Last week I visited Planting Fields, a Jazz Age estate on Long Island’s Gold Coast. The house was completed in 1921, designed by Alexander Stewart Walker (1876–1952) and Leon Narcisse Gillette (1878–1945), whose Manhattan firm was responsible for several Long Island country houses. The style of the house is usually described as Tudor Revival. Walking around the sprawling mansion I was reminded why historical revival styles were so popular for so long. To begin with, the house is not really a recreation of a particular historical period. There are half-timbered parts, limestone parts, and an entry that reminded me of Christopher Wren. This picturesque variety achieves several goals. It breaks down the scale. A 67-room house risks feeling like a small hotel, and chopping it up into bite-sized portions preserves a domestic atmosphere that while hardly cosy, is certainly comfortable. It also allows architectural variety on the interior, which includes a Norman entry hall, medieval gallery, a French Rococo reception room, a lighthearted bedroom designed by Elsie de Wolfe, and a breakfast room with a buffalo themed mural by Robert Winthrop Chanler that defies easy stylistic categorization. It is a common mistake to think of revival styles as a reproduction of something. Instead, they are more like a rough framework for memories, real and imagined In the case of Planting Fields, the framework resonated with the owners. William Coe was born in England (he arrived with his parents when he was ten, and worked his way up from office boy in an insurance office to president of the firm). His wife Mai, a wealthy heiress (daughter of Standard Oil founder, Henry “Hell Hound” Rogers) also had a British connection—the house was inspired by the English Tudor manor house that belonged to her sister. We live in an age when architectural conformity—and consistency—is the rule, and when looking backward is considered retardataire. More’s the pity.
