SOUTH BAY DIGS | Digital Edition Online

40 DIGS.NET | 9.17.2021 L E G E N D S | M A R I O N S I M S W Y E T H A R C H I T E C T U R E + D E S I G N Beaux-Arts in Paris. He spent a great deal of time in Rome and rode out World War I as the private secretary of the American ambassador in Italy. During that time, in 1915, a catastrophic earthquake hit a town in central Italy. When Wyeth was dispatched to survey the damages, he did sketches and documented the architectural proportions of what endured. "These real-world life experiences with exposure to classical architecture, unexpected challenges, and sophisticated international society would serve the young architect well, especially when he moved to Palm Beach and had to interact with the new American aristocracy," writes Day in From Palm Beach to Shangri La. Wyeth went on to work with architect Bertram Goodhue, as well as Carrère and Hastings, en route to Palm Beach. That Wyeth worked capably across architectural styles is a credit to this cultured background. He graced the Cudahy House (completed for the scion of the Armour-Cudahy Meat Packing fortune and his Morton Salt heiress wife) with a British West Indies feel via a gable-roofed entrance portico with Doric columns and louvered panel enclosures. For his own columned courtyard residence Tre Fontaine, Wyeth designed a beguiling outside gallery in the Spanish mold. For the Louisiana-style Southwood, his orchestrations included an intricate and lacey wrought iron balcony cantilevered over the home's entrance—a set piece worthy of Tennessee Williams. His compositions, while always tasteful, resist rote categorization. "Wyeth's designs moved easily from the Spanish and the Mediterranean styles popular in the 1920s to the Georgian, Colonial and French Revival styles that were favored in mid-century," Day writes. "On a few occasions he explored Modernism. The common thread throughout all of Wyeth's work was that it successfully adhered to his basic tenet of creating 'quiet, subdued and rational buildings.'" "Subdued" is not the first word one is inclined to associate with a Wyeth design. His residences, in particular, are astonishingly confident—the result of an exceedingly sure-footed architect. With their extravagance of architectural riches and far-flung details (Moorish-inspired balconies and doorways, Venetian archways, romantic exposures, and flourishing Spanish courtyards), each work is a rapture—and that may be selling Wyeth short. Mixing his robust feel for material (stone, iron, red tile roofs, rusticated stucco walls) with an eye for a lively and gracious garden featuring lushly fronded palms, percolating fountains and a paradisiacal pool, many of his designs are just shy of Babylon. Wyeth's brand of architecture—elegant and dignified, quite like the man himself—is deep in the soil of Florida. But his influence can be felt, and seen, on both coasts (just drive around Montecito for a while). With outside efforts to preserve not just Wyeth's constructions but his legacy at large, the latter lives on. And for the truly fortunate, that legacy is something to live in. "Wyeth's designs moved easily from the Spanish and the Mediterranean styles popular in the 1920s to the Georgian, Colonial and French Revival styles that were favored in mid-century," Day writes. (FROM TOP) A GORGEOUS SUN-FILLED SPACE WITH DARK WOODS AND STRIKING TILE THAT COMPLEMENTS THE LUSH EXTERIOR JUST BEYOND; THOUGH THE ADORNMENT IS OF A MORE MODERN PERIOD, A CLASSICAL SENSIBILITY IS A HALLMARK OF A MARION SIMS WYETH DESIGN; INTRICATE IRONWORK DEFINE THE BALCONY OF AN ELABORATE, TROPICAL-TINGED HOME, EVOKING THOUGHTS OF NEW ORLEANS STYLE.

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