HOME PORTRAIT
A Unique Home Reveals a Dynamic Couple
Artist Eleanor Hubbard and Architect Geoffrey White
Profile by Catherine G. Finch
Driving Driving down a long road of numerous speed bumps, I spotted Laughing Water Lane and made the turn. A short way in, two stately Pitch Pines stood close to either side of the dirt drive.
Sentinels.
Passing between, their scrutiny skipped across my skin.
A colorful, fantastical cat sculpture greeted me and glimpses of the house could be seen across a field. Pale pink stucco. Aged bluish-green copper mixed staccato like amongst grey shingles. Lined to one side with cone shaped conifers, a path of ordinary concrete squares turned forty-five degrees into diamonds, took me to the entry.
Husband and wife duo, architect Geoffrey White and artist Eleanor Hubbard, met me at the door and welcomed me in. They wore round glasses with large frames, hers a strong purple and his a light tortoise shell brown.
Crossing the threshold, I entered a world of whimsy and purpose, irony and integrity, beauty and careful intent. Their home felt tangibly alive as only something that continues to evolve can impact others with the brilliance of itself.
“Geoffrey made a sculpture and I colored it,” laughed Eleanor, speaking of their home. “I feel like I’m living in a work of art that we’ve created. It grew as we grew.”
Everywhere I looked something intrigued, whether the quality of light or a cat painted perfectly green. The entry didn’t have just a functional floor. Pink and blue ceramic tile depicted the couple’s first dog, Magnus, and his feline pal, Einar. Deceased now, but forever greeting family and friends.
Geoffrey and Eleanor met in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. Married over forty years, living and working together and still vibrantly energized.
“Our connection was our creative interests,” noted Eleanor.
“I asked her out to a movie,” Geoffrey said.
“Juliet of the Spirits,” said Eleanor.
“By Fellini.” Geoffrey continued in a soft voice.
“I told him I only go to Bergman movies,” said Eleanor with a serious sparkle.
“I told her I’d meet her at seven,” Geoffrey responded without skipping a beat.
Eleanor laughed. “I was ready at seven,” she admitted.
Geoffrey smiled at her.
They had me enthralled.
Still connecting through their creative interests, they spent this past spring at the American Academy in Rome. Geoffrey worked on his forthcoming book, dissecting the sketches architect Louis Kahn drew of Rome in 1950. Among other projects, Eleanor learned to make mosaic tiles by chipping away at stone before assembling them into a work of art. Both began a process of deconstructing their drawing work, unaware of Rome's similar effect until a friend pointed it out on their return.
Amazed by how in sync they are and yet still such strong individuals, I asked them how they did it.
“We give each other a lot of space,” Eleanor said. “We accommodate one another’s work schedule and if that means one person stays up all night or doesn’t have dinner, fine.”
Their studios are in a detached building connected to the house by a wooden walkway. They use music to cocoon themselves and support their individual creative processes. Geoffrey listens to Wagner’s operas and Dave Van Ronk. Eleanor prefers recorded bird songs and Bach or Wallace Stevens reciting his poetry.
In 1981 they bought the island property and built a 600 square foot house and a 1500 square foot studio. Work was definitely their priority. When Eleanor became pregnant with their son, they added the tiled entry and a bedroom wing to the west. Four years later, they added the kitchen and dining room.
An unusually authentic evolution of a house.
The living room, part of the first 600 square feet of house, still has the original windows hinged at the top that give the feel of being outside when fully open. The center of the room’s ceiling lifts in the shape of a chimney to south facing clerestory windows and a row of windows opposite into their bedroom loft. I asked Geoffrey about the ceiling.
He spoke of wind patterns and seasons, how warm air rises and the importance of shaping a building to be in harmony with that movement.
“In the winter you want to conserve and contain but in the summer you want to dissipate,” Geoffrey explained. “The solution responds to both imperatives.”
Only on occasion in the past thirty-one years have they used a fan to cool the living room. Geoffrey achieved a balanced environment without the mechanical equipment used today to be effectively “green.” He simply worked with the natural inclinations of air and sunlight.
