Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

After a Herculean Renovation, Architect Wallace Harrison’s Landmarked Home Seeks a New Caretaker

After a Herculean Renovation, Architect Wallace Harrison’s Landmarked Home Seeks a New Caretaker

Once headed for demolition, the storied Long Island residence by the Rockefeller Center designer is on the market for $5,999,000.

Wallace Harrison designed Manhattan’s Metropolitan Opera House, the McGraw-Hill Building, the Time & Life Building, the Exxon Building, and the Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York. He also had a substantial hand in the creation of Rockefeller Center and the United Nations Headquarters, but you can’t live in any of those places. You can, however, live in the architect’s exceptionally graceful summer home in Melville on Long Island, respectfully and tastefully restored and expanded by the firm SchappacherWhite and currently for sale for $5,999,000.

Harrison purchased the site in 1931, living initially in the innovative Albert Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher–designed Aluminaire House, which he had acquired and carted off to this property after its initial exhibition. Over the next decade or so, he built a house of his own in a number of stages, adding on rooms and annexing outbuildings, including a caretaker’s cottage and stables (The Aluminaire House eventually departed and is now in sunny retirement in the hands of the Palm Springs Art Museum).



The Harrison House surrounds a green courtyard on three sides.

Harrison described the residence as "an exercise in how to fit circles together," producing an irregular design of several curved volumes alternating with geometric wings. The interiors provide winning views of the home’s eight woodsy acres, terraced hillside landscaping, a pond, and a miniature golf course.

He is believed to have found inspiration for the showcase living room-with its 16-foot ceiling, capacious window bay, terrazzo tiling, and wooden dance floor-in his work on the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center, but he also experimented with things at home before he built them elsewhere (no surprise for an architect with a studio down the hall).



The curving wall of floor-to-ceiling glass in the living room offers a grand vista.

Harrison was well connected, linked by marriage to the Rockefellers and spending much of his career as court architect to that family, but his great talent brought him into eminent company of all sorts. Artists were frequent guests at the home: Marc Chagall and Alexander Calder came by repeatedly, and the latter is rumored to have had his first show at the property. There’s a Mary Callery sculpture on the living room wall, prudently moved inside by the current homeowners. Fernand Léger lived at the house for a time, designing an ethereal skylight in the current dining room, and was thought to have painted the bottom of the pool.



A sculpture by Mary Callery, one of the home’s many distinguished guests, hangs in the living room.

If you’ve seen any image of the home, it’s unquestionably that of Harrison, his dog, and urban planner Robert Moses beneath the living room’s curved, Léger-like canvas Les Plongeurs (The Divers). There’s a complicated trail of attribution for this piece, as Caroline Rob Zaleski writes in her book Long Island Modernism: 1930-1980.

"Both Harrisons were unabashed copyists of paintings they admired," she writes. "Only the cognoscenti knew whether the painting on the wall was a real Miró of Léger. Even the large canvas about the living room cannot be attributed directly to Léger. Ellen Harrison and her daughter produced the large work from a graphite, ink, and gouache cartoon on graph paper that Léger had given them."

The work was great, whatever the case, and is now in the collection of the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, but its spirit lives on in a three-dimensional revival, a steel sculpture by artist Brandon D’Leo.



Brandon D'Leo's Steeling Léger offers dramatic focus to the living room and replaces a canvas that previously hung there. The current owner notes that when they asked the artist and sculptor for ideas, D'Leo determined that the painting could be recreated with steel. After creating a mockup of the living room in his studio, D'Leo spent a year creating the piece and determining how to hang it on the wall-the work even replicates an original paint drip.

In 1975, the neighbors Harold and Hester Diamond (parents of the Beastie Boys’ Mike D) purchased the Harrison House for the supreme bargain of $12,000. (Being art dealers, they can’t have minded the 12 Léger oil paintings in the boiler room.) The home was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The subsequent owner, however, had different aims-namely, running the property into the ground such that it could be demolished and sold.

In 2003, Larry and Lori Spiegel bought the house, which had been on the market for years, the weekend they saw it. Larry noted that the house was "essentially abandoned" with trees growing through holes in the roof and animals inhabiting the vacant space. "[The owner] was hoping that if the house was uninhabitable, that it could then be knocked down," he continues. "We saw it and fell in love with it because we were stupid; if we were smarter, we never would have done this."

