How charming is this midcentury modern-day home? Photography by Winona Barton-Ballantine, @shelterupstate
Buy a Hyde Park dwelling that hadn’t been updated in above 60 years, sight unseen? Inside designer Ana Claudia Schultz was all in—and then some. The success had been nothing brief of extraordinary.
Growing up in Miami, Ana Claudia Schultz liked to re-do her bed room every single pair of decades and shift her home furnishings all around a lot—but she did not consider she was on to one thing occupation-wise. “My mother could’ve been a decorator, but she preferred to aim on her property and little ones,” says Schultz. Moreover, her mom thought that professionally adorned homes lacked the owner’s identity and character, which cooled any opportunity enthusiasm Schultz may possibly have had for the field. She selected to study business enterprise in college, then veered into architecture. “Later I worked in retail furnishings revenue, and that’s where I acquired passionate about materials and furniture layout,” suggests Schultz. “With my architectural qualifications and household furniture expertise, I understood that interiors was my legitimate calling, in particular when my retail consumers ended up inquiring me to style their residences.”
In the meantime, as her qualified lifestyle was taking condition, Schultz adopted the route of several university grads and moved to New York Metropolis. Her faculty roommate invited her to a Christmas party becoming thrown by her brother, Aaron Smyle. The two—who had never ever met, even with obtaining gone to the very same higher school—hit it off proper away.
Quickly ahead by means of a few many years of living together in Brooklyn, and Schultz and Smyle had been all set to get started scouting a weekend area. However she was their official structure professional and he was a tax accountant, Smyle has a sizable innovative bent, so they both experienced heaps of ideas. Their wide original search bundled Windham and The Poconos, but a couple of evenings at a B&B in Beacon sealed the offer for the central HV.
The very first home they bid on, in Hyde Park, was bought out from less than them by an all-funds buyer. Then Schultz recalled a nearby estate sale she’d long gone to and requested her realtor to find out if that house was going to be coming on the market. The solution was indeed. Loving the spot, established on a hill, and supplying crystal clear sights of the river, they acquired it without the need of ever placing foot inside of.
Built in the late 1950s, the midcentury-impressed 5-bed room and 3-bath property hadn’t been updated in six decades. “We did a gut reno in advance of shifting in,” states Schultz. They taken out inside stone walls dividing the kitchen area/dining and dwelling rooms to open up and brighten up the room, and entirely renovated the kitchen and two loos. They retiled the fireplace, replaced windows, and upgraded the insulation. The update built the household considerably far more match for existence in this century, with out losing any of its bones or organic integrity.
Eye-catching colors are a recurring theme both inside of and out. A daring blue velvet sectional normally takes center stage in the residing area, giving loads of space to lounge and appreciate the impressive views. Green crops grace tabletops and peek from windows and corners. As for the crimson exterior, which is primary to the household, suggests Shultz. They imagined about portray it, but the color grew on them. “It’s effortless to say. ‘We’re the red house’ when we give our mates instructions,” she says.
In the living space, the major priority was a great deal of seating going through the outside so they could completely enjoy the see. Devoted animal lovers, they selected sturdy fabrics and styles not just to increase depth, but to conceal any stains. (Their present brood includes cats Dusty and Ellie and canine Obi and Clay). The eye-catching blue-and-white chairs and ottoman are covered in cloth by American designer Kelly Wearstler. The fireplace tile by Clé Tiles is impressed by Copacabana. “I’m Brazilian and my husband beloved the pattern from when we frequented Rio de Janeiro,” suggests Schultz.
For interesting distinction in the kitchen area, out went the aged linoleum, cupboards, stove, and fridge. In arrived modern white lacquer cabinets from Ikea, strikingly contrasted by quartz countertops, Moroccan-motivated zellige tiles, stainless appliances, and a wood island. Opening up the kitchen area to the eating and dwelling rooms resulted in tons of organic daylight.
Crimson Hook-dependent artist Rowan Willigan made a outstanding modern day mural powering the mattress in their bedroom and also painted the unique customized lamp shades. “Rowan aided me produce personalized pattern rugs for the 2019 Kingston Design Showhouse and I loved her abstract operate which encouraged our pattern,” suggests Schultz. The other two bedrooms in the wing now serve as a Tv space and a household place of work.
To enrich the most important lavatory, they saved the finishes uncomplicated but added pattern with subway tiles in a herringbone pattern and contrasted it with a penny tile shower. Iridescent pendants put above each individual sink total the photo.
