Houses of the Hamptons 1880-1930 (The Architecture of Leisure)

HOUSES OF THE HAMPTONS, 1880 1930 explores more than 30 houses, many designed by some of America s leading architects McKim, Mead & White, John Russell Pope, Harrie T. Lindeberg and by less well-known but equally gifted designers such as Edward Purcel Mellon, Isaac H. Green, and John Custis Lawrence. Less enamored with showy grandeur than Newport, but clearly a place apart from the whitewashed cottages of New England, the great summer places of the Hamptons present an ensemble of exceptional architectural variety and achievement. Here, American Colonial, half-timbered Tudor, and red brick Georgian vie with shingled cottage and Mediterranean fantasy. The book is illustrated with more than 300 photographs and floor plans, and its text provides a rich and informative portrait of the American leisure class at play. Authors Gary Lawrance and Anne Surchin lead the reader on a tour of a bygone era when couples in white flannel played tennis or croquet on verdant lawns or when America s aristocracy flocked to watch the students of William Merritt Chase s Shinnecock Art School at their paintings. The volume also contains biographical sketches of individual architects, a comprehensive bibliography, and a portfolio of some 40 grand residences of this beautiful and unsurpassed vacation enclave. Through word and image, HOUSES OF THE HAMPTONS recaptures the grace and beauty of an era long vanished. Lovingly researched and chronicled by the authors, that era lives again in these vibrant pages.