above, and a 42-inch copper-roofed cupola set on the ridge in July 2021.
Deep River, Connecticut · 2025 to 2026
Marina on the River
We designed the office, the front desk and the docks. The office drawings started from existing conditions measured in March 2025; the docks were stripped to the frame and re-decked in April and May 2026.
