Destroying soulful architectural history
The Cape Cod National Seashore "let nature takes its course." Next: Demolition.
An elegant little home, qualified for the National Register of Historic Places, is rotting away in the Cape Cod National Seashore; roof breached, exposed to weather, full of black mold, vandalized.
The Kuhn house it’s called, for the family who had it built in 1960. It was one of the “modernist” houses tucked in the Outer Cape woods, a loose-knit community including famous architects in the avant-garde post-World War Two design world.
The Seashore promised to protect the Kuhn house when it took control 20 years ago. Instead, the iconic small home was abandoned to “let nature take its course.”
Now, says the Seashore, neglect ensures there is only one realistic course left: Demolition.
“We just couldn’t keep up with it and unfortunately sometimes historic buildings are lost,” says the Seashore’s Cultural Resource Program Manager and Park Historian Bill Burke, a sincere (and contrite) public official. “We try to triage and take care as best we can and sometimes we can’t … No one likes to talk about this, I certainly don’t.”
Some houses of similar vintage and character escaped this fate, due to intervention from a private non-profit, The Cape Cod Modern House Trust led by Peter McMahon, who agrees that at this point, after the Seashore ignored multiple entreaties, the house cannot be saved.
The only remaining champion of the Kuhn house, its last caretaker Gina Coyle, has not been able to convince the Seashore to try to resurrect, while other former homes face the same fate.
This is a sad tale, also a fascinating glimpse into a remarkable sliver of 20th century Cape Cod history, revealing a federal bureaucracy with unspoken priorities and serious funding gaps.
But much as anything, this story is about broken promises.
In 1960, when Samuel and Minette Kuhn commissioned architect Nathaniel Saltonstall to design a house on nearly five acres in the Wellfleet woods off Griffin Island Road, they knew a proposal to create the Cape Cod National Seashore had emerged, not yet adopted.
That didn’t bother them; there were scores of people with homes in what would become the Park, including a compound called “The Colony” where the Kuhns had vacationed, also designed by Saltonstall in the modernist style.
Their nearby version became 24 by 36 feet with three rectangular bays, a porch, single story, flat roof covered in tar and gravel, and an outbuilding of similar design. The building permit said the home would cost $20,000.
The Kuhns were steeped in intelligentsia, at home in Princeton, MIT and Harvard. A son, Thomas Kuhn, in 1962 wrote the most influential book of scientific philosophy in generations, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” They were acquaintances of cutting edge “Bauhaus” architects who redefined American 20th century design. A handful of the most famous, including Marcel Breuer and Eero Saarinen, also built getaways in the Cape woods, modernist-era structures tucked off dirt woods among pines and ponds.
These boxes never rose above the tree line to avoid dominating the landscape, minimal, disdaining decoration: Form must follow function, forget frills. Flat roofs were in vogue, despite dangers of snow accumulation and leaks that homeowners in these climes have understood for generations.
The Kuhn house originally was going to have a pitched roof. Flatness won out more because of the client’s desire than modern tenets:
“Grandmother was an enthusiastic nude sunbather, so wanted a flat roof,” smiles Sarah Kuhn, involved with the house into the next century. Also required was a ladder to make it easy to climb up and stretch out.
The Kuhns enjoyed the house for decades. Because they built after 1959, in a nether moment predating the formal arrival of the Seashore in 1961, they joined property owners within the Park’s confines who negotiated various deals. The Kuhns didn’t sell to the Seashore until 1973, with a 25-year lease tacked on. The house was preserved in its 1960s persona, a small living museum.
The family’s last caretaker was Gina Coyle. She became a passionate advocate for the area’s cluster of modernist homes, arguing that even if they weren’t Colonial they deserved historic recognition and protection. Her crusade was a precursor of the Cape Cod Modern House Trust that emerged to take control and save four of these 20th century expressions, with another campaign now underway.
But by 2003, Gina’s gig was up. The 25-year lease Samuel Kuhn signed with the Seashore had expired. Coyle remained in the house by way of an annual special use permit, squatting with Sarah Kuhn’s permission, adamant that the Seashore should allow her to stay. The Seashore’s position was that it was time for the Kuhns (meaning Gina) to surrender the keys.
Coyle’s rear-guard action (covered two decades ago in “The Cape Cod Voice,” written by some guy named Seth Rolbein) couldn’t hold back the tide. In March, 2003, then-Seashore Superintendent Maria Burks arrived at the Kuhn house, police in tow, to move Coyle out.
A van was packed with period-piece furniture Gina promised to protect and hopefully return to the house someday. The Seashore in turn promised to respect the history and integrity of this little modernist jewel; they commissioned exhaustive paperwork to have it and others qualify for the National Register of Historic Places.
Even so, when Coyle was “evicted” as she put it, she made a prediction:
"What do I think the Seashore is going to do with this marvelous house, when they take control of it? Look at what's happened elsewhere: I think they'll trash it and then abandon it ... because their real interest is about nature and only nature, and only very reluctantly about the cultural history of the people who have lived here."
Twenty years later, there can be no dispute: She predicted the future.
NEXT: HOW AND WHY THE SEASHORE LET NATURE DESTROY THE KUHN HOUSE — AMONG OTHERS.
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Shameful. That's all I can say.
Stumbled across this house entirely by accident on a run today. Thanks for at least preserving its history.