Clearly, statement artwork performs a large component in the home’s vibe. “We are gradually buying extra art from regional artists,” says Schultz. “I usually preferred to obtain art and my very first parts had been the dining home artwork by a close friend, an American present-day artist identified as Ryan the Wheelbarrow. I moved from quite a few residences and usually took his parts with me.”
In the dining place, stunning present day art sparks a good deal of discussion. These two items started out Schultz down the path to becoming an artwork collector, which was a longtime goal. Her suggestions to clientele also hoping to go the collector route is to first commit in just one significant piece of artwork to truly anchor a room, then increase smaller parts above time.
Crops also carry shade, texture, and lifestyle during the house. “We retain a lot of cacti and succulents because they are reduced upkeep,” she adds.
“Our property is extremely cherished by my husband and me, and our canine and cats,” suggests Schultz. “It’s a ton of strength and sometimes chaotic, but I assume you can experience really like when you’re below.”
Her solution to artwork in the major bed room was to fee a regional artist whose do the job she admired to paint a uniquely patterned summary wall mural, together with matching painted lampshades for visual continuity.
Welcome to the Beck
As if gutting, reimagining, and redecorating a 60-plus-calendar year-old property wasn’t ample of a challenge for Ana Claudia Schultz and Aaron Smyle, the few additional recently took on an additional sizable activity: co-founding The Beck, a by-appointment-only design gallery in Rhinebeck that showcases Hudson Valley makers and artists. Interior designer Schultz and tax accountant Smyle each run their organizations out of The Beck, and they curate and rotate window shows of region artists’ perform. They not too long ago added an on-line shop to The Beck’s web page, to broaden their income capabilities further than what they can accommodate onsite at The Beck. For more info, stick to @thebeckrhinebeck on Instagram.
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As the solar starts to established, the foyer and front hall in Diane and Ray Krueger’s penthouse is bathed in stripes of red, yellow, environmentally friendly and orange, a chromatic projection that is the signature of work by the late artist Carlos Cruz-Diez.
Collectors of artwork and admirers of excellent architecture, the Kruegers jumped at the opportunity to invest in a piece of art by Cruz-Diez, a Venezuelan-turned-Parisian artist whose get the job done is also showcased in a tunnel immersed in a rainbow of colour connecting the Nancy and Rich Kinder Creating to the primary Museum of High-quality Arts, Houston campus.
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Cruz-Diez, who died in 2019 at the age of 95, paired gentle and shade in immersive art installations in museums all over the earth. A scaled-down piece of his perform — portion of a set of six multicolored plexiglass panels developed in 2008 and refurbished a lot more recently — is in the Kruegers’ household, positioned accurately wherever the artist would have desired it, in entrance of a western window that sends coloration dancing across the floor when the late-working day sun hits that side of the creating.
In the 4-year approach that turned the 7,400-sq.-foot fourth ground of an iconic professional building into their sprawling new dwelling, the Kruegers could eventually think about exactly where they’d hang or display all of their artwork as they worked at a steady speed to get a lot more.
“We have always taken more mature properties and repurposed, transformed or restored them. Our son life in a property that was restored, much too. Our manufacturing unit down the avenue was developed in the 1960s and is a quite plain, industrial creating, but we didn’t demolish it, and we bought a Superior Brick Award for preserving it in 2014,” Diane Krueger explained. “That is a real enthusiasm of ours.”
A sophisticated record
For 37 decades, the Kruegers lived in a 1,536-square-foot bungalow in Montrose, a Craftsman-design household created in 1926 by Ray’s grandparents. The pair entirely renovated the home in the mid-1980s, and it was time to do one thing yet again.
They searched for new houses in River Oaks and Memorial and thought they could finish up with a household on Tiel Way, made by architect Karl Kamrath, but ultimately missed out on it.
Then Ray found that a big concrete structure the moment known as the Massive 3 Industries building was for sale and he known as his wife.
“I’ve constantly liked that setting up,” explained Diane, a Houston native whose NuSmile offices are just down the road from it. NuSmile Ltd. will make pediatric and endodontic dental products and solutions she is its principal, CEO and president.
Positioned in an industrial spot west of the Heights, the 4-story bolstered-concrete making stands aside from its neighbors, primarily smaller industrial buildings, with some more recent condominium structures close by.
