Andrew Geller's Grandson Preserves Architect's Iconic Beach House Designs

Northport architect Andrew Geller’s cube and diamond-shaped homes rising out of the dunes of beach communities from Montauk to Fire Island have weathered more than 50 years of hurricanes and Nor’easters.

Now, the mid-century modern structures – some of which are endangered – and Geller’s life, will be preserved forever.  

Geller’s grandson, filmmaker Jake Gorst, is at work on digitizing all of Geller’s sketches and blueprints, and plans to transform them and the life of their creator into a yet-unnamed documentary. Gorst, who lives in Geller’s former Northport home, has conducted interviews and gathered footage for the film on and off since 2001. He expects to finish it in 2013.

“There are hundreds of drawings and photos, and the Northport house has not been air conditioned for 60 years,” Gorst said of his grandfather’s documents. “The drawings are getting brittle, and in the attic they were baked. There is a need to preserve it.”

Geller, 85, has lived in upstate Spencer with Gorst’s mother since The architect’s most robust period of beach house production spanned from 1955 to 1974, Gorst said. Among his credits are the Square Brassiere, built in Westhampton Beach in 1959, the Reclining Picasso, built in 1966 in Amagansett, and the Betty Reese House, a 1955 A-frame home in Sagaponack.

Gorst, who documented his grandfather’s 200-home Montauk development in the film Leisurama, is funding the archival project and new film with Kickstarter, a website on which donors pledge funding for creative endeavors. Gorst has raised more than $3,600 for his new Geller project in a round of Kickstarter funding that began last week and concludes Tuesday.

Gorst plans to use the money for large-scale scanners and other archival equipment.

Gorst aimed for a small sum in the funding round after a bid at collecting $40,000 failed, he said. Unless the artist’s funding goal is met, all money pledged through the website is returned, he said.

Geller designed vacation homes from Montauk to Fire Island as a freelancer in the early morning and evening hours before and after his full-time industrial design job in Manhattan, Gorst said.

“He started his day at 4 a.m. checking out his own houses, then driving into the city and working a full day there, then checking out another house after,” Gorst said.

Geller’s vacation homes are recognized for their lighthearted design, a style informed by the fact Geller worked on them as an escape from the full-time grind, said architectural critic Anne Surchin. The houses' nicknames, such as Square Brassiere, the Reclining Picasso and the Milkcart, reflected the look of the homes and the architect’s whimsy and sense of humor, Surchin said.

“They were eccentric, freeform and in some ways playhouses and follies,” she said.