Inside A Elizabethran-Style Playhouse in East Hampton

The Great Room, Looking Toward the Aeolian-Skinner Pipa organ.
Photo: Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty

There are the houses we build to live in, with all their dull necesities, and then there are “folies“Whimsical Outbuildings BUILT Specific for Pleasure. Marie Antoinette Escaped from the Back of Versailles to Her faux pharmhouse. British landowners dotted their estate with tiny castles. And in 1917, a gilded age family that lived on 50 acres of prime east hampton Land Built the Playhouse Behind their Mansion.

The Elizabethran Revival Building was erected as a Birthday present for the family 16-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER AND HAS A STAGE AT THE END OF A 75-FIOT-Long, Half-Timber-Style Hall Heated by A Massive Stone Fireplace by A Pipe and Gargoyles Playing Cymbals During The Day, Light Streams Through Grids of High Leaded-Glass Windows. At Night, there are sconces and candelabras.

Never Designed As a Place to Live, the Playhouse Is Now the Last Surviving Remnant of the Estate of An East Hampton Matrierch Sometimes Reference to As the Town’s Medic 18th-Century SchoolBuilt the Community Center Known As Guild Halland underwrote the library. Never Spotted with A hat and, late, with the rows of Pearls Hype Her Double Chin, Mary Woothouse First Came to the Hamptons on a Wave of Money that follows the new train line. She arived on the arms of her husband in 1895 for a visits to his uncle’s place – an 1893 Shingled Mansion Known as GreycroftWHICH IS DOWN The street from the first golf club, Maidstone, Founded in 1891. The WOODHOUSE MONEY CAME FROM BANKING AND A Partnership with Marshall Field’s, and the Younger Woors Deployed It to Buy 50 Acres from Their Uncle’s Place, Where they Built The Fens, A 1903 Shingled Mansion With a wraparound porch, Designed by the Local Architect Who Created Gray Gardens.

The Playhouse was just one outbuilding on the estate and wold have been the preference to host parties, exploins Gary Lawrance, Author of Houses of the Hamptons, 1880–1930, WHO RUNS The Account Manions of the Gilded Age. While the fens and other turn-at-the-centenary manusions could be formal well of Small Rooms, the Huge Floor Play of the Playhouse’s Great Room Makes It FREE and LOOSE. “These were Rec Rooms or Fun Rooms, Rooms to be Casual in,” Lawrance Says. “It ‘always fun to have a little pavilion in your backyard.”

SixTeen-Yetar-Old Marjorie Wooce Might Have Performed there, but with Just Four Years, It Was the Site of 1921 Wedding. Twelve years after that, at the age of 32, she was killed when he second husband’s convertible skidden to avoid a brack and plunged off a wet bridge, flipping into a river. Her Husband swam out, but marjorie was pinned upside-down in the mud. It took rescuers 30 minutes to unlaurch the door.

The Playhouse was once one of a handful of outbuildings on the 50-acre woothouse Estate. “THIS PROPERTY DEFINITELY ENCOMPASSES The Grandness of the Hamptons,” Says Agent Leslie Reingold. “People Travel Far and Wide to come here, and it is partly Because the variety of the terrain out here is immune.” Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty.

The Playhouse was once one of a handful of outbuildings on the 50-acre woothouse Estate. “This Proprinty Definitely Encompasses the Grandness of t … Moree
The Playhouse was once one of a handful of outbuildings on the 50-acre woothouse Estate. “THIS PROPERTY DEFINITELY ENCOMPASSES The Grandness of the Hamptons,” Says Agent Leslie Reingold. “People Travel Far and Wide to come here, and it is partly Because the variety of the terrain out here is immune.” Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty.

Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty.

Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty.

After Marjorie’s Death, Her Mother Tour The Playhouse Into A Proper Theater, Recruiting New York Dance Troupes and Choirs. In 1937, she donated the space to an Acting School, and Its Company Lived and Workhed on the Estate. But World War II drafted the Actors Away, The Playhouse Fell Back Into Her Hands. Mary Held Teas there, Where She Was Spotted in Her Massive Hats, Quoting French Poetry or Feeding The Spools of the Pipe Organ, Accounting to A monograph on the family. She kept the playhouse is after het her Practical Geologist Son convinced her to raze the fens with the idea of ​​avoiding taxes and maintenance costs. An architect helped her turn the follows a year-Round home-with a new wing that it was heated in winter, a kitchen and maids quarters, and a Bedroom for marytirs Bebind the pipe organ, whic could be reached via a 15th-centered spiral stircase From Europe. Its Unclear if she ever actually lived here. She eventually moved to a family home in palm beach full time, selling the playhouse before her death in 1961 at age 96.