Created in 1974 by Kamrath of Mackie and Kamrath, it was to be the headquarters for Large A few Industries, a normal fuel distributor. The commission to design the developing came later in the five-10 years occupation of Kamrath, known for building unique modern residences, sacred spaces, these types of as Temple Emanu-El (1949, with Lenard Gabert) and Memorial Travel Presbyterian Church (1957, 1973), and key industrial tasks, which includes the Dow Chemical complicated in Freeport (1953), Schlumberger Corp. sophisticated (1953), University of Texas M.D. Anderson Clinic and Tumor Institute (1954) and the Very first Pasadena Condition Financial institution making (1962).
A shut buddy of Frank Lloyd Wright and an admirer of his Usonian model, Kamrath resolved to make his Significant 3 structure a tribute to Wright’s most renowned community setting up: Unity Temple in Oak Park, Sick., broadly considered the initial contemporary developing in the environment.
After a lightning strike and fireplace ruined the Unitarian Universalist congregation’s property, they approached Wright to structure a new church with a spending budget of $45,000. He selected the most affordable material he could come across: concrete. Finished in 1908, Wright’s structure defied traditions in church architecture, showing up from the outdoors as extra of a fortress, with large clerestory windows concealed powering ornamental piers and overhanging eaves. It is really on the UNESCO Earth Heritage Checklist and due to the fact 1970 has been a U.S. Countrywide Historic Landmark.
The Kruegers’ constructing was occupied for a lot of many years by Huge 3 Industries, which was acquired by Air Liquide in 1986. A lot more just lately, the Ancorian serious estate financial investment firm bought the total residence and bought it off in components, which includes the 2.5-acre tract that the Kruegers acquired.
They put in 4 decades updating the business place on the decreased 3 flooring and turning the top rated flooring into their residence, moving in in late 2021. Diane Krueger moved her company’s headquarters to the making, as nicely.
The pair introduced in architect Kyle B. Humphries of Murphy Mears Architects to deal with the renovation and he, in change, introduced in his longtime friend Mary Lambrakos, an interior designer with an artwork background diploma from Rice College and working experience operating at the Menil Selection.
Even though the Kruegers experienced lived for several years in a historic dwelling filled with antiques and Arts and Crafts-model Stickley furnishings that experienced belonged to Diane’s grandparents, it was time for a thing substantially distinct.
Timeless contemporary fashion
Humphries embraced the vacant shell of the fourth floor as a sequence of spaces where by they could reside, operate, play and pause. Lambrakos, fueled by her time at the Menil Collection and her personal appreciation of artwork, envisioned how every room could be created around objects, irrespective of whether they be sculpture, art, furniture or anything at all else. Every single ingredient of the area was there for a objective and was meant to work in harmony — not merely checking a box on a designer’s or homeowner’s list.
Lambrakos’ very own aesthetic is fueled by her family’s Greek roots, the Previous Earth feel of spouse and children houses there, as nicely as her own passion for midcentury contemporary layout, notably the Paul McCobb parts she has picked up about the decades.
To express her individual lofty style goals, Diane sent web pages from Advertisement Italia with modern furnishings to Humphries and Lambrakos and questioned them to get began.
The architect and designer did not permit the structure’s concrete-major Brutalist exterior have an impact on the inside, even though the concrete is evident in a lot of exterior walls and columns, their rocky mixture uncovered.
As Lambrakos introduced tile samples, cloth swatches and household furniture and lighting alternatives to Diane, the two commenced to talk the identical language.
“As the course of action went on, (Diane and Ray) got extra thrilled,” Lambrakos explained. “Diane is a quite severe businesswoman, but we’d meet up with for an hour or hour and a 50 {6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48}, and it would be a respite for her to interact and indulge. Ray was complicated in a way that can make you a greater designer. I arrived out of this undertaking a far better designer.”
Ray was quite hands-on, supplying his possess thoughts for floor designs and sounding off on components used throughout the venture. He gives props to Humphries, although, for the final get the job done on the complicated ground prepare, incorporating skylights to provide pure gentle to the gentle-starved heart of the ground and coming up with a way to make a broad balcony by eradicating exterior windows and incorporating floor-to-ceiling sliding doorways across the broad living area space.
“It was pleasurable to reimagine this as a residence. We could wipe the slate cleanse and begin from scratch,” Humphries claimed.
Inside of the sprawling fourth floor, Humphries and Lambrakos made a collection of galleries to screen and admire artwork or merely pause between the key living space, Television set room and the four bedrooms, two of which are aspect of an condominium that can be shut off from the most important household.
