Meadowcroft was designed by Philadelphia architect Wilson Eyre for New York City businessman Theodore Conklin. Built in the Hamptons’ enclave of Quantuck Bay in 1904, this 9,000-sq.ft., two-story “cottage” (seen here from its rear elevation) has two obliquely angled wings that flank a central hall, permitting all eight of its upstairs bedrooms to enjoy views of the water. Meadowcroft’s exterior is distinguished by such relatively simple features as rough stucco walls, shuttered double-hung windows and a red tile roof made of cast terra cotta.

Meadowcroft’s tall veranda at the rear is ideal for enjoying the view while staying shielded from the summer sun; it also boasts this handsome and elaborate built-in bench, also designed by Eyre, as well as Tiffany pendant fixtures of milk glass and copper.

The summer residence Onadune, designed by local architect John Custis Lawrence and built in 1903, “has always been recognized as one of the grandes dames among East Hampton’s cottages,” according to authors Gary Lawrence and Anne Surchin. “Despite its 33 rooms and 13 bedrooms, the interior does, in fact, have a modest quality.” Case in point: the house’s charming stair hall, which eschews the grandiosity of so many center stair halls in other residences of the Hamptons. Only some simple sconces and a few discreet pieces of elegant furniture are needed to punctuate the subdued interior. The wainscoting, built-up moldings and coffered ceiling seen here are design themes that run throughout the house.

JANUARY 2008 » book review

Architecture of Leisure

Houses of the Hamptons, 1880-1930
by Gary Lawrence and Anne Surchin
Acanthus Press, LLC, New York, NY; 2007
354 pages; hardcover; more than 375 illustrations; $85
ISBN 978-0-926494-44-2

Reviewed by Nicole V. Gagné

The South Fork landmass of New York’s Long Island is home to the Hamptons, an area encompassing the townships of East Hampton and Southampton, which themselves contain the four Hamptons: the villages of Westhampton Beach, East Hampton, Bridgehampton and Southampton. Today, the region is synonymous with the uppermost of the upper crust; it is the American Riviera, studded with spectacular estates throughout its roughly 500 sq.mi. Fittingly, one of the toniest publishers devoted to architectural studies, Acanthus Press, has just released an inspired addition to its Architecture of Leisure series: Houses of the Hamptons, 1880-1930, by Gary Lawrence and Anne Surchin, two practicing architects who are also knowledgeable and articulate architectural historians. Their study is a massive, oversized, richly illustrated tome that would put most coffee tables to shame. It is also a breakthrough piece of historical research that sheds much-needed light on a facet of Americana that long ago achieved legendary status.

Of course, prior to the year 1640, this stretch of Long Island was the exclusive home territory of the Shinnecock Indians, the region’s native population since ancient times. In that fateful year, however, Puritan emigrants from England settled in the area, and with the assistance of the Shinnecock, developed a fishing and agrarian community they called Southampton. More Puritans arrived just a few years later and established the nearby settlement of East Hampton, and by the 18th century, whaling and cattle-raising had joined farming and fishing as staples of the local economy. Still, Southampton and its suburbs remained little more than modest names on the map of Long Island well into the 19th century. But in 1872, the expansion of New York’s Long Island Railroad line brought a new variety of settlers to the region: summer visitors escaping the stifling heat of New York City for the cooler temperatures and beautiful terrain of this waterfront area. The well-to-do did well by deciding to build their summer homes in the now easily accessible Hamptons, launching a trend that survived not only the glory years of America’s “Gilded Age,” but also the Depression of the 1930s and all other setbacks and hurdles that have encumbered material development in the United States ever since.

Houses of the Hamptons, however, is not really a history of the region per se; although Lawrence and Surchin do provide a thoughtful introduction that places the Hamptons within its historical context, the book is organized basically as a series of close-up examinations of more than 30 estates. Handsome photographs, both exterior and interior, define each survey, and are accompanied by a fascinating account of each structure’s origin and design. Some of the master architects of the Gilded Age were hired to design the sumptuous summer residences of the Hamptons’ elite citizenry, including John Russell Pope, Cross & Cross and F. Burrall Hoffman. Perhaps the house that is most prized today is The Dolphins, one of the few residences designed by McKim, Mead & White that still stands.

Built in 1885, The Dolphins is among the earliest summer cottages to grace Southampton. Of course, for the region’s wealthy during the late-19th century, the term “cottage” tended to imply a little bit more than it suggests to most people today, and this three-story Shingle Style estate represented a sophisticated opulence that proved irresistible to the area’s residents who came after it; as Lawrence and Surchin note, The Dolphins “helped inspire the trend toward sprawling seaside villas, rambling Shingle-style houses and 50-room cottages of every conceivable style.”

“Every conceivable style” is certainly right. Sometimes it seems as though the authors haven’t examined a single geographical region at all, but rather have undertaken an abbreviated history of Western architecture, as they share with readers a spectrum of so-called cottages with design inspirations that range from the Dutch Colonial, Georgian Revival and Italian villa to English Arts and Crafts, Art Deco and even International Style Modernism.

Houses of the Hamptons is replete with both historic and present-day photographs, and when seen side by side they indicate just how little life has changed in the enclaves of the wealthy over the past hundred years or so. Although the authors usually take care in their captions to distinguish contemporary pictures from images that were taken long ago, a distinctly hermetic and frozen quality nevertheless attends a great many of these residences – a sensation that is only accentuated by the regrettable fact that less than 10 percent of the book’s hundreds of photographs are in color. As a result, it’s often hard to feel much of a sense of life in these homes, either in the past or today. Still, any enthusiast of America’s grand architecture and interior design of the last century will regard Houses of the Hamptons as a treasure trove of rare and fascinating information. How fortunate readers are to have such a splendid opportunity to examine these extraordinary homes up close – with no danger that the present-day owners will release their guard dogs to chase them away. 

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