The Orchard/Breese Estate/Whitefield

In 1895, James L. Breese, a prominent member of Southampton’s summer society, purchased 30 acres on Hill Street. A financial adventurer who had won and lost several fortunes on Wall Street, he is also a good friend and carousing companion of the celebrated architect Stanford White. Breese commissions his friend’s firm McKim, Mead & White to design a luxurious country house on the spot previously occupied by a modest 1858 farmhouse. A remnant of that house survives to this day embedded within The Orchard, as Breese calls his estate. Work on the building began in 1897, and in 1898 it is ready for the Breese family to move in, though Breese will continue to make changes, working alongside his friend White up until the architect’s death in 1906. At that time, they had been at work on the splendid Music Room, still splendid, but less excessively opulent today. White generally gets credit for the interior while Charles McKim is credited for the exterior. The resemblance to George Washington’s Mt. Vernon is believed by many to have opened the way for the Colonial Revival movement. The Breeses enjoy a lavish life at The Orchard when the family investments are flourishing, and rent it out occasionally when the market swoons. In 1926, when Breese loses his last fortune, he sells the house to stockbroker Charles Merrill and the estate is divided. After taking an around-the-world trip, Breese returns and builds a two-bedroom house for himself on a reserved piece of his property. Merrill lives in The Orchard for the next 30 years; when he dies in 1956 he leaves the property to Amherst College. The Orchard’s last tenant was the Nyack Boys School, which ceases operation in 1977. The property is rescued in 1980 by banker Marshall Crowley and the partners of Whitefield Associates who envision a high-end condominium complex and find the funds to create it. Today the complex called Whitefield is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is an inspiring example of adaptive reuse.