The Kruegers already had many items of artwork but they required considerably far more for their larger new property and its wide, blank partitions. In addition to the Cruz-Diez piece, they acquired a smaller Donald Lipsky sculpture and a large-format piece by Eduardo Portillo for the very first gallery, which includes a sequence of chic Knoll upholstered benches.
Two other galleries and rooms in the residence have pieces by Robert Kelly, Joe Mancuso, Gavin Perry, Lauren Luloff and Agnes Bourely. Some pieces had been procured by the few throughout their travels, which include a painting from Elisa Anfuso’s “Eyes Large Shut” sequence during a journey to Italy.
At numerous points, Houston gallery owners brought in a parade of art to clearly show the Kruegers to see what may well function properly in distinct rooms.
Whilst the flooring and partitions are neutral, the Kruegers wanted a great deal of shade, and Lambrakos — who loves the obstacle of the hunt in household merchandise searching — established out to curate a household filled with bespoke furnishings.
Some rooms are a colour study. For example, the Tv set space is stuffed with maroon, while eco-friendly dominates in the dwelling place, where there’s a massive environmentally friendly velvet L-shaped sofa on a green ombre rug. Diane’s home business office has a wall lined in panels of deep blue leather and a hot white chaise lounge chair in one corner and a brilliant yellow chair in yet another.
The eating area has a 13-foot desk of walnut and mahogany on a metallic foundation, tailor made built by BC Woodwork. Close to it is a assortment of modern chairs from CAM Studio, a Houston furniture showroom with modern-day European brands.
The nearby kitchen area is photograph ideal, with up to date cupboards covered in a veneer of exotic Macassar ebony wood, with a spectacular striped overall look. Counters applied for perform and foodstuff prep are sturdy Corian, while an elevated counter and lengthy wall of backsplash have veiny black and white marble.
Excellent stewards
Ray handles the couple’s portfolio of qualities, such as their East Texas timber and cattle ranch, though Diane is occupied as the head of NuSmile. Additionally, they each have aged dad and mom who need some of their time, so they don’t have a whole lot of no cost time for entertaining.
Still, they hosted 22 individuals for Thanksgiving, and Diane held organization holiday get-togethers in their house, much too. For 10 decades, the family members went to their ranch for the vacations, but now they’re web hosting in Houston again, offering their kitchen’s two steam ovens a training.
“We’ll be very good stewards of this developing as prolonged as we can, and then we’ll go it on to someone else. We did it due to the fact which is who we are,” Ray stated. “It’s a huge duty on a day-to-working day basis.”
A key instance of mid-century modern-day architecture is for sale in West Des Moines, developed in 1964 for a previous director of the Des Moines Artwork Centre
Situated throughout from the 486-acre Brown’s Woods, Iowa’s biggest city forest, the a few-bed room, a few-toilet, 1,939-sq.-foot ranch residence is concealed from check out on its possess .76-acre, tree-loaded lot.
Restored around the previous two several years, previous Des Moines Art Heart director Thomas Stansbury Tibbs at first laid declare to the hanging structure. But despite ongoing endeavours looking archives, city information and local architectural data, no paperwork to again up his assertion has however been observed.
“It’s a quite unfamiliar mystery,” mentioned Rhiannon Barbour, who is representing the vendor.
Admitting the home’s type appeals to an special sector of the sector, Barbour is assured the proper homebuyer will at some point be located.
“I adore the simplicity, how understated it is, but it is attractive,” she reported.
Tibbs was the Artwork Center’s director from 1960-68 and was instrumental in choosing New York Metropolis architect I.M. Pei to build a $1.6 million addition to the Art Middle. Pei’s 18,000-square-foot wing debuted in Oct 1968, that includes an uncovered concrete exterior that provided an immediate distinction to architect Eliel Saarinen’s 20-calendar year old creating.
Tibbs’ home on Brown’s Woods Lane has undergone a collection of updates considering the fact that he left in 1968 and now characteristics a sunroom, laundry space, a porch with views of the close by pool and woodlands, a mud space and an attached two-auto garage.
The existing proprietors have included a detached 1,800-square-foot mixture garage and art studio, geared up with a hydraulic motor vehicle lift, and LED lighting to superior aid car painting and restoration.
Inside of the major home, the master bedroom contains an en-suite toilet and the kitchen area has been reworked with new appliances and counter tops. The wood floors and beamed ceilings have been refinished and the big home windows make certain an abundance of natural mild.
