Fire Island Architecture History: Lincoln Centre Est.1977
557 Ocean Walk
Photo by Ezra Stoller
Sitting on a dune at the ocean at the western end of the Pines is the house known as Lincoln Centre. It was built and designed by Architect Arthur Erickson and Interior designer Francisco Kripaz. Kripaz designed the interiors to acknowledge the dramatic views of the sea and beach with translucence and clarity rather than attempt some grandiose or eccentric statement.
Francisco Kripaz (left) and Arthur Erickson (right). 1988.
Lincoln Centre
The name came from its similarity to the Lincoln Center in NYC.
It was an early decision to make the interior all white deferring to the sea. Using italian tile throughout the main floor reducing everything to a minimalist palette, and letting the sand , sea, and vegetation be the color.
In a doubled storied living room the entire roof silently slides open to the sky at the touch of a button. By day and night extending the relationship to the sky and stars.
The home also had another unique feature. The fencing facing the ocean were hinged so when the beach was empty the fences could be lowered and the house was open to the view of the ocean.
1981
The home was featured in the July/August 1979 issue of Architectural Digest magazine with photography by Ezra Stoller.
Arthur Erckson & Francisco Kripaz would host many of the biggest parties of the 1970’s here.
Party 1979
Disco stars Village People & Patti Brooks
Here are some of the unpublished photo’s by Ezra Stoller of ESTO.
Recollections of Francisco Kripaz:
“So many of Francisco’s friends in the design and fashion fields summered on Fire Island, and as Manhattan became more of a target for our work, it seemed logical to have a house or cabin to enjoy the summer there on the dunes and limpid sea. Francisco, who went there regularly, persuaded me to look for a house requiring a modest revision. We found one at the end of the Pines next to a Washington friend and the empty space that extended to Cherry Grove. It seemed ideal for its lack of neighbours and relative quiet. My first layout was inexpensive, practical, but not a “transformation,” and Francisco said that for our own reputation, it had to be a transformation. The original shack became the chrysalis to an elaborate makeover which the locals christened “The White House.” A wide, twostoried porch concealed the front façade of glass. Wide piers, angled to the east view of the beach, supported deep angled beams across the front—a somewhat inconspicuous look of weathered siding instead of limestone that earned the house its name. The grey siding concealed a pure white interior, white cotton-covered furniture, a coffee table made of bent white slats, white Italian ceramic tile floor, white lacquered dining table, and white Bertoia chairs against the wall, on which hung the Warhol Mick Jagger series. Ellsworth Kelly and Frank Stella prints were on the bedroom wall upstairs. Francisco’s bedroom had a yellow Cassina double bed; the guest room, twin black Cassinas. White, black, and spots of primary colours seemed to suit the house. But the main feature was the ceiling of the two-story living room, which would slide open to the sky with the push of a button. On pleasant nights and days, you could sit in the living room and be virtually outside with the walls with the ceiling wide open. At a party, Roberta Flack sang there with the living room filled with silver balloons. As she emerged amid mists of dry ice, the roof opened and the balloons floated up into the night air. There was also a notable lunch at the house to which Philip Johnson came with his partner, David Whitney, and my friend Pat Buckley. Francisco had the property fence on hinges so it could be lowered on weekdays, when the crowds had gone, to allow for a full sea view. He was always full of ideas to which I obediently concurred. The “simple” renovation had become “the” house on the island.”
Remembering Arthur Erickson By Hugh Brewster Published June 4, 2009 Canada’s most celebrated architect:
“You’re home early,” I said to Arthur Erickson when he appeared at about 9:30 one night in the fall of 1991. Arthur often stayed with me on visits to Toronto and, on this particular evening, he had attended a small dinner party with Pierre Trudeau and novelist Robertson Davies. When I asked about the “famous Canadians” dinner he simply shrugged and said with his characteristic bemused smile, “Let’s go out –– somewhere with dancing boys!” Before long, we were shoulder to shoulder with the crowd at Katrina’s, then the hotspot for go-go boys. I spied a buff, 20-ish guy in a York University T-shirt and asked him what he was studying. “Architecture” came the curt reply. I started to introduce him to my architect companion but one glance at Erickson’s gray head caused the student to turn and flee. “Well, Arthur,” I said, as we both smiled broadly, “an hour ago you were dining with Pierre Trudeau and Robertson Davies but now you’re just another old fag.” The gym bunnies hadn’t always snubbed Arthur Erickson. The buffed and the beautiful once vied for invitations to parties hosted by him and his longtime partner, Francisco Kripacz, at their homes in Vancouver, Los Angeles, Manhattan and Fire Island. For one particularly memorable party in Fire Island Pines on Jul 7, 1979, Kripacz had filled their soaring, Ericksondesigned beach house with gold and silver balloons. At midnight, the house’s retractable roof opened and the balloons ascended into the starlit sky. Amidst clouds of dry-ice fog, singer France Joli then appeared to belt out her disco hit “Come to Me” for the boogying men below. Later, this party would be described in a number of memoirs as an iconic “last waltz” before AIDS cast its long shadow over Fire Island and the gay world. It would prove to be a milestone for Erickson and Kripacz as well. Before long they would sever their personal relationship, while still maintaining a business partnership. (A talented designer, Kripacz created the interiors for many Erickson buildings.) In the early ’80s, Kripacz moved into a house in Beverly Hills with a fetching young Californian and worked out of Erickson’s LA office. Erickson made Toronto his home base and lived in a converted Rosedale garage that bore a remarkable similarity to the house he had lived in for many years in Vancouver’s Point Grey.
