Shed Dreams

MY SHED IS A VERY VERY VERY FINE SHED…no, not really. At the moment, it’s a stark cedar box, above, with a shed roof — as in shed water, I now realize — but it will be a very fine shed when my son Max gets through with it. In fact, it will no longer be a shed; it will be a guest house/studio with its own deck and maybe even an outdoor shower.

There’s a pair of French doors and a casement window left behind by the previous owner of the house, which we’ll use, and I’ve got a folder of inspiration pics, below, collected from various sources.

Simple things, sheds. For some reason — memories of prehistoric shelters imbedded in our DNA? — their small size makes them very appealing. Though it’s twice the square footage of the tiny house written up recently in The New York Times. My shed will be a very fine palace by comparison.

Fine Homebuilding magazine

Loren Madsen, Remodelista

Gardenista

An ad I’ve misplaced

FineGardening.com

Artist’s Retreat in Springs 550K

UPDATE 1/28/11: This property has been sold for 450K. Someone got a steal!

THIS NEW-TO-MARKET HOUSE harks back to the heyday of Hamptons Bohemia — not as far back as Jackson Pollock, but to the 1970s, when Willem deKooning, Franz Kline, Constantino Nivola, and many more lived and worked prolifically in studios set in the woods of Springs (East Hampton), N.Y.

Built in the early ’70s by painter John McMahon and adjacent to property still owned by the deKooning family, the house belongs to an artist who is retiring to California.

It has characteristic elements of that era’s architectural design: a soaring cathedral ceiling, abundant light from expansive panes of glass, a ceramic tiled floor, built-in banquette seating and bookshelves, and an antique wood stove set against a wall of fanciful mixed brick.

The house itself has 2 bedrooms, one of which is a loft-like upper-level studio with a private deck, and 2 baths. There’s also a 500-square-foot studio with a separate entrance and its own kitchen and bath, with skylights, a sleeping loft, and a work table on a pulley that opens out over a built-in bed.

It’s situated on a quiet two-thirds of an acre, set back from a barely trafficked road, where it seems like the ’80s, ’90s, and 21st century may never have happened.

For more information, go here, or call Rebekah Baker at Brown Harris Stevens, 631 258 5991.

At Home with Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner

I’M LIVING A SCANT MILE from a National Historic Landmark and cult-of-personality epicenter, the Pollock-Krasner House. It’s an 1879 farmhouse here in Springs where two leading lights of Abstract Expressionist painting, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, lived from 1945 until his death in 1956 (she continued to use the house until the 1980s).

He produced his best-known works in the cedar-shingled studio by laying a canvas on the floor and moving around it, athletically flinging, pouring, and dripping paint with brushes, sticks, and turkey basters (“I paint to express my feelings,” he famously said — “not to illustrate them”). The studio floor is the artistic highlight of the tour, spattered with remnants of Pollock’s work (the real things are in museums worldwide). Krasner took over the studio after Pollock died and painted prolifically there for many decades.

This house is where they lived when Pollock was in his creative heyday, featured in LIFE magazine as the greatest American artist of the 20th century. It’s where they entertained large groups of artist friends, and apparently drank way too much. I was curious to see the inside of the place. Would it be avant garde, wildly colored?

Not at all, I found out on an hour-long guided tour last Saturday ($10, reservations required). The docent filled us in on the artists’ backgrounds and brilliant artistic careers, not shying away from  the group’s questions about the tragic side of the story: their co-dependent relationship, his decline into alcoholism and depression, his extra-marital affair, and death in a car crash a mile from the house (both are buried nearby in Green River Cemetery, under enormous boulders).

The house, which had no heat or plumbing and was in ramshackle condition when they bought it for $5,000 right after WWII, retains some of the furnishings from those early days. It is rustic and unpretentious, with a rusty anchor on the wall, picked up while beachcombing, and a carved Spanish breakfront used as a kitchen counter.

Definitely the home of artists, it is decorating-on-a-shoestring, with pleasing results. I can relate.

Krasner’s “Left Bird Right,” above; a 1953 painting by Pollock, below

Pollock-Krasner House & Study Center, 830 Springs Fireplace Road, East Hampton, NY 11937  631/ 324-4929, http://www.pkhouse.org

GARDEN VOYEUR: Artist’s Way in Springs

THIS GARDEN BELONGS TO ONE OF MY NEIGHBORS here in Springs. Like so many people around here, Margaret Kerr is an artist. Her medium is brick.

The garden surrounding her cedar-shingled 1970s house was inspired, she told me, by a visit to the Cloisters. It’s a walled garden — well, fenced — with a central pool, and all the perennials therein are plants that were known in medieval times.

Pear trees are espaliered along the fence; the house and two studios are surrounded by grassy meadow, with paths mown through.

The pieces des resistances are brick ‘prayer rugs’ (Margaret’s daughter was married on one). Some signify areas for contemplation; others form decorative paths and patios. Margaret started out as a painter, but after designing and building this garden of brick and wood in the ’80s, she crossed over to brick.

Her two-acre garden and studio were open last Saturday as part of the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program, when you can see fabulous private gardens, normally hidden away. I get to as many as I can each year. For the $5 price of admission, it’s a cheap swoon.

Here’s Margaret’s studio and a peek at her work: