I've been systematically travelling through my clip files in search of a single misplaced file that I need very badly. Although that thin piece of paper continues to elude me (stranger than you might think, as said files are actually pretty well organized in alphabetized folders), I do find things that still charm and delight more than 20 years after I first saved them. Such a house is this, pictured in photos from a 1984 article in W, unfortunately yellowed with age.
It is Chip Chop, the Martha's Vineyard summer cottage designed for the great stage actress Katharine Cornell by Eric Gugler in 1937, and for years a gathering place for nearly all the bright luminaries of arts and letters, theatrical division.
And here, not because I'm lazy, but because it so exactly and completely says what I intended to say that anything else would amount to plagiarism, I am sending you to this article about Chip
Chop by Carol Vogel in the May 31st New York Times ---- for which, maddeningly, the usual 'permissions' link is missing, otherwise I would more conveniently insert it here.
Chop by Carol Vogel in the May 31st New York Times ---- for which, maddeningly, the usual 'permissions' link is missing, otherwise I would more conveniently insert it here.
As for the house itself, could it be better? If I were to build a house, it would probably be much like this---simple shape and materials, perfect on its site, few rooms organized around one central room---and how perfect is this one with windows on all four sides, and the great sliding doors on axis with each other on the long walls. The stucco guest houses are in interesting contrast to the main house, and simple charm itself. This is a beach house as it should be---owners of overwrought 1990's Hamptons houses, take note. And notice how gracefully this design has aged. And look at the driveway, a simple dirt track through the field. Does anyone know enough to do this anymore? Nowadays, driveways seem required to make a statement, and no part of the entry is without 'moment'.
Eric Gugler was an artist as well as an architect. His wide-ranging portfolio includes a remodeling of the West Wing of the White House for Franklin Roosevelt, and Arthurdale, West Virginia, one of Eleanor Roosevelt's many projects, the first New Deal Homestead Community.
1937, as I've mentioned before, seems to have been a particularly good year for simple houses on the water, using vernacular materials. For another great example, click here for my earlier post about Fortune Rock here in Maine.