The open system house “is not truly set up to have a family members with two or three young ones,” Barbour claimed. But the available layout was a immediate consequence of Tibbs facilitating his wife Ruth’s recovery adhering to a stroke.
Partner and wife team Denika and Brad Almburg of Mod Household Assortment and Almburg Homes had been previous proprietors of the property when it was still covered in vines and overgrowth. The couple started the home’s early conservation and restoration.
“He truly developed that home to accommodate her immediately after her stroke, and her caretaker,” Denika Almburg explained.
In the course of the pandemic, Almburg’s discussions with nearby architects “confirmed our beliefs that it was anyone experienced in architecture that designed it,” she claimed.
No files have been found to indicate Tibbs been given any education to transition from a museum director into a complex novice architect.
Even with that anomaly, Almburg remains a fantastic admirer of the property and also Tibbs’ profession at the Art Heart. “My get on him is that he was just a ahead thinker, a imaginative dude who pushed the envelope listed here in Des Moines, and Des Moines was also conservative to appreciate some of what he was executing,” she said.
The property is detailed at $699,000 by Rhiannon Barbour of Realty A person Group and DSM Fashionable Actual Estate. Contact (515) 446-7524 to tour this home or similar attributes.
Richard Lane is the true estate reporter for the Des Moines Sign up. He can be attained at rlane@registermedia.com.
A cadre of design critics claims that golf course architecture slipped into a dark place from 1945 to 1975, emerging only when Pete Dye began to hit his stride. Others extend the time period another 20 years, to 1995, when Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw’s Sand Hills burst into course rankings and the national consciousness.
I am not one of those critics.
Hundreds of quality courses emerged between 1945 and 1965. Perhaps the predominant design style of that era doesn’t trend well today. Fine. That’s the nature of art — and trends. But there is always a “best of” breed, even if you don’t care for that particular breed. Because I prefer Monet’s impressionism to Picasso’s Cubism doesn’t mean I thought Picasso was a lousy painter. He simply expressed his artistic philosophy in a different way.
The same holds true for the influential post-war course architects. Robert Trent Jones was the leading light, with his “hard par, easy bogey” design credo. To blunt the modern power game, he built long, “airport runway” tee boxes for maximum flexibility, fairways squeezed by flanking bunkers and large, elevated greens often fronted by water and/or sand. His leading competitor, Dick Wilson, emulated many of Jones’ characteristics, while differing in the angular presentation of his slightly elevated putting surfaces.
The RTJ style was perfect for the post-WWII aerial game then in vogue, and unquestionably proved extremely testing for tour professionals. This, in turn, impressed early course rankings judges, who in the day, often emphasized difficulty over character. Eventually, those courses faded in the rankings, not because they were deemed poor but rather, tastes changed.
Yet, for every modern critic who chirped about how long and repetitive Firestone Country Club’s South was, they failed to look more closely at what Jones accomplished there, which was to transform a mediocre 1920s, 6,400-yard corporate course into a 7,000-yard championship test on the same grounds.
Moreover, even a cursory examination of his course ledger reveals that not all Trent Jones courses were alike. For all of his massive courses that demanded prodigious power-hitting, three of the five courses he labeled as personal favorites — Spyglass Hill (1966), Ballybunion’s Cashen (1985) and Valderrama (1964/1975) — were pure finesse courses with smallish greens. So, too, many of his quintessential efforts hold up today as timeless classics, including Peachtree (1948), the Dunes Golf and Beach Club (1949) and Mauna Kea (1964).
Wilson’s best works may have also vanished from current course rankings rosters, but two generations of PGA Tour pros appreciated the straightforward challenges proffered by Doral Blue (1962), Bay Hill Club and Lodge (1961), Royal Montreal Golf Club’s Red Course (1959), Cog Hill No. 4 (1964) and La Costa (1964), as well as at his chef d’oeuvre, Pine Tree (1962), of which Ben Hogan once called “the best course I have ever played.”
Understandably, mid-century architects mostly hewed to the formula unspooled by Jones and Wilson, as that’s what clients and customers wanted. Only occasionally were there genuine departures from these norms. Partly for that reason, and partly because widespread air travel didn’t occur until the late 1950s, few of these individuals outside of Jones and Wilson achieved national acclaim; they mostly practiced in one region. Several of them deserve to be better known. For the Torrey Pines U.S. Open preview in 2021, Morning Read profiled William F. Bell, who crafted more than 200 courses throughout the west from 1946-1984.
Here are four additional architects who created at least one Top 100 golf course. Each left massive marks on mid-century design.
