Fire Island Modernist

Fire Island wouldn't be the idyllic haven we know today if it weren't for Horace Gifford, a young, often overlooked architect from Florida who designed 78 stunning beach houses off its boardwalks between 1961 and 1980. In Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction (Metropolis Books), a new monograph bursting with inspiring drawings and vintage photographs, author and architect Christopher Rawlins remembers this precocious (and handsome) talent who turned the south shores of Long Island into a modernist's dream.

Photos courtesy of Fire Island Modernist: Horace Gifford and the Architecture of Seduction

Above: Burge Pavilion, Fire Island Pines, N.Y., 1965, (c)Horace Gifford

Kauth House, Fair Harbor, N.Y., 1964, (c)Michael Weber

Cashel House, Fire Island Pines, N.Y., 1969, (c)Michael Weber

Luck House, Bridgehampton, N.Y., 1967, (c)Horace Gifford