‘Double Diamond’ Reconsidered

I am writing a reply to Ted Kruckel’s June 25 Residence article about the restoration of my house. While I appreciate Mr. Kruckel’s attempt to expose the underhanded activity of Exhibitions International and their directors back in 2006, the article contained many inaccuracies. Much of what he attributed to Jake Gorst or me was never said by either of us and is not supported by the record.Overall, this is a very shoddy piece of journalism, and I am surprised and disappointed that there evidently was such poor-quality fact checking. Below is a list of the errors we have identified to date.

First, the house is not in “West Hampton Dunes.” It is in Westhampton Beach (or, more technically, the Town of Southampton).

The house, which is 550 square feet, has three bedrooms, not two. Mr. Kruckel was in the house this past spring.

I never “decided to demolish the house” and never “applied for a demolition permit” to knock down the Double Diamond.

The application to list the house as an historic place was made to the New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), not the National Trust. This was done between 2011 and 2014, not in 2005. The National Trust doesn’t receive applications. Only the state offices do.

The historic application had nothing to do with the Town of Southampton. It was my initiative alone. I never talked to anyone about it other than family and friends.

Jake tells me that his film “Leisurama” first aired in 2005 and then went into national broadcast distribution. He began filming in 2002, long before Paul Sahre’s book was published by Princeton Architectural Press. The film was a single broadcast hour, not a “series,” and was not based on Mr. Sahre’s book. Jake’s film “Desert Utopia: Midcentury Architecture in Palm Springs” premiered in 2006, not 2010.

Mr. Kruckel makes reference to a “Kickstarter account” being opened for the house in 2007, which is impossible, since Kickstarter.com launched two years later, in 2009. Jake used that website to raise funds for the research and preservation of Andrew Geller’s archive (a completely different project) in 2011, and this has resulted so far in restored archival materials used in a documentary film called “Modern Tide” and in the book “Andrew Geller: Deconstructed.” Kickstarter was not used to fund any part of the restoration of the Double Diamond.

After the money was misappropriated by Exhibitions International, I didn’t decide to keep the house on the property and restore it because of an “outpouring of affection” or “enhanced value” of the house due to the New York Times articles. There was no outpouring of affection, and the press that the house receives has been ongoing for years. Besides, the New York Times articles Mr. Kruckel refers to were written a year or so before the Exhibitions International issue happened.

The truth is much more mundane: I decided to restore the house because a friend of mine said, “Why don’t you keep the house on the property and make it the pool house?” I said, “Good idea!” Jake agreed and continued to volunteer as a consultant on the project and referred me to CookFox Architects. That’s how the decision was made.

The link between the Double Diamond and the rental is completely spurious. If I wanted to maximize the rental, I would have knocked down the Double Diamond and built a 6,000-square-foot house on the property, which would have increased the value of any rental or sale even more. Besides, the Double Diamond house has always been a rental, dating back to the 1960s.

The implication that I’m profiting from a historic house that is part of the public domain is insulting. It’s my family’s house. It was built by my mother and father, and I grew up in it.

Treating the house with a preserving wood stain is not a “no-no.” And, really, what difference does it make if the color matches the new structure? It is the color of sun-bleached wood.

I never reached out to the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities as a way to salvage the reputation of the house. They reached out to me in May 2015 to do an article about the house. And, in any case, I don’t have to salvage the reputation of the house, because all the work we put into it was completed in a spirit of generosity, with the utmost of good intentions and in good faith. We spent years getting the variances and permits to build it and have put all of our resources into it. The house has a great reputation. Many people are thrilled with the results—including early supporters such as Mr. Sugarman.

The house being open to the public is not just a hope—it is part of our plan, and it is a commitment we made. There was already a public event that Mr. Kruckel attended in May, and there will be two open houses each year (spring and fall) for the community to view the house, with a modernism event and open house already scheduled for October 17. Mr. Kruckel was invited to this, but he failed to mention it. Instead, he seems to imply that we are slippery people who don’t really want to keep our promises. It’s bad reporting and it’s demeaning.

Besides, this is a private home that was paid for because my wife and I both work hard. We are under no obligation to open the house to the public. Few people would. But we are proud of the job CookFox Architects and Reinhardt O’Brien Construction did with our mid-century modern home and are happy to make it available for public education.

The very last line, “no doubt,” is way too snarky for a serious piece of journalism, if this is, indeed, intended as a serious piece of journalism. There is and has never been any hide-and-go-seek going on in the long process of restoring the house. The better metaphor for the process would have been the running of a very slow marathon, in a rainstorm with a headwind. It’s a story of persevering and making it to the finish line in spite of the obstacles and setbacks.

I believe the record should include these corrections. We would like to see a complete retraction of the inaccuracies in Mr. Kruckel’s article. He needs to separate the good guys from the bad guys and not taint us—or, more importantly, a positive architectural story—just because Exhibitions International wasn’t a trustworthy custodian for the money that was raised nearly a decade ago.

—Ted Kruckel responds:

Mr. Pearlroth wrote in an email, “I originally thought I would have to knock it down and build a new home in its place.” A May 6, 2005, New York Times article, for which Mr. Pearlroth was interviewed, reported that the family had reached “the reluctant conclusion” that the house would have to go and was ready to clear the site for a replacement within days.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation wrote to the Town of Southampton as early as 2005 in support of using town land for the home’s “reuse as a museum.”

As of July 2, the October 17 public viewing was not published on the www.Pearlrothhouse.org site.