The Country Club of North Carolina’s Dogwood course in Pinehurst is considered one of Ellis Maples’ finest works.
Kevin Murray
Ellis Maples
He was born in Pinehurst, N.C. in 1909 and died there in 1984, so it was inevitable that golf course architecture would be in Ellis Maples’ blood. In fact, it was. His father, Frank Maples, served as construction superintendent for Donald Ross and also greenkeeper at Pinehurst Country Club. In 1937, Ellis departed for Plymouth, N.C., where he helped William Flynn and Dick Wilson build a nine-hole course, gaining additional education from two superior design minds. In 1948, he followed in his father’s footsteps by serving as construction superintendent for Donald Ross’s final design, Raleigh Country Club. For the next three decades, Ellis Maples was one of the most prolific architects in the Southeast.
Ellis Maples
Architect Richard Mandell, who got his start in the design business with Ellis’ son Dan, points out that Maples followed many Ross principles, including lay-of-the-land routing that emphasized the high points of the property, using natural features to determine strategy and creating visibility in bunkers. Unlike Ross, however, Maples primarily utilized high-flashed sand bunkers to achieve this. Soft-spoken and much admired, Ellis Maples left behind a legacy of strong, beautiful tracks, including the Country Club of North Carolina’s Dogwood course in Pinehurst (1963), a former Golf Digest Top 100 entry where Hal Sutton captured the 1980 U.S. Amateur; Grandfather Golf and Country Club in Linville, N.C. (1968), another former Top 100 course currently ranked 144th in the U.S.; and Pinehurst Country Club, No. 5 (1961).
William Gordon
After serving in the Navy during World War I, William Gordon began work as a seed salesman. In that capacity, he eventually served as superintendent of his company’s golf course construction division, where he built courses for prominent architects Donald Ross, Devereux Emmet and Willie Park Jr.
In 1923, Gordon joined the Toomey and Flynn design firm, one of the finest of the era. During his 18 years there, the firm created Shinnecock Hills, Cherry Hills and Lancaster and revised Merion, The Country Club and Philadelphia Country Club. In 1941, he hung his design shop shingle, but World War II intervened. After the war, he built courses for Donald Ross and J.B. McGovern, before finally embarking on a solo practice in 1950. His son, David, joined the William F. Gordon Co. in 1953 and they created courses together until the elder’s death in 1973.
William Gordon
Of William Gordon, architecture scholar Ron Whitten pointed out that “Probably no other architect in history received such broad practical experience before setting up his own practice, nor was any more imbued with the history of the art.”
The Gordons greatest works reflected the muscular challenge and flowing lines of the times, yet were simple in their execution, natural and not overly adorned with “look-at-me” design features. Among their top courses were Saucon Valley Country Club’s Grace (1953/1958) in Bethlehem, Pa., a longtime member of Golf Digest’s Top 100, its vastly different sibling, the Weyhill course (1968) and the Stanwich Club in Greenwich, Conn. (1963), currently ranked 94th among the Top 100 Modern (post-1960) courses in the U.S. by Golfweek.
E.L. Packard
One of the new breed of landscape architects to enter the profession, Edward Lawrence “Larry” Packard worked in that capacity with the National Park Service in Maine, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Chicago Park District, before joining the staff of architect Robert Bruce Harris in 1946. In 1954, he established his own firm, partnering with Brent Wadsworth. Within three years, the two decided there wasn’t enough work to go around, so Wadsworth departed, and focused almost exclusively on the construction side of the business. Packard prospered in the Midwest, designing or remodeling well over 100 courses, in the 1950s,’60s and ‘70s, including Eagle Ridge Resort North (1977) in Galena, Ill.
E.L. “Larry” Packard
Yet, his finest efforts came about near Tampa, Florida, at the Innisbrook Resort. Two of the four courses he created there, Island (1970) and Copperhead (1974) reached Top 100 status with Golf Digest. Phil Mickelson captured the NCAA Men’s Individual title at Island in 1990, while Copperhead has been among the most respected courses on the PGA Tour since 2000 as host of the Valspar Championship.
In 2006, Ernie Els gushed, “I personally think the Copperhead layout is the best golf course that the PGA Tour visits in Florida.” In 2010, I asked Packard to comment on Els’ flattering portrayal. With the candor that only a 98-year-old could muster, Packard responded, “I think he’s right.”
