Beginning in the 1960s, architect Horace Gifford led a modernist transformation of New York’s Fire Island, designing 63 homes across the area—including the 1967 residence at 46 Schooner Walk.

Located at the end of a residential lane in the Summer Club community of Fire Island’s Ocean Beach, the five-bedroom home offers an unobstructed beachfront view—sand even comes up to the edges of its timber slatted deck. The elegant, modernist design bears the hallmarks of Gifford’s approach, with an exterior and interior clad in natural cedar, floor-to-ceiling arched windows that peer out onto the beach, and a few sculptural curves thrown into the building’s otherwise rectilinear geometry.

A waist-high gate marked by a pair of curvy, wood storage units signals the entrance to the beachfront residence on one side of the structure. Situated perpendicular to the gently sloping staircase, the front door opens to the main living area where a long wall of sliding glass doors with curved clerestory windows sits below a dramatic, barrel-vaulted ceiling. Gifford designed the four barrel vaults to extend to the outdoor area, forming a cedar canopy that partially shades the wraparound deck. The open kitchen also offers impressive views through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The front door is situated perpendicular to a gently sloping staircase at the entrance.
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The principal bedroom is situated just beyond the main living area and is also lined with a wall of glass overlooking the beach. On the other side of the home, four additional bedrooms connect to a landscaped yard with a boardwalk that leads to an outdoor seating area and, beyond that, a fence-enclosed outdoor shower and dressing area.

Born and raised in coastal Florida, Gifford made his way to New York to work at a Manhattan firm after earning an architecture degree from the University of Florida. He eventually pursued a master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania under celebrated modernist architect Louis Kahn, but returned to work at the same New York firm one semester short of graduation.

In the 2013 book, Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction, architect-author Christopher Rawlins writes: “As the 1960s became The Sixties, architect Horace Gifford executed a remarkable series of beach houses that transformed the terrain and culture of New York’s Fire Island.” In 1992, Gifford passed away of complications from AIDS at the age of 59. But today, Gifford’s modernist designs remain as warm and inviting as they are timeless.

46 Schooner Walk in Ocean Beach on Fire Island, New York, is currently listed for $3,750,000 by Jamie Winkler of Winkler Real Estate Inc.

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