Modern Aviation at Gabreski Airport: Photographing a New Private Terminal on Long Island
Not every architectural shoot comes with a runway. This one did. I recently photographed Modern Aviation's newly renovated private terminal and new hangar at Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach, right in the heart of the Hamptons on Long Island, for the architecture and interior design firm Rice Fergus Miller.
The project
Modern Aviation runs a national network of private aviation terminals, known in the industry as FBOs — the places where private and business jets are fueled, parked, and where passengers and crews are looked after. Their Gabreski location received a full terminal renovation along with a brand-new hangar, and the result feels far more like a boutique hospitality lounge than a typical airport building.
Rice Fergus Miller, an architecture and interior design firm, pulled the whole thing together, and the images were shared with the design team, the contractor, and Modern Aviation itself. Photographing for several stakeholders at once means every frame has to work hard, the architecture, the interiors, and the brand all need to come through.
Telling the whole story
A project like this has a lot of chapters, and I wanted the photographs to walk through all of them:
The exteriors, from the clean daytime approach to a quiet, glowing hangar at twilight
The arrival experience: the reception desk with its custom branded wave design and warm wood tones
The passenger lounges, styled in a deep aviation blue with art and comfortable, considered furniture
The working spaces: conference rooms, the pantry, the crew areas
The hangar itself, that huge, clean, light-filled volume built to house the aircraft
Aerial and drone frames to place the whole facility in its Long Island setting
The twilight exteriors were a favorite. There's something about a lit hangar against a deep blue evening sky that captures exactly what private aviation feels like; arriving somewhere special, at any hour.
Why it works
The best commercial spaces are designed around how people move through and feel in them, and the photography has to carry that same feeling. For a facility like this, that means showing the polish and calm of the guest areas alongside the scale and function of the hangar, the hospitality and the hardware, side by side.
It was a pleasure to help Rice Fergus Miller and Modern Aviation tell the story of a space that sets a new standard for private aviation on Long Island.
See more of my commercial and architectural work here, and if you've got a project on the ground or on a runway — let's talk.