Packard’s son, Roger, joined the firm in the early 1970s. Together, they continued to craft well-respected layouts, but they expanded their horizons to include courses in Egypt, Venezuela and Guatemala, among other exotic locales.
Whitten and the American Society of Golf Course Architects credit Packard for his contributions in advancing environmental issues, being an early advocate of using treated effluent for golf course irrigation. His design influence permeated the profession as well, especially in terms of softer sculpting of the land and the use of free-form shaping of golf course features, notably on tee complexes.
Robert F. “Red” Lawrence
As golf landscapes go, Westchester County, N.Y., and Maricopa County, Ariz., couldn’t be more different. Yet, Red Lawrence thrived in both. Nicknamed for the color of his hair, Lawrence started in the business at age 26, working for Walter Travis on the construction of Westchester Country Club’s two courses in 1919. From 1921 to 1932, he served as construction superintendent for Toomey and Flynn, playing a major role on many of the firm’s best designs, including the Cascades at the Homestead in Hot Springs, Va., the Seaview (Pines) in Absecon, N.J. and The Country Club, in the Cleveland suburb of Pepper Pike.
Robert F. “Red” Lawrence
While toiling on another Toomey and Flynn project in Florida for the Boca Raton Hotel, the Depression hit, scaling back all design projects and producing layoffs. Moored in Florida, Lawrence took the job as superintendent at the Boca Raton. As the story goes, he convinced Tommy Armour, the resort’s professional and a three-time major winner, to conduct a lesson with a wealthy member while sitting under an umbrella, cocktail in hand. While intended as a joke, Armour made it his teaching trademark.
During his residence in the Sunshine State, Lawrence began a modest side business designing courses, but was sufficiently serious enough about the profession to join the American Society of Golf Course Architects as a founding member in 1947. In 1958, his wife’s health compelled a relocation to a drier climate — Tucson, Arizona. By 1962, he had become a 69-year-old overnight sensation, with his revolutionary design of Desert Forest Golf Club in Carefree, north of Phoenix. As architecture scholar Brad Klein wrote, “There’s a strong case to be made that (Desert Forest’s) layout is not only unique but also a landmark in golf architecture.”
Lawrence’s remarkable achievement was in draping a minimalist design atop a most inhospitable desert tableau, with remarkable sophistication as to the detail work in contouring fairways and greens. He also pioneered a design concept at Desert Forest’s seventh hole, a true split fairway, with equal risk and reward for taking either route. True, his bunkering was simple ovals, but at least it didn’t compete with the rolling setting, lush desert and mountain backdrops.
Desert Forest was a member of the Golf Digest and Golf Magazine Top 100s for three decades. Another Lawrence design that achieved Top 100 status was the University of New Mexico’s South course (1966) in Albuquerque. Now known as the Championship course, the layout lacked Desert Forest’s brilliant shaping of fairways and greens, and his usual broad oval bunkers weren’t terribly artistic, but the stern challenge and lay-of-the-land routing proved effective. Phil Mickelson captured the 1992 NCAA Men’s Individual title here.
Tubac Golf Resort, Camelback Inn’s Padre course, the Wigwam’s West course and the original Boulders Club course were other Arizona gems that featured Lawrence’s craftsmanship. Longtime ASGCA secretary Paul Fullmer described Lawrence as “a popular, fun-loving guy who was always in the middle of the parties.” Echoes Robert Trent Jones Jr., “Lawrence was a character, and a funny, fun man. I liked his work in the desert.”
News and Reviews
New Tune at Streamsong
Central Florida’s Streamsong Resort celebrated its 10th anniversary with a big announcement at January’s PGA Show: A new sibling was on the way. Alongside the top-ranked Blue, Red and Black championship courses, a yet-to-be-named short course has started to take shape. Designed by Coore and Crenshaw, who authored the Red course at Streamsong, the new layout will feature 18 holes expected to measure between 70 to nearly 300 yards. Designed to be walkable and played with less than a full complement of clubs, the short course is being constructed on rippled, sandy terrain to the east of the resort’s main lodge, within walking distance. Coore is exceptionally inspired by the prospects.
“Comprised of moss-draped oaks, lakes and sand-based landforms, the site for the short course is dramatically gifted for golf,” Coore said. “And although smaller in scale and different in character from the Blue, Black and Red courses, we believe the site has the potential to complement the amazing golf experiences that have made Streamsong one of our nation’s most highly acclaimed golf destinations.”
