Art: New Southern Comfort

With the ante-bellum plantation mansion, the Old South evolved an ideal house for leisurely and elegant living. Rooms were high, with tall windows that could be opened to the breezes; the broad verandas, ennobled by stately Grecian porticoes, were a prototype of indoor-outdoor living. The New South, too, is fast on its way to evolving its own concept of modern comfort. Last week the American Institute of Architects, announcing the winners of a competition that drew 135 entries from the ten Gulf and Southeast Atlantic states, found that the New South still cherishes its breezeways, highceilinged rooms, and a taste for elegance and lighthearted formality in living. Outstanding among the winners:

¶ Victor A. Lundy, a 36-year-old ex-combat infantryman (Purple Heart) and Harvard graduate who settled in Florida six years ago, promptly began making a name for his small, Sarasota-based firm by arguing that a house need not be a box, or even box-shaped. In his top-prizewinning house for Samuel H. Herron Jr. at Venice, Fla. (see color and blueprint). Lundy threw a parasol of laminated southern pine arches over the living areas as an independent roof shelter, then skillfully combined the whole series of circles and rectangles into a floor plan that he hoped would not only be practical but also allow for the whims of the owners. At the center is a circular living-dining area with fireplace. Two screened patios provide a breezeway; the corner bedrooms can be isolated by sliding glass walls and curtains or thrown open so that the house can be used to its perimeters as one free-flowing area for living and entertainment. Said the jury: “The most memorable image of all the houses we have seen.”

¶ New Orleans Architect Arthur Q. Davis, 39, partner in the firm of Curtis & Davis, proved that a man does his best when he builds to please himself. Davis was both his own client and architect, set out to build a “carefree pavilion” beside his house as “a retreat from the numerous activities connected with living in a house with a growing family.” Davis ensured that he would be detached both physically and emotionally from the backyard by setting his retreat on steel posts so that it seems to float above the pond. The 2¼-inch-thick vaulted concrete roof was meant to be both elegant and playful. During a rainstorm the extended roof-beam “gargoyle” rainspouts will channel water into the pool in a miniature cascade that any 18th century fancier of gazebos or octagonal summerhouses would have applauded.

¶ Paul Rudolph, 40, Harvard-trained and now chairman of Yale’s architecture department, got an A.I.A. merit award with his home for F. A. Deering (opposite). In a sharp break with the low, rambling Florida beach house. Architect Rudolph erected a building of surprising elegance and solidity on Casey Key, a sand strip near Sarasota, Fla. A shoebox on the exterior, the house is full of surprises inside. Ten rooms are ranged over five different levels like so many stage elevations. Ceilings vary from 16 ft. 6 in. (for the broad beach porch) to 8 ft. 4 in. (for the bedrooms) in an attempt “to introduce a certain amount of adventure into the progression through the various areas.”

Because the jury felt that the exterior of the house belied its interior, it was loath to give Rudolph a first honor. But the calm interior spaces of this super-split-level would be hard to match for relaxed and sumptuous living by the seaside. Architect Rudolph admits that the façade is “a willful distortion” of the inside, but considers this his best house. Says he with pride: “This design is a house within a house.”