The Cape Cod Modern House Trust has purchased the summer home of modernist architect Marcel Breuer near the Massachusetts town of Wellfleet.
The deal was completed last week after nearly a year of fundraising and negotiations, and transfers ownership from Breuer’s son Thomas to the trust. A press release published last year said the purchase price was $2 million, with donations needed for at least $1.4 million.
The building will undergo restoration work before the trust plans to expand programming, including annual residency fellowships for artists, architects, students and scholars focused on the preservation of modern buildings.
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“It’s been a long campaign, but together we have saved an important place from probable destruction,” a representative for the CCMHT told the Art Newspaper, which first reported the news. “Work begins on the restoration immediately.”
Construction of the house started in 1948, and it is one of approximately 100 modernist houses in the Outer Cape area. The facilities include a large studio and a small apartment with a darkroom. Notably, the acquisition includes the house’s contents, including Breuer’s art collection, furniture, and library of approximately 200 books on art and design. The press release noted that the art collection includes works by Alexander Calder, Paul Klee, Josef Albers, and Herbert Bayer, and bronze sculptures by Costentino Nivola; and the furniture collection includes examples of Breuer’s own manufactured designs as well as unique tables, couches, and rugs made specifically for the house.
Breuer became the youngest student at the Bauhaus design school in Weimar, Germany, when he enrolled at the age of 18. He gained international acclaimed for his furniture and architecture designs, include the Cesca chair and the iconic Breuer Building in New York, which Sotheby’s purchased from the Whitney Museum last year.
Breuer died in 1981. His ashes, along with those of his wife Connie Breuer, Connie’s sister, and her husband, are buried under a stone slab made by sculptor Masayuki Nagare next to the driveway of the house now owned by the CCMHT.
Architect and carpenter Peter McMahon founded the CCMHT in 2007 to collect, archive, and restore examples of modern architecture on Cape Cod. The house is the nonprofit organization’s first acquisition following the restoration of four other properties it leases from the Cape Code National Seashore (National Parks Service). In addition to residencies and educational programming, visitors can rent the restored modernist homes for week-long stays.
According to the Art Newspaper, the Breuer house in Cape Code is “not in the best condition,” but it is unchanged since Breuer’s death. It still includes original furniture items made by the designer and architect himself.
