At Home with Jack Lenor Larsen

“I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t seeking identity through a sense of place,” wrote Jack Lenor Larsen in “A Weaver’s Memoir,” his 1998 reflection on his extraordinary life and career.

For anyone who has ever visited LongHouse Reserve, Mr. Larsen’s residence set amid 16 acres of lovingly-tended public sculpture gardens in East Hampton’s Great North Woods, it’s obvious that this creative genius finally “found himself” in the Hamptons.

On a recent spring day, Mr. Larsen drove up the stately cryptomeria allée to the property’s main entrance to begin a long weekend at his beloved LongHouse. The grounds were already awash in color, with hundreds of thousands of cheery white and yellow daffodils in bloom. There was a sense of anticipation in the air as workers scurried about preparing the lawns and ornamental borders for the garden’s official opening in late April.

Carrying an assortment of provisions—baguettes and the like—Mr. Larsen slowly made his way up the steps of LongHouse, stopping to catch his breath along the way. He is 81, after all.

Mr. Larsen then did one of his favorite things: he opened the red door to his personal nirvana, sat down in the sunny glass-ceilinged conservatory with its exposed beams and walls made from stucco-and-rice-straw plaster, and smiled.

At last, he was home again.

“My inspiration for building LongHouse was the sacred 7th century Shinto shrine at Ise in Japan, which I consider the most beautiful and tranquil structure in the world,” said Mr. Larsen, who wore a Korean priest’s robe made of a patchwork quilt fabric. “It was my 30th collaboration with architect Charles Forberg, and it took five years and three contractors to complete.”

Joe Tufariello is credited as the builder of record.

Like the shrine at Ise, LongHouse was built in a large rectangular shape, based on stilts with a massive and steep overhanging gabled roof. But unlike Ise, which was built of Japanese cedar without the use of screws or nails, LongHouse was constructed of masonry, with a cost-effective and low-maintenance stucco façade and glass and tile roof.

By raising the principal rooms to the second level, Mr. Larsen said he gained vistas beyond his wildest imagination. A footbridge was constructed to reach the front door, which serves as an aesthetic transition from the second floor to the gardens. At night, the footbridge serves as a moon-gazing platform to view the sky and stars.

LongHouse, boasting 13,000 square feet and 18 spaces on four levels, has been the subject of lengthy articles in Architectural Digest, House Beautiful, Art & Antiques and other publications. Yet the gracious Mr. Larsen never gets tired of talking about this architectural gem in East Hampton—or his celebrated career which has spanned more than five decades.

A man who has literally, and figuratively, worn many hats in his lifetime (during the interview he donned a black beret), Mr. Larsen founded the design firm that bears his name in 1952 and is known around the world as an award-winning textile designer, author, collector, tireless traveler and one of the foremost connoisseurs of traditional and contemporary crafts. His designs, which epitomize the point at which modernism, craft and technology intersect, have been exhibited at the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and many other museums around the world.

Mr. Larsen has designed fabrics for the likes of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Nixon’s Air Force One and the home of once-married playwright Arthur Miller and actress Marilyn Monroe.

“You should have seen all my executives wander down to the showroom the day she showed up!,” he said.

Aside from all the notoriety, when asked how he likes to describe himself, Mr. Larsen modestly replied, “I am a weaver and a gardener. Both are slow and require much patience.”

And both require strong hands, which, to this day, he still has.

“I was always working with my hands. By five, I had already started fulfilling a lust to create spaces out of any materials that were available,” Mr. Larsen, who grew up in Washington State, the only child of parents of Danish and Norwegian descent, explained. “My father was a contractor and we moved often, from one model home to the next. I always envied classmates who could bring armloads of magnolias into school because we always had newly planted shrubs.”

Mr. Larsen began gardening in earnest when he discovered the Hamptons in the late 1950s as a summer getaway from the sweltering city heat. He rented a chauffeur’s apartment on Lily Pond Lane and toured around East Hampton on bicycle, searching for possible building sites near the ocean. But when he found 14 undeveloped and affordable acres on Hands Creek Road, he was immediately smitten with the building—and landscaping—possibilities. He bought 10 of the acres that were for sale, with the option to buy the other four.

After traveling to West Africa in 1960—“I wanted to go there ever since I saw Princess Elizabeth touring the African colonies when I was nine,” he said—Mr. Larsen said he was inspired to design his first home in the Hamptons, which he named Round House and was modeled after the dwellings he saw in Bantu villages.

Under his green thumb, Round House’s extensive gardens flourished. He reported that he was happy there for many years.

But in the summer of 1986, Mr. Larsen visited the rambling Santa Fe adobe home of Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus fame, whom Mr. Larsen considered his “adopted big brother.” It was there that he discovered the concept of “waste space.”

