Property of Mrs. Orson Munn (she's the talented dress designer, Carrie Munn) in Southampton, Long Island

8/20/2025 09:44:00 PM

Anybody who believes that the words 'stock materials' are the negation of individuality and elegance should study the house on the facing page. Its owner is Mrs. Orson Munn (she's the talented dress designer, Carrie Munn). From floor plan to last details, this four-room house in Southampton, Long Island, is completely personal, completely hers. Yet every part of it is made of standard building materials. Exterior walls are sheathed with asbestos siding and the roof is ordinary asphalt shingle. It is the color which keeps these from looking commonplace.

Mrs. Munn discovered that siding was made in carnation pink which she pointed up with flame shutters. The roof is pebbly white. The first impression as you enter the house is its feeling of space and sheen. This begins with the rugless floors which are either shiny vinyl plastic or asphalt tile. They are arranged in large checkerboard squares in living and bedrooms and smaller ones in the tiny mirrored en- trance. Living-room walls are of wallboard so smoothly fitted that they look like plaster. Like the tray ceiling which gives extra height to the 25' x 27' living room, they are painted chalk white.

Because Mrs. Munn disliked the eyebrowless effect of unadorned Venetian blinds, she framed her big living- room windows with a valance made of by-the-yard textured plywood cut into a Greek key design. Though this room has five doors, it gives no sense of being a through-way because two of them are protected by fretted white metal screens.

When Mrs. Munn wanted a free-form fireplace to carry out the lines of her mainly-French furniture, she cut out a paper pattern just as she would for a dress and had it molded out of concrete and plaster. Living-wise, the house is planned primarily for weekend use. A pretty pink kitchen is an invitation for hostess or guests to cook. With the aid of a part-time maid, Mrs. Munn gives well-organized buffet parties and large cocktail parties which start in the living room and usually spread out onto the paved back terrace.