Rites Of Spring Ushers in Another Season at LongHouse

[caption id="attachment_63794" align="alignnone" width="1024"] "Frosty Dick Fantasy" by John Chamberlain. Dawn Watson photos.[/caption]

By Emily J. Weitz

Upon entrance to LongHouse Reserve, the 16-acre manifestation of Jack Lenor Larsen’s sense of whimsy, the visitor is transported. It’s not just the rainbow of colors from dogwoods to daffodils, but also the sound of the welcome bell, the meander through the curated dunes, and the constant smells of a damp spring afternoon wafting past. Rites of Spring, held last weekend in East Hampton, is LongHouse’s annual opening day, and it’s an opportunity for people to visit their old favorite places and to encounter new surprises.

[caption id="attachment_63798" align="alignleft" width="354"] Artist Marylyn Dintenfass with her work, "Almost Like the Blues" at LongHouse Reserve's Rites of Spring.[/caption]

“It was a gorgeous day,” said Matko Tomecic, Executive Director of LongHouse, of this year’s Rites of Spring. “I feel like everybody there was looking for a moment of quiet to enjoy the beauty.”

And miraculously, even though hundreds of people passed through, there is always a way to find solitude and quiet on the grounds. That’s because of Larsen’s impeccable ability to curate space. Trees, shrubs, and flowers often act as screens to give privacy to a work of art, but they do more than that. They interact with the art — between the shapes and angles and colors and textures of the plantings, they are works of art in and of themselves.

[caption id="attachment_63796" align="alignright" width="405"] Jack Lenor Larsen and Marylyn Dintenfass at Rites of Spring.[/caption]

Just ask Alex Feleppa, the horticulturist at LongHouse. Mr. Feleppa started a couple years back and has brought splashes of color to every corner of the property. He designed a long archway climbing with clematis that carries visitors from one part of the property to another.

“The Rose Arbor is a great structure,” he said. “The arches are repurposed rebar and the long lengths are bamboo, harvested from the property. A late winter storm took out one of the old existing pitch pines, but now the arbor will get a lot more sun and the roses and clematis should be thrilled.”

Other new environments Mr. Feleppa has helped to create include what will be known as The Haven, in the back of the grounds.

“Since September we’ve been working on creating a moss garden using moss from around LongHouse as well as two other nearby spots,” said Mr. Feleppa. “Transplants are seemingly happy and spreading so we are optimistic. We will have a formal opening at the end of June along with the opening of a new piece by Toni Ross in another part of the garden.”

After 26 years, certain areas of LongHouse Reserve have become old favorites for regulars. DeKooning’s Reclining Figure perched mid-tumble beneath an atlas cedar is one of those places. It acts as an anchor to a wide expanse of lawn, which is often dotted with cocktail stations and comfortable seating areas.

“It used to be a croquet lawn,” explained Mr. Tomecic when I asked him about the placement of the Reclining Figure. “But now it’s DeKooning Place. We hope that sculpture will stay there for the foreseeable future. With that beautiful gray-blue Atlas cedar in the background, we just knew it belonged there. It couldn’t go anywhere else.”

Even though one could spend the whole day visiting old favorite places at LongHouse, no Rites of Spring would be complete without plenty of new surprises. That’s part of Jack Larsen’s personality. Even at 90 years old, he is open to fresh thinking and new ideas.

“I love all the new installations,” said Mr. Tomecic. “John Chamberlain for its flamboyance, the tension of the steel coils by Venet, the stoicisms of Fred Wilson’s figures, and the elegance of Joan Crawford’s.”

In natural light, in changing seasons, and in all weather, these sculptures are destined to be appreciated in a completely different way than those on display in galleries. The gardens, too, are planned in such a way that the passage of time only gives them greater interest.

“I’ve been to Japan 39 times,” Jack Lenor Larsen once told me, “usually in the winter. Their gardens are as good in winter as they are in summer. Blossoms are so temporal, but the forms of trees and shrubs of a landscape are all seasons and for centuries.”

And the element of surprise, that a visitor could be wandering down a daffodil-lined path and stumble upon Marilyn Dintenfass’s rippling blue and green screen or a set of Larry Rivers’ famous legs, is integral to the experience at LongHouse.

Scale is also a crucial consideration as the LongHouse team weaves together the artwork and the gardens. That’s why, on a visit to LongHouse, you’ll find over a million daffodils – 200 here and 1000 there. But on the far end of the Red Garden, down an aisle lined with vertical red poles, there is only a simple vase.

“I was much impressed by Henry Moore, an English sculptor,” said Mr. Larsen, “who said that the most exciting scale was the smallest and the largest. Both are equally intriguing.”

For Mr. Larsen, it all comes back to arranging. Whether it’s art or textiles, sofas or jugs, flowers or trees, placement is key.

“All things are art, according to Picasso,” Mr. Larsen told me. “When asked ‘What is art?’, he said ‘What is not?’ Fruits and vegetables are art forms. And flowers — Picasso drew a flower every morning. If we practice arranging, whether it’s flowers or fruit or whatever, it helps us to hone our vision of what we see and appreciate.”