Copperbeech

The Five Towns · After Dark

COPPERBEECH

A private estate house, kept to evening hours.

Seven o’clock — dusk Scroll, slowly

Half past seven — the hour between

There is an hour between the last light and the first candle, when a house stops performing and simply belongs to itself. We show our houses inside that hour, because it has never once lied to us.

Eight o’clock — the portfolio

Some houses are listed.
Ours are introduced.

Three houses this season. Each is shown after seven, by appointment, one family an evening. None will appear anywhere but here.

A brick Georgian estate at blue hour, every window lit, beneath a great copper beech

Lawrence

Ocean Avenue, under the beech

The house our name comes from. A 1912 Georgian under slate, and on the south lawn the copper beech itself — planted in 1932, older now than every fence in Lawrence. Eleven rooms that have never once been photographed for a listing. This photograph is the first, and it was taken for you.

Georgian, 1912 · Eleven rooms
Two acres behind hedge · The beech conveys

Price upon introduction · shown Thursdays

Copperbeech · grounds plan · plate one

N Gate The allée Motor court The house South lawn Tennis lawn The beech · 1932
A formal dining room lit entirely by candlelight, silver candelabra on cream linen

Hewlett Bay Park

Everit Avenue, dinner for fourteen

Built in 1927 for long dinners and longer marriages. The dining room has taken no electric light after seven since the first owner forbade it, and the ban has outlived him by decades. Whoever takes this house inherits the candelabra. That is a condition of sale, and we will not negotiate it.

Colonial revival, 1927 · Dining for fourteen
Walled garden · The candelabra convey

Price upon introduction · shown Fridays

Copperbeech · grounds plan · plate two

N Gate Court The house Dinner for fourteen Terrace Walled garden Nine pears, espaliered Orchard
A carved stone bath beside a tall garden window at dusk, marble going violet in the evening light

Hewlett Harbor

Channel Drive, the last light

The last light in the Five Towns leaves from this window. Marble cut from a single quarry in a single winter, a tub carved from one block, and the garden going violet at seven while the water holds the day a few minutes longer. Mornings are good here. Evenings are the argument.

Waterside, 1938 · Marble of one quarry
Garden bath · Private channel frontage

Price upon introduction · shown Sundays

Copperbeech · grounds plan · plate three

N The house The garden bath Pool Orchard Thirty steps The channel Jetty

Nine o’clock — kept by candlelight

Electric light is for finding things.
Candlelight is for keeping them.

Every evening we host is kept the same way, in the same order, and has been since the first. The house is not staged. It is simply asked to do what it does every night, with you at the table.

One end of a long dinner table at night, lit only by taper candles in a silver candelabra
Everit Avenue · the table, kept
  1. SevenThe candles are lit before you arrive
  2. EightDinner, unhurried, in the room you are deciding on
  3. TenThe house walked once by lamplight, cellar to attic
  4. MidnightThe last candle carried up — the house left to speak for itself

Ten o’clock — the season

What the tall window shows at ten depends on the month. Scroll, and the year turns.

It leafs out copper — bright as a struck coin, for two weeks only.

By midsummer it has darkened to claret, and the lawn beneath stays cool.

Then one evening, one wind, it lets everything go at once.

Three houses a season. The beech keeps the calendar.

Eleven o’clock — the correspondence

The portfolio is not published. It is written by hand, sealed in silk, and sent to the families it concerns. Lift the flap and tell us where to send yours.

Copperbeech · by evening post

Request the portfolio

It is done

Your letter goes out with tomorrow evening’s post, and we will telephone within one evening of its arriving. The house rule applies to us most of all.

E. Vause · for Copperbeech