This surely will be a superb addition to Streamsong. Coore and Crenshaw have an exemplary track record when it comes to constructing compelling par-3s courses, from Bandon Preserve to Sand Valley to Colorado Golf Club. Plus, Streamsong needed this. The problem with the additional daylight required to squeeze in a 36-hole day is that this is Florida, so that generally occurs in months where the heat and humidity can thwart many players. So, on those perfect winter days when you want more golf, but don’t have the daylight, the new short course should satisfy. Same for those hot days, when you have the daylight, but not the energy. No opening date has been announced, but anticipation and expectations are sky-high.
Faldo in Pakistan
If you’re the kind of golfer who craves the occasional dose of adventure travel—and who doesn’t — Sir Nick Faldo’s design firm has created a new bucket list experience. Pakistan’s Rumanza Golf and Country Club debuted in February 2022, and immediately stamps itself as the top course in the country. Situated in the city of Multan, where Alexander the Great fought a historic battle in 326 B.C., Rumanza was developed by the nation’s Defense Housing Authority as part of an ambitious mixed-use development that will include real estate, lodging and retail space.
On flat farmland, Faldo, lead designer Andy Haggar and their team created an oasis-style desert layout with large lakes and lush Paspalum grass throughout. Yet, they also incorporated local elements, from native mango and orange trees and holes that feature Dera walls, remnants of the farmers’ mud brick-and-straw dwellings that long occupied the site.
Pakistan boasts a surprisingly long golf tradition dating to British proliferation in the 19th century, but this course differs in every way from others in the country. Unsurprisingly for Faldo, it is a rigorous test, 7,533 yards, par 72 and laced with hazards. The development team expressed that it was important for future generations of Pakistani golfers to become acclimated to championship-style layouts so that they wouldn’t be surprised on difficult international tournament stages. For the traveling golfer looking to check another box, the surprise is that this facility exists at all.
They are a spiky, ambitious lot. We encounter the poet John Ashbery, to whom Schloss complained about being called “semiabstract” by a critic. “‘Isn’t all life semi?’” he replied consolingly. And the composer Elliott Carter, who sneered of folk music’s influence on modern urbans: “We are not shepherds. We are not coming out of the hills. We are not folk.” The dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham rears up “like a furry old faun”; the gallerist Leo Castelli has a Felix Unger-ish fastidiousness.
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Schloss writes of a time, incredible as it may seem now, when painters in New York had the clout of movie stars. (These days, maybe even movie stars no longer have the clout of movie stars.) The Bob De Niro she gossiped with over a temperamental kerosene stove on the street was the actor’s father. Franz Kline, another abstract expressionist, with whom she danced the tango, “had a sort of Bogart-like cool and melancholy.” Strolling downtown alongside Willem de Kooning, the Dutch painter, leader of this set, “was like walking with Clark Gable in Hollywood.”
De Kooning and his wife, Elaine, a.k.a. “Queen of the Lofts,” are among the more completely filled-out figures in a collection of mostly outlines and shadows, darting in and out of time. At Bill’s studio, Schloss, who’d escaped Nazi Germany studying languages abroad as a teenager, first beheld the takeover of former industrial spaces that transformed real estate as well as art. So powerful was the romance of New York lofts, surpassing the Parisian garrets before them, that prefabricated luxury versions are now an industry standard. They were “stages for work and for a whole new free way of living,” Schloss writes, describing her crowd’s appropriation of cable spools for coffee tables as if they were The Borrowers, a perpetual ascension of creaky stairs, parlor games absent an actual parlor and meals taken at the Automat.
Edith SchlossCredit…Silvia Stucky
All five senses are shaken awake by “The Loft Generation,” which might as well be subtitled A Study of Synesthesia, punctuated by “cream-colored screams,” a hotly debated phrase the poet Frank O’Hara used to describe Cy Twombly’s canvases in ARTnews. Schloss got a reviewing gig there — she compares the work to embroidery or knitting — to smoothe Jacob’s admittance to a nursery school “only for the children of working mothers”; painting apparently didn’t qualify. There is sight, of course, with color insets of Schloss’s bright and optimistic daubings alongside work by her more dour-seeming contemporaries. There is sound, in her recounting of the unholy clamor of the Chelsea neighborhood where she and Burckhardt shacked up: the rattling of iron window shutters, mating cats, the fire and burglar alarms and “the intermittent swish of cars down Sixth Avenue, like long sighs.” (Next time you misplace the AirPods Pro, think of John Cage teaching Schloss to appreciate ambient noise as part of life’s symphony.)
