He swore he would never leave New York City — wasn’t interested in the sleepy suburbs and couldn’t imagine making a home there.
But in 2019, he saw the house. And like many who’ve come to Rye kicking and screaming from Manhattan, fashion designer Marc Jacobs couldn’t resist the pull of our little town and its beauty. Especially when they are combined with a Frank Lloyd Wright house on Manursing Island.
Jacobs writes about his journey to ownership of the Max Hoffman house in Rye in the December issue of “Vogue Magazine,” which he guest-edited. His story of discovering this particular house, and the effort it took to get it into the shape he wanted, mirrors the experiences of many residents who’ve come to understand that Rye offers something different.
“I passed through the port cochere into the motor court, and it was as if the cement and steel of city life cracked open, letting in the first breath of fresh air I’d felt in years,” Jacobs writes of his first visit to the house. “I hadn’t even stepped inside, but I could feel it — this place was different, and genuinely one of the coolest houses I had ever seen.”
Jacobs, 61, describes stepping into the foyer, and feeling that the house “embraced him,” while the stone walls surrounding him “seemed to breathe, blending into the copper, mahogany, and glass.”
What really struck Jacobs was the way the house melded into the surrounding environment. That feeling was especially evident, he writes, when he discovered the house’s “great room,” with its floor-to-ceiling windows that let in light from the south and the east.
“Outside, the Long Island Sound stretched like a painting — serene, unwavering, majestic…the view consumed me. In that moment, the city, the noise, the rush, my daily fears and anxieties all melted away. I felt fully present and completely at ease,” he writes.
While Jacobs “got it,” the way that being near the Long Island Sound can change your perspective, he didn’t come to Rye to join one of the beach clubs or to take in some shopping on Purchase Street. His essay describes the journey to restoring this property — one which he learned about via an unsolicited call from “a real estate agent with a particular specialty: unlisted, unique properties.”
OK, maybe that’s not how most of us found our homes. But his experiences fixing up his prized property would be familiar to many: Repairing a roof that was ravaged by proximity to the Long Island Sound, unexpected delays, stepping over mounds of carpentry and electrical equipment, and discovering that the work required would be much more extensive than originally thought.
Just before the project began, Jacobs married Charly Defrancesco “in front of the magnificent, monumental fireplace, surrounded by 40 of our closest friends and chosen family.” Once the renovation began, Jacobs writes, he lived in a rental property “10 minutes away,” though he doesn’t say where. He worked with the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, along with experts in woodwork restoration and slate-roof replacement. The renovation took four years.
Once he moved in, he was simultaneously exhilarated and terrified. It was “a bit like being handed a newborn baby and told, ‘Here. Take care of it,’” he writes. Though being outside the city felt “foreign,” he was soon enchanted by where he had landed.
“Standing at the windows, watching the quiet waters of the Sound, the geese, groundhogs, chipmunks, deer, squirrels, hawks, herons, foxes, and coyotes, I knew this was where I was meant to be,” he writes. He describes “enigmatic sunrises” and “a stillness I had never experienced in my life.”
While Jacobs sought to adhere to Wright’s original conception of the house in every detail, he concedes that he has updated the place with modern conveniences — maybe some that go beyond what most Rye residents have in their homes: a “full-time laundromat, infra-red spa, part-time pharmacy, hair salon equipped with a barber chair and rinse sink, nail salon (for my current fixation), gift-wrapping station, office supply center, and the room with the only properly proportioned wooden closets in the entire house for a fashion-obsessed couple.”
Jacobs was unavailable for comment. But it’s clear from his essay that he’s quite content to live in Rye, where he describes his bedroom as a “dreamscape” and where the sunsets push the “last light of the day through the amber-tinted clerestory windows, casting the most beautiful shapes onto the restored mahogany walls.”
He concludes, “Though my spirit will always belong to New York City, my heart has found its home in the quiet joy of the suburbs.”
If you know, you know.