His Toronto living room was dominated by a rectangular Roy Lichtenstein canvas and I remember standing beside it during a 1986 party celebrating his gold medal from the American Institute of Architects.
He was the first Canadian to receive one and wore the medal with boyish pride. The party had been organized by Erickson’s new live-in partner, Alan Steele, a square-jawed American with blond hair and horn-rimmed glasses. But this party, too, would prove to be elegiac. Even as he was receiving one of the architecture world’s highest honours, the Erickson Architectural Corporation was foundering. At its height, the company maintained five offices around the world but soon the business, and Erickson himself, became overextended. When large building projects in the Middle East began to unravel in the late 1980s so did the Erickson Corporation. Nasty stories began to appear in the newspapers about high living and personal excess. By 1992, it was all gone –– the offices were closed, the homes in Toronto, New York and LA were vacated, the Lichtenstein was carted off to the auction house. By then Alan Steele had died from the effects of HIV/AIDS. Kripacz’s partner in LA, too, had succumbed to the disease and Kripacz himself was HIV-positive. Erickson’s equanimity during this dreadful time was remarkable. In the summer of 1990, I had rented a house near Santa Fe with him and Alan Steele. Deeply angry about his failing health and their collapsing fortunes, Steele would frequently vent his rage on Erickson. When I asked him how he stood it, Erickson expressed such love and compassion for Steele that I found myself blinking back tears. The Zen-like aspects of Erickson’s work have often been commented on but his personality, too, had a Buddhist sensibility: calm, detached and suffused with a gently humorous view of life’s vicissitudes. Of any “name” person I’ve known, Erickson had the least ego.
He never needed to dominate a dinner table. It was only with prodding that he might tell you of trekking with Trudeau in Tibet, of time on the beach with Princess Diana, or of gossiping about spiritual teachers with his good friend Shirley MacLaine.
The wheel of samsara turned for Erickson as he knew it would. He returned to the house in Point Grey (it had been saved from foreclosure by a foundation) and resumed his architectural work. The death in 2000 of Kripacz, the great love of his life, was a cause of much sadness but Erickson carried on –– teaching, travelling, and designing. Such fine buildings as The Glass Museum in Tacoma and Vancouver’s Portland Hotel would follow. I last visited him five months before his death and was saddened to see him so frail. But even with his memory diminished, he was still remarkably present. His keen eye for beauty was alert to the birds in his garden, to the design of a book I gave to him, to the cut of his elegant shirt. A remarkable architectural legacy survives him, particularly in his native city. But for his friends, his legacy is also the example of how one can greet life with calmness, humour, insight –– and acceptance.
Recollections of Geoffrey Erickson who designed and edited this book published in 2015:
I have wonderful memories of Francisco, going all the way back to Expo ’67 when my brother Christopher and I stayed at his apartment in Montreal. The interiors of Francisco’s pad were like nothing I had ever seen. The floors, walls, and ceiling of the bathroom were covered in white fur! Arthur and Francisco were so generous, bringing us all kinds of exotic gifts from their world travels. They would give my mom and grandmother gorgeous fabrics which their dressmaker would turn into beautiful outfits. I remember one Halloween in the early 1970’s when they brought back enormous fireworks on the plane from China. Francisco fused together a row of “Roman Candles” on the hill in Arthur’s garden, and what a show when he lit the fuse! The scale of the fireworks was far beyond anything we expected and it attracted a throng of neighbors, and the police. Arthur and Francisco befriended and entertained the A-list of the Hollywood crowd in L.A., and the arts crowd in New York, including Andy Warhol who wanted Arthur to design a house for him. They became famous for their parties, which the press covered in great detail. It got to the point where Francisco’s friend—the famous couturier Hubert de Givenchy —came to depend on him to organize his birthday parties! (Givenchy was the one who dressed Audrey Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, Marlene Dietrich).
Francisco Kripaz, Arthur Erickson with Hubert Givenchy
Francisco was always the most fashionable person I knew, and wore the best designer’s clothes—but only once or twice —before he’d give them to “the boys”. Once a year we would receive packed designer suitcases filled with elegant (and sometimes wild) outfits. When I travelled, Arthur and Francisco would make arrangements for me to meet interesting people. On my first trip to L.A., I stayed in the Belair mansion of Geoffrey and Jasmine Lindsay, who were also close friends of Elizabeth Taylor. In the disco era I visited “The Saint” nightclub with Francisco in New York City. He was treated like a star there, where he was an inaugural member. They had turned the old Filmore East concert hall into a suspended high tech planetarium with a revolving dance floor overflowing with dry ice, and the stage was turned into a giant bar. Francisco got the star treatment everywhere we went including the Calvin Klein showrooms designed by his friend Joe D’Urso, who he arranged for me to meet. Francisco was very particular about design and style and the designs he worked on with Arthur had a timeless, classical quality. Socially he kept Arthur connected with the “In-Crowd” around the world. They were unlike any other Canadians in their sophistication and worldwide connections. It was always exciting to see them, and experience their warmth, generosity, and tales of worldly adventure. Geoffrey Erickson, -Nephew of Arthur Erickson and designer and editor of Francisco Kripacz: Interior Design by Arthur Erickson Erickson Design Collection- furnishings designed by AE and FK featured for the first time in the book. Thanks to Geoffrey Erickson and the Erickson Estate collection.
Francisco Kripaz
Arthur Erickson: The rare contribution of Francisco’s work to mine was a seamless harmony of thought and intention fleshing out the bones of the building into a vibrant and beautiful manifestation of original ideas, in a manner I could not have imagined. To be a part of this adventure was a joyful experience. -Arthur Erickson
Now owned by Robin Byrd