I looked up at the aesthetically pleasing as well as practical design and saw Eleanor’s metal sculpture of a tightrope walker.
Her own reference to balance.
Eleanor plunked herself down in a wildly shaped Frosty the Cat polychrome chair, a duplicate of one she designed for a children’s museum. It resides alongside her grandparent’s soft pink sofa and chairs and plush antique rug.
She and Geoffrey used to exclusively favor Scandinavian design and the idea of things being sparse and even uncomfortable. “We’ve evolved,” she said. “Now we have a real sofa instead of a wooden one. Comfortable furniture and rugs in a comfortable room.”
“I think it’s a nice symmetry between the personal and practical on one hand and on the other, the abstract and formal,” Geoffrey said and sat in one of the armchairs. “We redid the living room five years ago. Now it feels livable.”
I sat on a pink ottoman. Looked at a round, gold framed antique mirror over a modern black fireplace and built-in white bookcases to either side, noting the tasteful elegance, and then grinned.
Never ones to take themselves too seriously or to be pretentious, the couple imbued the carefully crafted built-in look with the unapologetic warmth of their dog, Peer Gynt, and cat, Ulla. Eleanor had drawn their images behind strategically placed aqua-blue glass tiles.
Friendly perfection.
The bookcases contain numerous display boxes of butterflies, bugs and moths. Behind Eleanor’s whimsical artwork are hours and hours of realistic drawing of impeccable accuracy. Once she understands the essence of her model, she can then freely re-imagine it in powerful color and daring form. In this manner, Eleanor has produced hundreds of portraits of sheep and oxen, insects and birds, dogs and cats.
Geoffrey also connects to his creative process through drawing. He was sketching an exterior elevation of the house, for example, to get a feel for the play of shadow and texture. Suddenly his pencil went bam, bam, bam on the paper, creating a rhythm of something different that eventually revealed itself to be weathered green copper scattered amongst the repetitive grey of the usual and ever practical cedar shingles.
“Designs materialize out of the paper rather than out of my pencil. The world revealing and me observing,” said Geoffrey.
I asked them if they had any advice for young people starting out.
“Get a job with benefits,” Geoffrey said deadpan. “Follow your passion,” he added getting serious, “but be sure to have a way to support it.”
“In the early 70’s, we thought insecurity was thrilling,” said Eleanor. “We wanted to create a life that we hadn’t seen before. It’s not just following instincts, though.” She paused a moment. “Tend to your gift – that’s my advice to young artists,” she said with decision. “Put in the work hours…do it tenaciously.”
“We didn’t have a deck for fifteen years. We couldn’t decide between round or square.”
I looked at Geoffrey, confused by his statement.
“Not everyone is willing to spend fifteen years figuring out a detail of living and working together,” he explained.
Their depth of commitment to each other and to finding the right aesthetic solution is apparent everywhere I look. I asked what they felt was essential about themselves and their home.
“Keeping a moral compass clear and straight,” Eleanor answered immediately. “Personally, giving myself space and time to create art and communicate with the people and creations that make my life meaningful. Making art is my way of giving back, of telling how miraculous the world is in my corner. Different moments in life might not be perfect, losing my parents, for example … but the art is always there. I feel very lucky to be able to be in touch with it.”
“What drives me is a need to know,” Geoffrey said. “A hunger for understanding a dilemma that needs understood.” He leaned back in the inherited easy chair. “A curved deck with a square terrace,” he smiled.
“In my architecture,” Geoffrey concluded, “I discover ways of letting light make magic out of space.”
“You make dynamic space,” Eleanor said, still sitting in her cat chair.
Just as the spirit of place could be viscerally felt when passing through the Pitch Pine gatekeepers, so too the spirit of Eleanor and Geoffrey’s home felt alive and flourishing. That’s what happens when humans see the material world as equally animate as themselves. That’s what happens when paper and pencil and hand are allowed to express themselves into the three dimensions of architecture or the two dimensions of artwork and mingle.
The life force unmistakable.