The Spiegels spent two years engaging architects for particular repairs, but the work remained daunting. "We were really on the point of giving up. Parents were afraid to let their kids play at my house," says Larry. He later encountered architect Steve Schappacher in an architecture magazine in a feature about the restoration of Ulrich Franzen’s Castle House on the shores of Long Island Sound. "I left him a voicemail where I basically said, ‘You’re our last hope,’" says Larry. "He was out here in two days."



New clerestory windows admit abundant light to the kitchen.

It was a Herculean undertaking. Larry recalls, "I think I had something like 4,000 emails dealing with the period of construction. We used to have weekly meetings with 12 people here."

There were manifold issues, some relating to the building’s sheer age, others to its original purpose as a seasonal home. "We could never get the temperature over 55 degrees in the winter," says Larry. "There was no air conditioning. Every system had to be replaced: the plumbing, the electric, on and on." Some original concrete walls couldn’t be insulated or filled with wiring or ducts; radiant floor heating was the solution. All of the windows were replaced, a task requiring a bit more effort than a stop at Home Depot: "How do you get 95 steel windows?"

There were plenty of surprises in store. The circular stepping stones around the property look artful, but turned out to be quite mundane in origin. "The rumor was that Harrison ran out of money, so a cheap way to do this was to use cesspool covers," says Larry. "When we did the renovation, we had to shut down a cesspool company to churn out 150 cesspool covers. People buy cesspools with the covers-no one buys just the covers!"



The main bedroom occupies Harrison's former studio.

The architects restored original portions of the home in beautiful detail, doubled the living space with a respectful addition, and repurposed other rooms: The former studio and office, for example, are now the main bedroom and bath. The former kitchen is now the dining room, and the stables and caretaker apartments became additional bedrooms.



The dining room is wrapped in wood.

The expansion didn’t presume to add additional circles; instead, the addition revolves around a flat, two-story, steel-framed glass wall that echoes and frames the original portion’s curves without competing with them.



Original stone walls and landscaping grace the Harrison House.

The living room’s checkerboard terrazzo tiles and wooden floors were in strong shape, as was the millwork surrounding a curved library space next to the room. The miniature golf course, which was constructed with works of art as obstacles, remains.



A curved library space adjacent to the living room features original shelving.

The art had been sold off, but the Spiegels placed new pieces around the property. The home is filled with midcentury-modern furniture redolent of Harrison’s occupancy (and the owners are open to selling some of the pieces, so ask). The residence has been used frequently in television shoots, appearing as a set in Gossip Girl, Suits, Royal Pains, and other shows.

Larry notes that the home proved an ideal escape during COVID-19, which brought renewed attention to the fact that "anytime you turn, you’re always turning into a window to the outside." They hope to find a buyer who appreciates this historic treasure as much as they do: "We’d very much like to be sure that whoever bought it is someone who could be trusted with it."

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
House Republicans Move to Defund OECD Over Global Tax Dispute
France Opens Criminal Investigation into X Over Algorithm Manipulation Allegations
Trump Steamrolls EU in Landmark Trade Win: US–EU Trade Deal Imposes 15% Tariff on European Imports
ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman says people share personal info with ChatGPT but don’t know chats can be used as court evidence in legal cases.
Intel Reports Revenue Beats but Sees 81% Rise in Losses
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
Tulsi Gabbard Unveils Evidence Alleging Political Manipulation of Intelligence During Trump Administration
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Trump Announces Coca-Cola to Shift to Cane Sugar in U.S. Production
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
Moonshot AI Unveils Kimi K2: A New Open-Source AI Model
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Proposes Supplying Arms to Ukraine Through NATO Allies
US Opens First Rare Earth Mine in Over 70 Years in Wyoming
Bitcoin Reaches New Milestone of $116,000
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
Western Europe Records Hottest June on Record
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
France Requests Airlines to Cut Flights at Paris Airports Amid Planned Air Traffic Controller Strike
Poland Implements Border Checks Amid Growing Migration Tensions
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
Amazon Reaches Milestone with Deployment of One Millionth Robot
Yulia Putintseva Calls for Spectator Ejection at Wimbledon Over Safety Concerns
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
×