The A. Conger Goodyear House is a historic home located in the Village of Old Westbury in Nassau County,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, United States.

History

The house was built in 1938 in the

International International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

style. The house was designed by architect

Edward Durell Stone Edward Durell Stone (March 9, 1902 – August 6, 1978) was an American architect known for the formal, highly decorative buildings he designed in the 1950s and 1960s. His works include the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City; the Parliament H ...

, and was owned by businessman and philanthropist

Anson Conger Goodyear Anson Conger Goodyear (June 20, 1877 – April 24, 1964) was an American manufacturer, businessman, author, and philanthropist and member of the Goodyear family. He is best known as one of the founding members and first president of the Museum of ...

. The house has 6,000 square feet of space, five bedrooms and five and a half baths and currently sits on a five-and-a-half-acre lot. The home has been described as "a remarkable balancing act between the austerity of the then·developing high modernism of

Mies van der Rohe Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect, academic, and interior designer. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. He is regarded as one of the pionee ...

and the warm, site-oriented romantic functionalism of earlier American masters like

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...

." When Goodyear died in 1964, the home was left unoccupied until 1970, when the family donated the house to the

New York Institute of Technology The New York Institute of Technology (NYIT or New York Tech) is a Private university, private research university, research university founded in 1955. It has two main campuses in New York (state), New York—one in Old Westbury, on Long I ...

for use as the president's house. In 1997, NYIT sold it to Wheatley Construction Company, which had planned to raze it for new development. The

World Monuments Fund World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training ...

campaigned to save it, starting in 2001, and eventually bought it in 2005. Later that year, the fund sold it to the Modernist design dealer Troy Halterman with constrictive limitations on renovations to the interior and exterior, though the lot was reduced from 100 acres. Halterman never moved in, and sold the house in 2007 to Eric Cohler, an interior designer who spent a purported US$2 million in renovations. The home was sold to art and architecture collector

Aby Rosen Aby Rosen (born May 16, 1960) is a German and American real estate tycoon living in New York City. He co-founded RFR Holding, which owns a portfolio of 93 properties valued over $15.5 billion in cities including New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and T ...

in 2011. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

and the

New York State Register of Historic Places The New York State Register of Historic Places (NYSRHP) is a listing of "properties significant in history, architecture, engineering, landscape design, archeology, and culture" in the U.S. state of New York. The register was created by the New ...

in 2003.

Importance

In his 1962 memoir, ''The Evolution of an Architect'',

wrote:

The site, a barren hilltop, demanded the low horizontal lines of a one-story house. Mr. Goodyear had a fine collection of modern paintings, and I decided to have a gallery serve as a "spinal column" from which all the rooms, with an expansive view to the south, opened, I employed glass walls from floor to ceiling, the ceilings continuing beyond the walls to form wide sheltering eaves. As the house faces south, the eaves were adjusted in depth so that the glass areas were shaded during the summer months, and when the sun was low during the winter months, its welcoming rays penetrated the house through the glass walls.

Of the house's eaves, he wrote:

Not only is the overhanging eave an important practical consideration, but I find it aesthetically mandatory on a house with a flat roof, satisfying visually the desire for certain aspects of the pitched roof so long associated with residential architecture.

Robert A.M. Stern Robert Arthur Morton Stern (born May 23, 1939) is an American architect, educator, and author. He is the founding partner of the architecture firm, Robert A. M. Stern Architects, also known as RAMSA. From 1998 to 2016, he was the Dean of the Y ...

, dean of the

Yale School of Architecture The Yale School of Architecture (YSoA) is one of the constituent professional schools of Yale University. The School awards the degrees of Master of Architecture I (M.Arch I), Master of Architecture II (M.Arch II), Master of Environmental Desi ...

, told ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', "It's one of the few great

International Style The International Style is a major architectural style and movement that began in western Europe in the 1920s and dominated modern architecture until the 1970s. It is defined by strict adherence to Functionalism (architecture), functional and Fo ...

houses by an American architect of the 1930s. It's a great country house as well and surprisingly luxurious in a

Busby Berkeley Berkeley William Enos, (November 29, 1895 – March 14, 1976) known professionally as Busby Berkeley, was an American film director and musical choreographer. Berkeley devised elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geo ...

-meets-

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...

kind of way."

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

architecture critic,

Paul Goldberger Paul Goldberger (born December 4, 1950)Brennan, Elizabeth A.; Clarage, Elizabeth C''Who's who of Pulitzer Prize winners'' Greenwood Publishing Group, 1999. Cfp.87on Paul Goldberger

, called the Goodyear home "one of the most important houses built in the United States between the two world wars."

Gallery

File:A. Conger Goodyear House, Old Westbury N.Y. Pool.jpeg, Exterior File:A. Conger Goodyear House, Old Westbury N.Y. Interior.jpeg, Interior File:A. Conger Goodyear House, Old Westbury N.Y. Approach.jpeg, Approach File:A. Conger Goodyear House, Old Westbury N.Y. at Night.jpeg, Exterior at night

References

External links

Preservation League of New York State websiteA. Conger Goodyear House, NY (Steven Harris Architects LLP)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodyear, A. Conger, House Goodyear family (New York) Edward Durell Stone buildings Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) International style architecture in New York (state) Houses completed in 1938 Houses in Nassau County, New York National Register of Historic Places in Oyster Bay (town), New York 1938 establishments in New York (state)