With the integrity to forge their authentic artistic paths and, together, create their marvelous home, Eleanor and Geoffrey are an inspiration. Their home is appropriately in the heart of the island, right over the aquifer, pure and free in its magnetic beauty.
Eleanor’s nickname as a youngster was Laughing Water.
Sentinels.
Passing between, their scrutiny skipped across my skin.
A colorful, fantastical cat sculpture greeted me and glimpses of the house could be seen across a field. Pale pink stucco. Aged bluish-green copper mixed staccato like amongst grey shingles. Lined to one side with cone shaped conifers, a path of ordinary concrete squares turned forty-five degrees into diamonds, took me to the entry.
Husband and wife duo, architect Geoffrey White and artist Eleanor Hubbard, met me at the door and welcomed me in. They wore round glasses with large frames, hers a strong purple and his a light tortoise shell brown.
Crossing the threshold, I entered a world of whimsy and purpose, irony and integrity, beauty and careful intent. Their home felt tangibly alive as only something that continues to evolve can impact others with the brilliance of itself.
“Geoffrey made a sculpture and I colored it,” laughed Eleanor, speaking of their home. “I feel like I’m living in a work of art that we’ve created. It grew as we grew.”
Everywhere I looked something intrigued, whether the quality of light or a cat painted perfectly green. The entry didn’t have just a functional floor. Pink and blue ceramic tile depicted the couple’s first dog, Magnus, and his feline pal, Einar. Deceased now, but forever greeting family and friends.
Geoffrey and Eleanor met in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. Married over forty years, living and working together and still vibrantly energized.
“Our connection was our creative interests,” noted Eleanor.
“I asked her out to a movie,” Geoffrey said.
“Juliet of the Spirits,” said Eleanor.
“By Fellini.” Geoffrey continued in a soft voice.
“I told him I only go to Bergman movies,” said Eleanor with a serious sparkle.
“I told her I’d meet her at seven,” Geoffrey responded without skipping a beat.
Eleanor laughed. “I was ready at seven,” she admitted.
Geoffrey smiled at her.
They had me enthralled.
Still connecting through their creative interests, they spent this past spring at the American Academy in Rome. Geoffrey worked on his forthcoming book, dissecting the sketches architect Louis Kahn drew of Rome in 1950. Among other projects, Eleanor learned to make mosaic tiles by chipping away at stone before assembling them into a work of art. Both began a process of deconstructing their drawing work, unaware of Rome's similar effect until a friend pointed it out on their return.
Amazed by how in sync they are and yet still such strong individuals, I asked them how they did it.
“We give each other a lot of space,” Eleanor said. “We accommodate one another’s work schedule and if that means one person stays up all night or doesn’t have dinner, fine.”
Their studios are in a detached building connected to the house by a wooden walkway. They use music to cocoon themselves and support their individual creative processes. Geoffrey listens to Wagner’s operas and Dave Van Ronk. Eleanor prefers recorded bird songs and Bach or Wallace Stevens reciting his poetry.
In 1981 they bought the island property and built a 600 square foot house and a 1500 square foot studio. Work was definitely their priority. When Eleanor became pregnant with their son, they added the tiled entry and a bedroom wing to the west. Four years later, they added the kitchen and dining room.
An unusually authentic evolution of a house.
The living room, part of the first 600 square feet of house, still has the original windows hinged at the top that give the feel of being outside when fully open. The center of the room’s ceiling lifts in the shape of a chimney to south facing clerestory windows and a row of windows opposite into their bedroom loft. I asked Geoffrey about the ceiling.
He spoke of wind patterns and seasons, how warm air rises and the importance of shaping a building to be in harmony with that movement.
“In the winter you want to conserve and contain but in the summer you want to dissipate,” Geoffrey explained. “The solution responds to both imperatives.”
Only on occasion in the past thirty-one years have they used a fan to cool the living room. Geoffrey achieved a balanced environment without the mechanical equipment used today to be effectively “green.” He simply worked with the natural inclinations of air and sunlight.
I looked up at the aesthetically pleasing as well as practical design and saw Eleanor’s metal sculpture of a tightrope walker.
Her own reference to balance.
