Friday, December 16, 2011

'Panfield'

'Panfield', the Albert G. Milbank estate designed by John Mead Howells of Howells & Stokes c. 1915 in Lloyd Harbor, with landscaping by J.J. Levison and Lewis & Valentine. Click HERE for more on 'Panfield'. Click HERE to see 'Panfield' on google earth and HERE on bing.


Photos from Architecture, 1918.

7 comments:

The Down East Dilettante said...

One can see Howells trying to break out of the traditional mode here, ready to leap in the Deco Moderne for which he'd be known in a few more yearsl.

Traveling up Quail hill Road on Bing, the former driveway, one sees that the service buildings, and the interesting driveway arrangement between them, survives. One suspects however, that the view from the front door is now quite different.

Doug Floor Plan said...

My opinion of the exterior: the individual components aren’t bad but nothing pulls it all together. Still, I’m grateful it stands. At some time some owner built a really large one-story addition on the back; it might be an indoor pool; if not I wonder what they needed so much extra square footage for? The black & white photos show looking down that long drive from the front door but you can see now a necessary hedge has been planted on the far side of the circular pool to block the now-neighbors’ headlights. I’m impressed this house has a driveway that goes down to the beach; so you can put a boat in & out of the water & don’t have to make trip after trip transporting “stuff” for a beach event.

Anonymous said...

Did not know about this property before. Thank you for posting.

James said...

This home is in the hands of the Castro family, of Castro Convertibles fame, and Bernadette Castro, the former head of New York State Parks Commisssion.

Lora said...

I don't like it at all. It looks like the condominiums they build out here on the outside and a monastery on the insides...sans the bear rug, of course!

Doug Floor Plan said...

Here is John Mead Howells in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mead_Howells I noted he focused on commercial projects as developed "the Deco Moderne [style] for which he'd be known in a few more years." [DED, above] It's good he understood where his talent was best used.

The Down East Dilettante said...

Interestingly Doug, Howells (who summered here in Maine at Kittery Point, in the house previously owned by his father William Dean Howells, now owned by Harvard, who are thinking of selling it), was also a fan of early American Architecture, and three of his books, "Architectural Heritage of the Piscataqua", "Lost Examples of Colonial Architecture", and "Architectural Heritage of the Merrimac", are classics, and coincide exactly in date with his modernist buildings. It underscores my frequently made point that good design, and interest in same, should not be limited to one style or one era (except for CPH)