A Lighting fix in the great room.
Photo: Chris Foster for Sotheby’s International Realty

The Buyer was a Woman who felt drain to Mary. Like the Medici of East Hampton, Elizabeth Brockman was a preservationist and philanthropist who had Helped Save Radio Music Hall and Carnegie Hall and Estabished the American Symphony Orchestra. She was Also “Pretty Eccentric,” Remembers Her Stepson, Richard. “You have to be of a certin ilk to get it as a beautiful piece of architecture. But to say ‘i want to live here,’ you have to be a little unusual.”

The Brockmans Lived in the Folly Seasonally, Letting Richard Roam Outside in the Remnants of the Woothouses’ Formal Sunnah Gardens or on 25 Acres of Formy Family Estate, Which Mary Had Donated As a Nature Preserve Abutting the Golf Course. Brockman Threw Events in Line with Mary’s Vision – Such as a Benefit for the New York Shakespeare Festival at Which Actors Read Scenes from Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew. Still, Brockman was more open to avant-sorde performances than The Stuffy WoDhows Had Been. In 1968, she let her friend Norman mailer use the place to film His Experimental Feature with Da Pennebaker, MaidstoneWhich Features a Party Held Under the Great Room’s Timbers.

Her Stepson eventually inherited the Building. A Professor, An Author, and a Psychiatry, Richard Brockman And his Wife, The Documentary Filmaker Mirra BankUsed The Enormous Space to Found The Playhouse Project In 2005, Inviding Local Students for Free Classical-Music Courts and Performance. Meanwhile, The Couple Tourned the Building Into a More Practical Home and A Summer Rental, Building a Swimming Pool and Charging $ 210,000 for the Summer. Central Heating and a New Addition off the kitchen-a sun-still breakfast nook-made it Easy for say to decide toir Quaranantine in 2020. But now, they’re no longer hosting the big parties that Justify the expense, and they are spending.

“Certainly Have ambivalent Feelings About Putting it on the Market,” Says Richard. “Its Majestic and of another Era, another world. It deficies the McMmansion-Fication of the Hamptons.”

Architect Robert Am Stern, Who Renovated Graycroft, The Family Estate Across the Street, Called the Playhouse “The Most Perfectly Preserved of the Woothouse Properties.”
Photo: Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty

Still, The Current Owners made updates that helped say rent out for the summer.
Photo: Chris Foster for Sotheby’s International Realty

The Architecture Might Have ben inspired by homes in maidstone, kent, the town where Early sets of east Hampton have come from, but it was Common for gilded age families to back architectural ideas from abroad, Says Author Gary Lawnce.
Photo: Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty

The Building Centers on A 75-Foot-Long Great Room Where the Woothouses Held Plays and Parties; The Next Owners Carriated on the Tradition but Allowed for More Avant-Garde Performers, Including Norman Mailer, Who Filmed Part of His Experimental Feature here.
Photo: Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty

In a nook of the great room off a terrace, Mary Woothouse Prefered to Host Teas, Accounting to Her Friend Enaz Whipple, Who Led the Guild Hall and Wrote ABOUT WOOTHOUS FOR A Monograph on the Family.
Photo: Chris Foster / Sotheby’s International Realty

In 1953, Mary Woothouse Added Livable Spaces on Eather End of the Great Room. Up these stairs is the pip organ, which sites in front of a space she tourned into her bedroom.
Photo: Chris Foster for Sotheby’s International Realty

A cozy nook off the great room Holds the fireplace that was once respectible for heating the Entire Building. The Current Owners Added Central Heat.
Photo: Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty

A BEDROM ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GREAT ROOM, OFF THE KITCHEN, WHICH MARY WOOTHOUS MIGHT HAVE REZED FOR HER MAID.
Photo: Chris Foster for Sotheby’s International Realty

A Row of Elaborately Painted Doors Hide A Bathroom and Closet on the Ground Floor.
Photo: Chris Foster for Sotheby’s International Realty

A PACTICAL KITCHEN WAS ADDED LATER, THEN UPDATED, But Still Retains A Leaded Glass Window.
Photo: Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty

A Media Room or Office off the Kitchen Leads to a New Addition.
Photo: Chris Foster for Sotheby’s International Realty

The Brockmans Helped Make the Building Feel Like A Year-Round Residence by Adding A Cheerier Dining Area. The Wood Paneling in the Sunroom Came from the Last of the Estate’s Old Growth Elms, Which Had Fallen to Dutch Elm Disease.
Photo: Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty

Walled in Copper, This Ingenious Addition Won an Award from the American Institute of Architects.
Photo: Gavin Zeigler for Sotheby’s International Realty

A patio with a store of firewood for cozy days in the great room.
Photo: Chris Foster for Sotheby’s International Realty

A View of the estate from what was Once a manicured Sunken Garden. Mary WoDhouse at One Point Employed Seven Gardedeers, and Her Husband’s Aunt Across the Street Created the Country’s First Japanese Garden, Modeled the Memories of A Local What Had Been.
Photo: Chris Foster for Sotheby’s International Realty