KDHamptons Design: Revisiting The Orchard, Stanford White’s Final Masterpiece

The Orchard exterior — The Orchard, Front Exterior

On Thursday, August 14th, The Southampton Historical Museum will host its second annual Samuel L. Parrish Lecture featuring THE ORCHARD: Stanford White’s Final Masterpiece by Gary Lawrance, Architect. The Orchard is considered one of Stanford White’s greatest summer homes and today is recognized as one of the best examples of adaptive reuse of a historic house and property as, The Whitefield Condominiums, named so for its architect, Stanford White.

The Orchard, Main Staircase

In 1915 Country Life Magazine called The Orchard one of twelve significant country houses in America. Now called Whitefield, Architect Stanford White created what is today considered “one of the finest and most prominent estates in the Hamptons.” Author and Architect Gary Lawrance will give a lecture in the Music Room at Whitefield followed by a reception in the garden of the 16 acre estate.

The Orchard, Sunroom

The Orchard, Music Room

The Orchard, now the Whitefield Condominiums was built for Financier and photographer, James L. Breese in 1895. Mr. Breese was very good friends with the famed “Gilded Age” architect, Stanford White. Stanford White often stayed at the Orchard and he and Mr. Breese would plan and implement many improvements to the house such as adding on more wings and elaborate gardens.

Architect, Gary Lawrance and co-author of the bestselling book, “Houses of the Hamptons 1880-1930”, will discuss the evolution of, The Orchard from an early Greek-revival farm house to one of the largest and finest summer estates in Southampton. He will give a brief background about the James L. Breese family and the lifestyle they enjoyed there. Also with many rarely seen archival photographs, he will illustrate how the house and gardens grew over the years. The Orchard was later owned by Charles Merrill, co- founder of the financial firm, Merrill Lynch and the talk will include some of the lavish life that they also enjoyed and what improvements they made to the property.

The Orchard, Garden Fountain