Eleanor plunked herself down in a wildly shaped Frosty the Cat polychrome chair, a duplicate of one she designed for a children’s museum. It resides alongside her grandparent’s soft pink sofa and chairs and plush antique rug.
She and Geoffrey used to exclusively favor Scandinavian design and the idea of things being sparse and even uncomfortable. “We’ve evolved,” she said. “Now we have a real sofa instead of a wooden one. Comfortable furniture and rugs in a comfortable room.”
“I think it’s a nice symmetry between the personal and practical on one hand and on the other, the abstract and formal,” Geoffrey said and sat in one of the armchairs. “We redid the living room five years ago. Now it feels livable.”
I sat on a pink ottoman. Looked at a round, gold framed antique mirror over a modern black fireplace and built-in white bookcases to either side, noting the tasteful elegance, and then grinned.
Never ones to take themselves too seriously or to be pretentious, the couple imbued the carefully crafted built-in look with the unapologetic warmth of their dog, Peer Gynt, and cat, Ulla. Eleanor had drawn their images behind strategically placed aqua-blue glass tiles.
Friendly perfection.
The bookcases contain numerous display boxes of butterflies, bugs and moths. Behind Eleanor’s whimsical artwork are hours and hours of realistic drawing of impeccable accuracy. Once she understands the essence of her model, she can then freely re-imagine it in powerful color and daring form. In this manner, Eleanor has produced hundreds of portraits of sheep and oxen, insects and birds, dogs and cats.
Geoffrey also connects to his creative process through drawing. He was sketching an exterior elevation of the house, for example, to get a feel for the play of shadow and texture. Suddenly his pencil went bam, bam, bam on the paper, creating a rhythm of something different that eventually revealed itself to be weathered green copper scattered amongst the repetitive grey of the usual and ever practical cedar shingles.
“Designs materialize out of the paper rather than out of my pencil. The world revealing and me observing,” said Geoffrey.
I asked them if they had any advice for young people starting out.
“Get a job with benefits,” Geoffrey said deadpan. “Follow your passion,” he added getting serious, “but be sure to have a way to support it.”
“In the early 70’s, we thought insecurity was thrilling,” said Eleanor. “We wanted to create a life that we hadn’t seen before. It’s not just following instincts, though.” She paused a moment. “Tend to your gift – that’s my advice to young artists,” she said with decision. “Put in the work hours…do it tenaciously.”
“We didn’t have a deck for fifteen years. We couldn’t decide between round or square.”
I looked at Geoffrey, confused by his statement.
“Not everyone is willing to spend fifteen years figuring out a detail of living and working together,” he explained.
Their depth of commitment to each other and to finding the right aesthetic solution is apparent everywhere I look. I asked what they felt was essential about themselves and their home.
“Keeping a moral compass clear and straight,” Eleanor answered immediately. “Personally, giving myself space and time to create art and communicate with the people and creations that make my life meaningful. Making art is my way of giving back, of telling how miraculous the world is in my corner. Different moments in life might not be perfect, losing my parents, for example … but the art is always there. I feel very lucky to be able to be in touch with it.”
“What drives me is a need to know,” Geoffrey said. “A hunger for understanding a dilemma that needs understood.” He leaned back in the inherited easy chair. “A curved deck with a square terrace,” he smiled.
“In my architecture,” Geoffrey concluded, “I discover ways of letting light make magic out of space.”
“You make dynamic space,” Eleanor said, still sitting in her cat chair.
Just as the spirit of place could be viscerally felt when passing through the Pitch Pine gatekeepers, so too the spirit of Eleanor and Geoffrey’s home felt alive and flourishing. That’s what happens when humans see the material world as equally animate as themselves. That’s what happens when paper and pencil and hand are allowed to express themselves into the three dimensions of architecture or the two dimensions of artwork and mingle.
The life force unmistakable.
With the integrity to forge their authentic artistic paths and, together, create their marvelous home, Eleanor and Geoffrey are an inspiration. Their home is appropriately in the heart of the island, right over the aquifer, pure and free in its magnetic beauty.
Eleanor’s nickname as a youngster was Laughing Water.