Modernist architect Marcel Breuer’s Geller I house in Long Island, which was one of his first homes in the US, has been ‘demolished in the dead of night’ to make way for a tennis court.
image: Marcel Breuer by Polygoon Hollands Nieuws, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
… reportedly demolished as the owners wanted to combine two plots and create a larger home…
Dezeen writes:
The home in the village of Lawrence, Long Island, which was one of Hungarian-American architect Breuer’s first buildings in the USA, was demolished on 25 January.
“Marcel Breuer’s first binuclear house, Geller I in Lawrence, New York has been demolished in the dead of night,” revealed non-profit preservation society Docomomo US in a post on its website.
“Most significant loss in recent memory”
Named Geller I after its clients Betram and Phyllis Geller, the house was the first building designed by Breuer after leaving the studio he ran with architect Walter Gropius.
The house was reportedly demolished as the owners wanted to combine two plots and create a larger home, with a tennis court expected to be built on the site….
Geller I was an early house designed by Marcel Breuer [image caption]
Docomomo US executive director Liz Waytkus described the demolition as “a devastating loss”….
….It was the first in his series of bi-nuclear homes, where the architect separated the sleeping areas and the living spaces into two wings divided by an entrance hall.
Both the home and adjacent guest house were topped with butterfly-pitched roofs….
Breuer was one of the 20th century’s most significant architects and furniture designers who was awarded the AIA Gold Medal in 1968….
