A reader of my old blog emailed me to ask if I still have some photos I had posted a few years ago of Peacock Hill, the black house of the Catskills. Here’s the entire set, originally publishing in Budget Living (R.I.P.), October 2003.
Artists Rob Pruitt and Jonathan Horowitz weren’t what Fleischmanns, N.Y., would call typical weekenders. In 2003, the pair bought a 17-room Edwardian mansion in the Jewish resort community, painted it black, and began to turn it into a highly stylized haunted house, inspired by the Addams Family. "We saw the house as a set for a story that we created and cast ourselves in, about an eccentric homosexual couple who live in a big black house on a hill," they said. The duo also planned its obsolescence: After commissioning friends to create a permanent collection that would belong, museumlike, to the house, they sold it. A book of their "extreme decorating" experiments is being compiled. Prepare to get your spook on.
All photos by Roger Davies for Budget Living, 2003
6 Comments
Ok, I am totally going to do this with my house!
I loved this house! That’s what I miss most about Budget Living (this is the only issue I don’t own). Name me one home decor magazine that would feature this house today.
I completely agree! Budget Living was pretty cruddy towards the end, but they did feature some really cool houses along the way. Do you remember that garage conversion?? I wonder if I still have that issue. I’ll scan the article and post it if I can dig it up.
Thank you so much for putting this back up on the net! I have been LOOKING for more information on this house since I saw it online years ago. I love this house, love this design! LOVELY!!!
I was so inspired by this article that I had my big old house on Capital Hill in Seattle painted black with a red door. I named my house “Ravenslope”. Through the years I have seen quite a few houses copying us ( of course I copied Peacock Hill) It’s seems a bold move to paint a house black but in the northwest it looks really stunning with all the green. It also has a very beautiful and hauntingly melancholy look on a cloudy rainy day.
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