Tuesday, March 8, 2011
The Sarah Gardiner Residence
The Sarah Diodati Gardiner residence designed by Wyeth & King c. 1941 in East Hampton. Click HERE to see the previous post on the Gardiner residence. The house is currently for sale for $29,000,000, click HERE to see the listing on Corcoran. Click HERE to see the Gardiner residence on google earth.
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East Hampton
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17 comments:
I'm going to admit up front that I like the raw stone look better than the whitewash. I'm admitting this because I'm about to ask a decorating question: On the ground floor the interior walls have been molded so that the windows don't need valances & the lining created has been painted peach (as best I know my colors)to reflect off white curtains -- good idea or bad?
Has anyone been inside this house, because my second question is: from what I can see, to transport food from the kitchen into the dining room it first has to come out under the stairs into the main hall -- is this correct?
There are many things I like about what the current owner did & did not do remodeling the kitchen -- but I think the kitchen would have benefited from a center island with a second sink & second dishwasher.
If anyone does tour this house I'm just gonna point out that those chrome letters in the main hall that spell "Too Sexxy" could be rearranged to spell "O Sexx Toy" -- do with that information what you will.
It's odd to me that an owner with the sensibility that created, or at least funded the interior decoration seen in the Sotheby's brochure (please note that I have not given any opinion of whether it's good or God awful), would have been attracted to this sort of exterior. It really creates a pretty jarring juxtaposition. I've seen similar situations handled with grace, in which it is clear that the designer and architect have some respect for the original structure and its proportions. That doesn't seem to be the case here.
There is a story I've always loved about Robert Gardiner. the last Gardiner to have owned house. Haughty and immensely proud of his family lineage, his overwheening snobbism made him something of a figure of fun, even in the snobbish 1950's. He was long considered to be a "confirmed bachelor", as gay men were then referred to in polite circles, when to pretty much everyone's shock and surprise, her took a bride (I believe, as Zach pointed out in an earlier post, a daughter of Sir Harry Oakes). During the rehersal dinner, on the evening of the wedding, Robert Gardiner gave a long winded speach about his family lineage, ending with the hope that his marriage would be blest with prodigy to continue the illustrious family line, whereupon, apparently, one of the guests, clearly a bit worse for drink, turned to his dinner companion and said loudly enough to be heard by the entire room, "Does he realize he'll have to (explative deleted- it begins with "F" and rhymes with an animal that goes "quack") her?".
On a totally unrelated topic: The NYPost reports today that the old Herbert bayard Swope house in Sands Point (long incorrectly rumored to be by Stanford White, and maybe, maybe not Fitzgerald's inspiration for Daisy Buchanan's house in The Great Gatsby, is to be torn down. 10 houses to replace it.
God- Zach please get spell check for the comments. Appologies and i hope my fourth grade English teacher isn't one of your followers.
Those awful interiors -- is that the realtor's doing?
http://books.google.com/books?id=aOgCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA39&dq=Robert+David+Lion+Gardiner&hl=en&ei=STp2TZOUKoKI0QHn6qXWBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CE0Q6AEwCDgU#v=onepage&q=Robert%20David%20Lion%20Gardiner&f=false
With the exception of the Kitchen and the bathroom shown, I don't care for the interiors. But that said, they could easily be changed without much work to blend with the exterior.
About Gardiner's wife.....she was a beauty. So much so, I would bet even a man of Gardiners inclination could lapse but just once, though I assume that never did come to be since no heir was ever produced.
Magnus,
The Lady of the Manor was the former wife of Sir Harry Oakes's son, William Pitt Oakes. She went from a mere baronet's son to the Lord of the Manor, who also happened to be Queen of East Hampton.
I see the developer added the ubiquitous fountain in the center of the drive. At least this time it doesn't involve cast concrete statuary---but sheesh, the fountain head looks more like a sprinkler head, with its ditzy little spray.
PS, Magnus---you worry about your fourth grade teacher and your spelling, I worry about mine and my run-on sentences, but after reading the real estate ad, I see that neither of us need lose much sleep. The realtor says that the Gardiner house is "Now available again for the first time." Available AGAIN for the FIRST time. Realtors speak a language all their own. It's deja vu all over again---just ask Stanford White
Anon 9:20 --
Thanks.
(A reminder, as if it's needed, that one should never, ever talk to a reporter.)
DED- "Available again for the first time". Just like my innocence. And never worry about a run-on sentace. It never bothers me (like you haven't guessed)
There must be a special school that residential real estate advertising folks attend. And it definitely isn't taught by Tessie Ross, the queen of diagraming sentences (do they still do it?) at my school.
Doug Floor Plan, I am viewing this on an iPhone, but it looks like the curtain pockets are not painted peach, but lined with small lights creating a warm glow. Note that the head is particularly light where it should be dark. A similar effect is emitted from beneath the upper cabinets in the kitchen, and it would be intensified if it were closer to another surface. My guess is that the same lighting was used for the curtain pockets as the cabinet lights. The photography may cause a colorful effect that is not as pronounced in reality.
As for the stone without the much needed whitewash, I think you would change your mind if you saw it and considered all the elements of the house as a whole.
Thank you Devoted Classicist, I appreciate your insight; & I admire your power of observation on a iPhone -- half the time I have my computer screen on a zoom setting.
Does anyone have information on Eunice Bailey Oakes Gardiner after the death of Robert Gardiner? Did she remain in that house for a time? Where is she now? I'm curious as I couldn't find much information on her after his death. Thanks! Annmarie
I am delighted to report that sentence diagramming is still alive and well, at least at my daughter's grade school.
I wonder if the house is for sale because the current owner, with his "too sexxy" decor, has incurred the wrath of Robert Gardiner. Mr. Gardiner must be spinning in his very exclusive grave.
When Winthrop Gardiner adopted his sister's second son, he kept Gardiner's Island in the Gardiner name but changed the branch of the family that could inherit the island and the title of Lord of the Manor. In the process it eliminated a friend of ours Wesley F. L. Gardiner from any possibility of inheriting the island. Wes' comment on Robert David Lion Gardiner's claim to being the oldest surviving Gardiner was, "I distinctly remember Cousin Bob's birth."
An interesting note about Robert David Lion Gardiner's wife Eunice - her previous father-in-law Sir Harry Oakes was murdered in the Bahamas in 1943 under questionable circumstances that involved the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
I believe that Eunice Bailey Gardiner passed away on July 26, 2011 in Palm Springs, Florida.
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