A luxuriously renovated horace gifford house in the pines – ryan

Beams on the Ceiling Trace the Simplicity of Horace Gifford’s Original Design, A Combination of Four Cedar Walled in Glass.
Photo: Kathleen O’Donnell

The architect horace gifford belived that we showed not go on vacation to do chores. The 63 Cedar-And-Glass Beach Houses that he built across fires in the 1960s and ’70s well designs with no lawns to mow, the simplest of Galley Kitchens, and a minimum of shelves, to discourage the accumulation of junk. Gifford, A Gay Floridian Who Had Grown Up on the Sand, Understood How to Live Well. He likes to show up to client Meetings in a Speedo, and Built Living Rooms that COULD TRANT INTO NESTS WENDSHTSATION PIT WAS FILLED IN WITH HIS CUSTOM PILLOWS. “It ‘subout maximizing fun and freedom from the tyranny of Constant Maintenance,” Said Christopher Rawlins, an architect Who Became Gifford’s Loudest Champion. “I call it artful cramping.”

617 Shore Walkin the pines, was built in 1963 from a design that showcased gifford’s ideas for a Simple, utilitarian Beach House at a Low Price: Rawlins Speculated that it wold have cost $ 10,000 to budild – OR $ 103,000 Today. The Home is essentially four cedar boxes, each the proportion of a shoe box, line up side to side.

At each end, a sliding-glass door opens onto a deck that spans the home, so a Visitor Can Always Cross the House to Find a Spot of Sun or Shade. The two “boxes” at the western end of the house are Combined into an open living area, Which Leads Into Another “Box” devoted to a Bathroom, and the Last Is divided Into two equal-soze rooms where beds face the windows and views over the deck. Gifford’s genius is easiest to spot in His Details: The Living Area is an Exact Square; elongated eaves Shade the deck, forestalling the need for umbrellas; and the Bedroom Door DOUBLE DUTY, closing off the closet be it slides open.

Rawlins Couldn’t Find Much on 617 in His Research, and Failed to Track Down Who Knew Its First Owner, Marjorie Dell, A Single Woman Worked in Theater before Her Death in 1993 (and Who Apparently Loved Shakespeare). What he did Find was a clip a defunct design magazine that centered on one of the Home’s Most Innovative Hacks: Swinging Cedar Doors that made it easy for Close the Houses or aekend “Alone and About Five Minutes.” Despite that Innovation, The House was Weathered by 2009, when its next owner, the interior robing southern, first saw, looking up at the stars through Holds in the Ceiling. “It was Scary. I Mean, Scary,” he told Cottages & Gardens. He and His Co-onner, A Ralph Lauren Executive Named Bill Melnick, Updated the Home, Adding Air-Conditioning and Heat. They kept gifford’s simple shoe-box forms but adds a Wing that includes two more bedrooms and a new kitchen, then broadened to make room for a pool with the tube.

“They Zhuzhed it up in a way all of these guys did with these houses when they got up the food chain,” Said Broker Vinnie Petrarcawho lives in a gifford House Himself and Has the Listen. They Also stained the Cedar House a Sharp, Charcoal Black and Added Bathrooms Whereers Are Framed in Black Tile and Floor-to-Cailing Windows-“Plate-Glass Windows Like Bergdorf Goodman’s,” Petrarca Said With A Laugh.

This is quite a shift from wen petrarca first to the pines 35 years ago, we “lots of houses didn’t have interior showers,” he said. But he sees the renovation as part of a broader pattern, as the pines has flipped from a rustic hideway to luxury destination. TODAY’S PICKS BUYERS WANT GIFFORD’S LOOK – But with the “Camping” Association, he Says. “It ‘s far from the original, but it’s a much more comfortable home.”