“Stanley’s home had several rooms with no other purpose but to hold art. Round House lacked that sense of space. So it gave me the idea to sell it and build afresh on the property next door,” said Mr. Larsen, who in 1975 had fortuitously bought 12 adjoining acres as “future protection” along the north drive of Round House.

Unfortunately, the LongHouse acreage—long-abandoned 19th century farmland overrun with white and red oaks and infested with poison ivy, wild grape and bittersweet vines—had few of the amenities of Round House. But that didn’t stop Mr. Larsen from clearing the trees, planting thousands of mail-ordered Canadian hemlocks along the old farming boundaries, adding hundreds of dogwoods, beeches and other trees, installing luscious flower gardens and digging a large south-facing lily and lotus pond.

Construction on the house began in 1986, with Mr. Larsen sketching a floor plan and architect Charles Forberg focusing on the mechanical matters, codes and contracts. Together they collaborated on the selection of materials and finishes.

One of the decisions made was to install a small, three-level glass Elevette elevator in the light-filled stairway hall, as well as a 65-foot skylight running down the peak of the main wing.

The ultimate goal was to create a house that was an “alternative to the norm” and a “case study to show people ideas for a modern house that wasn’t necessarily a white box,” he said.

In addition to the conservatory on the second floor, Mr. Larsen designed a large skylighted living room which leads to a veranda that overlooks the lotus pond—dubbed “Peter’s Pond”—as well as kitchen and dining space, a breezeway, and a sitting room that leads to his “non bedroom” and dressing area.

Walking through the main living room, Mr. Larsen pointed out several of the room’s standout pieces, including several mid-century Larsen-designed furnishings and a 1949 Edward Wormley sofa which sits atop Anni Alber’s Bauhaus-style rug. The room’s Heatilator brand fireplace was influenced by the one found at Villa Savoye in France, one of architect Le Corbusier’s most famous houses.

Also on display throughout the house is an eclectic and diverse collection of objects in a wide variety of styles, many of them museum quality, that Mr. Larsen has been assembling for more than 50 years.

East Asian ceramics—some 1,000 years old—mingle with ethnographic baskets from dozens of cultures and contemporary pottery from England and China. Every room provides a visual feast for the eyes.

An elaborate skirt cloth worn by a king in the Congo hangs on the living room wall. “Imagine, they live on the equator and wear up to 100 yards of fabric just for status,” he noted.

Mr. Larsen also has the largest collection of work by revered Pennsylvania craftsman Wharton Esherick—outside the artist’s own collection—including a massive 1935 wooden arch that serves as the living room’s door surround. Mr. Larsen’s Esherick pieces include a kitchen table and chairs made for the 1939 World’s Fair, as well as a cubist-inspired mirror, and shelf and stools in the kitchen/dining area.

After a “clumsy housekeeper” broke some valuable ceramics, the pragmatic designer was inspired to install dozens of sliding doors—covered in signature Larsen fabrics—over glass display shelves. He proudly noted how this system, used throughout the home, has a structural quality and keeps dusting to a minimum.

A breezeway off the kitchen leads to the cozy, cocoon-like sitting room, with its white ceramic Swedish stove and tan damask covered ceiling and walls. Here at the computer-less wooden desk, Mr. Larsen signs copies of his memoirs and corresponds with his many colleagues and fans.

A painting by abstract expressionist painter Gus Lieber (also an East Ender) of designer Andree Putman hangs on the wall. But what stands out is a small black-and-white photograph, perhaps the only photograph on display in the house, of the late Elaine Benson, a close friend who was the founder of Bridgehampton’s famed Elaine Benson Gallery.

While many people thirst for a master bedroom the size of Rhode Island, Mr. Larsen said he is a believer in the concept of the “non bedroom.” Positioned between the sitting room and his ample dressing room/bathroom is simply a curtained-off “Swedish size” bed, a nod to the kind favored by Thomas Jefferson.

The ground (first) floor of LongHouse contains an open-air summer living room and two guest suites. On the top level one finds a library, home office and writing studio. Below grade are a small auditorium, loom rooms and art storage.

Looking out to the public-accessible landscape outside, Mr. Larsen said he’s excited about a number of new sculptures at LongHouse Reserve this season, including Eric Fischl’s controversial “Tumbling Woman,” which was commissioned to commemorate those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center on September 11, as well as works by Magdalena Abakanwicz, George Rickey, Johnny Swing, and a new water feature by Mia Westerlund Roosen. Among the collection of 60 garden sculptures at LongHouse Reserve are works by Mr. Larsen’s friend/protégée Dale Chihuly, Willem de Kooning, Yoko Ono and Buckminster Fuller.

And of all these glorious treasures, one wonders if Jack Lenor Larsen has an absolute favorite?

“Oh, yes,” he said, smiling. “It’s always the next one I find.”

LongHouse Reserve is open on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 2 to 5 p.m. through October 10. Extended hours in July and August, Wednesday through Saturday. The residence is not open to the public. For additional information, visit www.longhouse.org.