23 Photos
Samuel G. White, the great grandson of architect Stanford White, at the Southampton Arts Center last Thursday. JULIA HALSEY
"Whitefield," located at 155 Hill Street in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour. JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour. JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour. JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour. JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour JULIA HALSEY
The inteior of "Whitefield," located at 155 Hill Street in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour.
JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour JULIA HALSEY
"The Dolphins," located at 400 First Neck Lane in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour JULIA HALSEY
"Whitefield," located at 155 Hill Street in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour. JULIA HALSEY
"Whitefield," located at 155 Hill Street in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour. JULIA HALSEY
"Whitefield," located at 155 Hill Street in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour. JULIA HALSEY
"Whitefield," located at 155 Hill Street in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour. JULIA HALSEY
"Whitefield," located at 155 Hill Street in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour. JULIA HALSEY
"Whitefield," located at 155 Hill Street in Southampton Village, was one of the featured stops on the Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour. JULIA HALSEY
There are many late designers and artists whose influence on the East End continues to shine and inspire others long after they are gone, and this especially holds true for New York architect Stanford White, one of the most imaginative partners of the iconic architectural firm McKim, Mead & White.
Throughout the late 1880s, White and his partners, Charles Follen McKim and William Rutherford Mead, came to be known for their signature shingle-style seaside mansions across affluent East Coast communities like New York City, the Hamptons and Newport, where he also designed the Newport Casino. Among White’s other accomplishments were the original Shinnecock Hills Golf Club; the second Madison Square Garden, which housed boxing matches, opera performances, circuses and the annual French Ball,; the Washington Square Memorial Arch in Manhattan, modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris; and the New York Herald Building, the former New York Herald headquarters influenced by Italian Renaissance designs.
Working for some of America’s wealthiest families, White has also left his mark a little closer to home—in Southampton Village, to be exact. Last week, the Southampton Arts Center hosted a Stanford White Architecture and Design Tour of two extravagant estates designed by the late architect, one located at 155 Hill Street known as “Whitefield,” and the other located at 400 First Neck Lane called “The Dolphins,” both of which boast a more simplified and “livable” look compared to White’s earlier designs, according to Samuel G. White, White’s great-grandson and a New York City-based architect himself.
“There’s something that is getting sort of regularized about these houses,” Mr. White said during his lecture at the Southampton Arts Center prior to the house tour. “The shingle-style houses are really wonderful but boy, they are tough to live with, and particularly, to live in.
“These transitional houses are much easier to live in, because they are designed to be lived in,” he continued. “These are houses that you can decorate, you can put the things that you like, and you can paint the walls a color. You are no longer, sort of, being held prisoner by the architecture, in a way that you were to some extent in those wonderfully imaginative houses of the early period.”
Whitefield, which was originally designed as a single-family home for Wall Street broker James L. Breese, now hosts 24 townhouses around the property in addition to the five units inside the mansion. The estate is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Dolphins is the vacation home of Walter Noel, the founder of the New York City investment firm Fairfield Greenwich Group. The modern estate overlooks Lake Agawam, and is still lived in by the family, as seen in the wall of photos of Mr. Noel and his children and grandchildren in the main corridor.
Though known for his intricate architectural designs, White is still loved today for his versatility, and how he could apply his skills to all different realms of design.
“My assessment of Stanford White is that he was the greatest designer of American architecture, and he could design anything,” Mr. White explained. “He could design the covers of books and magazines, he designed trophies for sailing races, he designed the interiors of yachts, he designed furniture, he designed jewelry—anything.”
on Jul 30, 2018