Houses of the Hamptons 1880-1930. The Architecture of Leisure

This book 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.