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Why can’t good modernism survive the trip across the Shinnecock Canal?
Manhattan has had something of a modernist renaissance with sleek, glassy boxes now rivaling the prestige of classic pre-war stone buildings. And it is not just garden variety modernism. Minimalism by such practitioners as John Pawson is setting a standard as well as commanding dizzying prices in the New York market.
But with an exception here and there that only proves the rule, even people with the most adventurous tastes in the city can hardly think outside the shingled box once they are on the East End. Houses built in, say, the last fifteen years, run the gamut of taste all the way from A to B in architectural style.
The currently fashionable conservative look is impressive. It is dignified and opulent—and predictable. Exterior walls and swooping roofs clad in cedar shingles. White trim. Double hung wood windows and French doors. Columns and porches. Set on an emerald green lawn with a grey gunite pool with bluestone coping discreetly set in the grass. And inside more columns, heavy crown moldings, wainscoting. The Viking, Sub-Zero kitchen, white subway tiles and tasteful Waterworks fixtures in the baths. And, well, you know the formula.
It is sometimes called the Hamptons Look among design people, though it is hardly confined to Long Island, and it derives from the truly original shingle-style houses built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
It is easy to like. (I have to admit I am drawn to it and, true confession, my own house is highly traditional) And it is easy to live with. That’s one source of its strength. Spaces are comfortable, commonplace forms where we know we fit in. It is elegant, restrained and harmonious. The style is old guard and unchanging, with a discriminating charm and grace. But as for originality, it’s a nonstarter.
Convention beats innovation every time. A familiar, if not overworked architectural vocabulary beats fresh, formative ideas. The banal and the pedestrian, no matter how finely and sensitively decked out, display their derivative roots, and will never be mistaken for creative and exceptional design. It’s white bread with some fancy toppings.
Money pretty much insulates us from the trite and mindless and really awful look of the same style when it is applied to development building all over this country. We can afford the swanky details that make our houses eye-catching, sumptuous and seductive. Dollars add up to desirability.
It is not as if we are beholden to vulgar displays of wealth. We’re too smart for that. Even at our most predictable, there is nothing boorish or indelicate. Quite the opposite. We’ve all internalized what is tasteful and correct. And maybe that is one reason we do not take any chances.
Ironically, the Hamptons from the 1950s into the 1970s was a breeding ground for modern architecture. But it came to a crashing halt as newly rich preferences shifted to more aristocratic shingle homes. If you did not inherit an ancestral, old money type of estate, you could buy it or build it. Architecture succumbed to sociology. Design became another domestic helper on the climb to the top. Sprawling shingle homes were the inherently perfect vehicle for our upward mobility.
So, do we have any good modernism outside of the few remaining notable markers of the post-war years? Yes, here and there. And is there a market for it? Tommy Hilfiger would say yes. He just spent $18 million to buy a sleek modern gem of a house on Further Lane in East Hampton. The house was the creation of Robert Marc, who owns optical stores, and his partner, William Roach. Though hardly the biggest house in the Hamptons at 4,500 square feet, it is one of the most thoughtfully detailed, with a controlled use of rich sensuous materials, and not a shingle or dental molding in sight. Even the decks and oceanside pool display a clean-lined, uncluttered style.
It’s too early to tell if Mr. Hilfiger is part of a trend, but we’re watching.