UP CLOSE

摘要

Ever since America's first immigrants landed on the northeastern shores of the soon-to-be United States, we've been responding to our surroundings. The first reaction to what was then daunting wilderness was the small, foursquare farmhouse with a neatly fortified garden—a bastion of domestic security in an inchoate world. Nearly 400 years later, that little square house with a peaked roof is a staple of first-grade art class but almost nowhere else. In eastern Long Island, the wilds are long gone, and a house of a mere seven gables looks downright stingy. So it's a bit anachronistic— and a relief—to encounter the Bridgehampton, New York, home of artist Chuck Close and his wife, landscape historian Leslie Rose Close. With a horse farm on one side and a pond on the other, the place may not be included in any Colonial Revival house tours, given that it was: a) built in the late 1960s, and b) completely rethought by architect Richard Gluckman two years ago. Yet its style hits notes of both simplicity and old-fashioned rural charm.