THE MORAN HOUSE HISTORY FROM 1884 TO 2012
The Studio, as it has been known since the Moran family first occupied it, comprises Thomas Moran’s artist studio, residential quarters such as bedrooms and a service wing, as well as gardens and outbuildings. The working studio plays a significant role in American art history, while the entire property is vital in understanding East Hampton history and the social milieu of New York City and eastern Long Island in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Thomas Moran was an important American painter—having already sold the monumental canvases, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Chasm of the Colorado to the United States Congress for display in the Capital—when he and Mary Nimmo Moran and their three children first visited East Hampton in 1878. During the summer 1884 they stayed to supervise construction of The Studio, having bought the Main Street lot (a small part of one of the homelots granted to the original settlers) from Dr Edward and Phoebe Osborn, who lived next door.
Members of the Moran family then occupied the house nearly every year from the summer of 1885 onward—a total of 63 summers. Mary Nimmo Moran resided there with her husband for fifteen extended summers until her death from typhoid fever in 1899. Thomas Moran stayed on for another 22 seasons until his final few years in California, and daughter Ruth Moran used the home until her death in 1948.
From the very beginning, the house was an architectural departure from the conventions of the time. Art studios in America and England were traditionally separated from living areas—the studio being a dedicated space, the living area complete in itself. Historian Robert Hefner points out that “Thomas Moran’s idea of a single studio space for multiple activities with a suite of bedrooms for the family perched on top determined much of the character of The Studio: its essential simplicity, its modest scale, and its informality.”
Moran and the family were in England for six months in 1882, and the Queen Anne style, popular there, especially among artists, no doubt left an imprint. Among the Queen Anne elements in the Moran house are its asymmetrical composition, many different types of windows, borders of small panes around a large central pane, the projecting oriel window and bay window, and notably the corner turret with steep cap. Yet the Moran house remains a true original. The Queen Anne style was the overall guide, but Moran’s individual taste as well as his choice of components salvaged from New York City demolitions, give it a unique character. (As well as bringing materials from New York City, Moran imported a gondola from Venice that he used on Hook Pond.)
The Studio itself was the center of family activity when Thomas Moran was not actually working there. The large space had few furnishings but included an upright piano, and was well suited for favorite family activities such as poetry readings, singing, dances and performances. The balcony and turret, open to the studio, provided additional living space for the family when Moran was busy working, and the area under the balcony functioned as a dining room.
But it is as a workshop of one of America’s most recognized and influential painters, as well as a workshop for his highly talented wife, that The Studio takes on so much meaning for us. Some of Moran’s significant American West work was done in the years prior to coming to East Hampton, but Ruth Moran pointed out “a greater part of his work was done” in The Studio. Early accounts in The East Hampton Star describe some of the paintings and other artworks Thomas and Mary were in the process of creating in The Studio.
The Moran family participated in the social life of East Hampton, where they were founding members of the Maidstone Club. The Studio itself was the scene of many social events, most notably a costume ball in 1889 documented by an article in the East Hampton Star as well as two surviving photographs. As the first artist’s home in East Hampton, The Studio would naturally have been a gathering place for their circle of creative friends and relatives. Mary Nimmo Moran was known to sing Scottish songs; Ruth Moran read from Shakespeare; and guests gave talks and performances.
Moran not only enjoyed and painted the pastoral setting in East Hampton, but also protected it. He had a windmill constructed in 1892 to provide well water for street sprinkling and to replenish the water in Town Pond. In 1901 he was among the residents who protested the placement of telephone poles, resulting in underground service for much of the village.
After the initial construction in 1884 of this first artist’s house to be built in East Hampton, Moran continued to alter the structure. It may not have had a kitchen at first, and the family may have eaten meals at nearby boarding houses, as they would have become accustomed to do in previous summers. Within two years a kitchen was added, and what was a minimal service wing was expanded until in 1903, in its final form, it contained a full kitchen, porch, laundry, china closet, pantry, and upstairs two maid’s rooms and a bath. These features were typical of the service wings of East Hampton summer cottages at that time. A new front porch was built in 1890, and the earlier pediment was recycled to a still existing outbuilding that may have been part of the protective structure for his gondola. Among the other outbuildings is a bathhouse, a simple changing room that was transported to Main Beach each summer.
Water lines were installed on Main Street in the spring of 1899, bringing the advent of indoor plumbing to East Hampton and to the Moran house. Thomas Moran would have been particularly receptive to this, having lost his wife to typhoid fever in an epidemic that spread from Camp Wykoff in Montauk, where ill soldiers from the Cuban campaign were based on their return.
A three-story addition between the main structure and the service wing was built (perhaps in 1899) to house a bathroom for the family, one for the studio, and by 1903, another bathroom for help. In 1903 Moran had the house wired for electricity, and the kerosene lamps suspended from the ceiling of the studio were replaced with electric fixtures.
The grounds and gardens were part of family life. A fence and honeysuckle hedge ran along Main Street with a broad lawn sweeping back towards their home. A walkway from Main Street aligned more with the turret than with the front door, and it was along this walkway and a picket fence to the south of it that Mary Nimmo Moran created her shrub and flower garden. Dr Edward Osborn created an adjoining garden to the south of the picket fence, and since they shared a gardener, the entire garden area had a gracious continuity. Photographs and paintings show that the two gardens, with the fence and a gate between the properties near the Moran porch, constituted an important setting for the family.
After Thomas Moran’s death in 1926, Ruth Moran lived in The Studio most of the year (except for dire winter months) and made very few changes to the house or collections. Ruth Moran died in May 1948, leaving The Studio and most of its contents to her sister, Mary Tassin, who lived in Washington. Antique furniture, silver, linens and collectibles in The Studio were sold at auction in August, and in October, Joseph Condie Lamb and Elizabeth Neale Lamb took title to the property. At first just a summerhouse, it became a full time residence by the 1960s. An addition from this period (to be removed in keeping with the historic restoration guidelines) became the site of a real estate business, the Mrs. Condie Lamb Agency. Mr. and Mrs. Lamb had the The Studio declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965. With a life tenancy reserved for Mrs. Lamb (who died in 2004) the property was given to Guild Hall after Mr. Lamb’s death in 1990. In 2008 Guild Hall deeded the property to the Thomas Moran Trust, a nonprofit organization formed to preserve the house and gardens and ensure their well being for generations to come.