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In 1884 Thomas and Mary Nimmo Moran became the first artists to build a house and studio in the Hamptons. An art colony of sorts was already forming in East Hampton, but its members stayed mostly in boarding houses along Main Street. The Morans, aesthetes and artists and bohemians, had some original ideas about real estate and about lifestyle, and their pioneering efforts galvanized into a romantic tradition that is still with us.
Mary Nimmo and her father, a weaver, moved from Scotland to this country after her mother’s death, and she studied in Baltimore under Thomas Moran and then married him. She went on to become a noted etcher. Moran went on to become an important landscape painter—he painted Venice and the Scottish moors, but is most remembered for his works on the American West. Panoramas of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon once hung in the United States Capital and are now housed in the Smithsonian. But both Morans were drawn to the less dramatic, quieter landscape of Eastern Long Island, and settled here.
The house they built opposite East Hampton’s Town Pond was mannered, playful and not quite proper, a spin on the newly popular Queen Anne style. “It was, in effect, the first example of ‘experimental’ architecture in the Hamptons,” Alastair Gordon wrote in his important architectural history of the Hamptons, Weekend Utopia. “Projecting gables and quaint chimney pots made an odd-looking silhouette against the summer sky. With dormer windows pointing up like raised eyebrows, the house appeared to be craning its neck to get a better view of the ocean.” Perhaps this was the start of another ongoing tradition.
One of the outbuildings behind the honeysuckle hedges on the property housed a gondola that Moran brought from Venice and used on nearby ponds. The studio was a popular gathering place for fellow artists as well as their talented family, which included sixteen painters, printmakers and illustrators. There were musical evenings as well as tableaux vivants in period costumes, according to Helen A. Harrison in Hamptons Bohemia.
Mary died of typhoid fever in 1899, in a local epidemic brought from Cuba by the Rough Riders who were billeted at Montauk during the Spanish-American War. Daughter Ruth Moran inherited the house after her father’s death in 1926, and in 1947 sold it to Elizabeth and Condi Lamb. The Mrs. Condi Lamb Agency, located in the house, was for many years the real estate hub of the “summer colony.” The house was later given by the Lambs to Guild Hall.
Guild Hall, in the midst of its own capital campaign, has not yet been able to raise money for the preservation of the house, now in serious disrepair. A new entity has been formed, The Thomas Moran Trust, for the purpose of restoring the house and grounds and outbuildings. Possible uses are as a scholarly and community center with artists studios and an artist-in-residence. Peter Wolf, president of the trust, is leading the effort to define its future and raise the anticipated $4 million needed for restoration as well as additional funds for an endowment.
We asked Wolf about the future: “The Thomas Moran Trust, in collaboration with knowledgeable historians, dedicated preservationists, generous philanthropists, caring residents, responsible business leaders, government agencies, and visionary thinkers, is committed to seizing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,”
Town and village governments, understanding that it only happens once, are cooperating, and state and federal money may be in the pipeline. One unanswered question hinges on the generosity of Guild Hall. They own it and could, if they wished, determine a price and then sell it to the trust or any other buyer. But since it was gifted to them, logic, ethics, and responsible stewardship dictate that they ought to freely pass on the gift. It is an essential part of our local heritage and of art history in America, and must be preserved.