Restoration of a Modernist summer home in Wellfleet designed and lived in by architect and furniture designer Marcel Breuer is complete, and the house has become a hub of new activity.
The Cape Cod Modern House Trust, which owns the building, hopes to make it a field station for academic programs, in addition to renting the house weekly and welcoming artists in residence.
The trust’s founding director, Peter McMahon, said he has been talking with Boston University about hosting students in the master’s program in historic preservation.
“Students would come three times a semester and do various projects associated with the modern houses we've restored or other architecture down here,” he said. “So we would become like a field station for their program.”
The arrangement could start as soon as this spring, and McMahon said he has proposed something similar to Roger Williams University.
The trust runs tours of several Modernist homes on Cape Cod and provides researchers with access to archival materials, including original items from the homes.
Preserving the Breuer House is the largest project the trust has ever undertaken, at a cost of nearly $2.8 million to purchase the house, restore it, and cover legal and real estate fees and the cost of archiving.
Weekly rentals began in July. The group held a two-day open house in September, and more than 700 people attended — “It was absolute hordes,” McMahon said — even though visitors were not allowed to bring cars.
They had to get to the house by hiking, biking, paddling across one of the adjacent ponds, or taking a shuttle from Newcomb Hollow Beach to protect the unpaved roads and the neighbors’ peace. But many were happy to do it to see the Breuer House brought back to life.
“People were kind of ecstatic,” he said.
The trust sold some objects from the house to a museum in Hungary, where Breuer was born. The Hungarian museum bought an original wood-frame lounge chair designed by Breuer, called the Long Chair.
“The original was very cool, but it was sort of fragile,” McMahon said. “We couldn't leave it in the house, because somebody eventually would sit on it and break it.”
So, the trust bought a new one, from a company still making them in England.
Some Breuer family items in the house are still original. Others, including art by the family and their artist friends, have been archived. The trust has also made high-quality copies of some of the artwork to hang in the house.
