Flex your architectural muscles by inviting people round to your landmark rental. “Of course, there are a number of Peter Blake houses on the East End,” you’d say. “But this is the house he built for his own family.”
Designed in 1954, the house got its name because it looks like a pinwheel from above. “I wanted to be able to open the walls up to the views but close them in winter or during a hurricane,” Blake said. ”That was the origin of the pinwheel idea.”
Drawing via Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University
Architecture critic Alastair Gordon wrote: “The perimeter line between inside and outside, between architecture and landscape, was effectively dissolved . . . Here was Action Architecture realized: a house that could respond to the weather, the views, and the personal moods of its inhabitants.”
Of course, back in 1954, Water Mill was very different. The house stood in the middle of a field; now it’s surrounded by houses. Blake said in 1999, “That whole area, before all the twits came in, was all about landscape, views of the water, and so on.”
Our ideas about vacation/weekend houses have changed since 1954, too. Small, well-designed architectural whimsies are now pool houses (such as Andrew Geller’s Double Diamond house) or guest houses, as the Pinwheel House often serves to the mansion next door. Still, in 1998, the house was upsized from a teensy 2-bedroom, 1-bath into a 3,000-square-foot one with 5 bedrooms and 6 baths. Fortunately the integrity of the original structure has been maintained.
Interested? The Pinwheel House is available for an eye-watering $170K year-round rent. Bragging rights, of course, are priceless.
254 Rose Hill Rd, Water Mill, NY 11976
