From One Artist To Another: Former Lassaw Property Will House Bleckner Studio And Home

While the squawking sound of wild turkeys is pervasive, so is the torrential rain that’s pelting the ground, turning the dirt road into thick mud. Not the most comforting setting for a recent visit to the Ibram Lassaw family residence/studio, located in the Springs section of East Hampton.

Despite the demolition of both the home and Mr. Lassaw’s iconic sculpture studio, there is still a palpable presence: a turquoise gate and the name “Lassaw” painted on a rock, both indicating the property’s entrance.

Remnants of the past are also evoked by the new owner, painter Ross Bleckner, when he points out the buildings presently being constructed: footprints of a home and studio standing side by side. As he plays guide, Mr. Bleckner can’t help but conjure up images of the property’s past and the people who lived there—namely Ernestine and Ibram Lassaw, who died in 2014 and 2003, respectively, and their daughter, Denise.

The home had had a long and salient history, starting in 1954, when Mr. Lassaw inherited $5,000 from his aunt, a huge amount in those days. He and two other men decided to buy a 10-acre piece of land in Springs. “My father took 5 acres in the back. He didn’t want to be on the road,” Ms. Lassaw said. “I am sure that my parents were aware that other friends of ours had land in The Springs … like Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock, who lived half a mile down Fireplace Road.

“The acreage we got was a sandy overgrown potato field and the woods with many small oaks, cedars, etc.,” she continued. “There were rabbits and foxes, turtles and snakes. It was just land without any buildings, no road, no water, no electric poles.”

In 1955, Mr. Lassaw spent the early summer building a 16-by16-foot cabin on locust posts, primarily with a handsaw and hammer. A young Ms. Lassaw was the helper, handing her father tools as needed. There was a hand pump for water near Fireplace Road, and they dug an outhouse. Meanwhile, the family lived in New York in a loft all winter, coming out to Springs for the summer, weekends and holidays.

Ms. Lassaw said her mother designed the house in the summer of 1956. “My father only added 10 feet to the living room,” she remembers. “My mother wanted the kitchen to be the center of the house, and it became her stage when we had parties—everyone hung out there and watched her cook. My father welded the fireplace hood out of copper sheet, and for many years it was all we had for heat.”

Ms. Lassaw particularly recalls those festive days during the 1950s when the family had lots of parties. People would stop by, often spending the night on the living room floor. All sorts of individuals would drop over: Jackson Pollock asked Mr. Lassaw to teach him to weld just a week before his death; David Smith came over and scolded Ms. Lassaw for welding barefoot.

Margaret Kerr Richenburg, an artist who creates brick “rugs” for gardens and still lives down the street, often came over to visit her good friend Ernestine Lassaw. So did Natalie Pavia, who remembers that her husband, Philip, used to talk with Mr. Lassaw about the “good old days” at New York’s The Club, a well-known meeting place for the abstract expressionists.

Mr. Lassaw’s first studio, probably built in 1957, was almost an afterthought, Ms. Lassaw recalls. As she described it, the building was a ground-level concrete slab off the kitchen with barn doors facing the woods.

The family finally moved to the property full-time in 1963. Mr. Lassaw built a bigger studio 10 years later when he was paid a commission for a large sculpture in Rockefeller Center. It was a Butler Building, an “industrial pre-fab structure set on a concrete slab,” according to Ms. Lassaw. She continued to reminisce about the studio: “I was always my father’s assistant. He taught me to weld by the time I was 8 years old; he trusted me to work alone.”

Ms. Lassaw’s connection to her father’s working space was a long-standing one, continuing even when she lived in Alaska for 44 years. Through the decades, she was the only person who was allowed in the studio when her father was creating his sculptures. And she was the only one who organized his “stuff.” When her father’s eyesight got bad, she would repair his works broken in transit, even fixing the roof and shoveling snow.

As with the Lassaw family, the idea of connection applies to Ross Bleckner as well: to art itself, the local art community and to the artists who reside here. Living in the Hamptons since the mid 1980s (and since 1990 in Truman Capote’s former Sagaponack home), Mr. Bleckner decided that he needed a more quiet and private environment, and the problem was solved when he learned that the Lassaw property was for sale when he visited the Springs General Store, one of Jackson Pollock’s favorite haunts.

Was this the past calling Mr. Bleckner to become part of art history?

Mr. Bleckner plans to keep the shape and layout the same as it was for both the Lassaws’ home and studio. The design will be “simple and open, a modernist approach with wood, glass and concrete,” he says. He adds that he will take care to save the paving stones and especially the fireplace and flue that Mr. Lassaw made. “I love them,” he says.

The studio will be larger than Mr. Lassaw’s original space: It will include places for storage, archival material, works in progress and completed art. Mr. Bleckner calls this “an establishment of a Zen presence.”

Both the past and the future also exert a particular presence. As Ms. Lassaw says, “ I am very thankful that I was able to sell the property, especially to an artist who appreciates its history and will make new history. The future will do as it will.”

Next summer will show the fruits of Mr. Bleckner’s labor and love when the house and studio are completed. By the way, he said he also looks forward to learning welding in the very place where Mr. Lassaw taught his daughter Denise.