The Joseph F. Gunster House, also known as the T.W. Morris House, on Hither Lane near Amy’s Lane, appears here covered in snow, off a snowy road. While the photograph is uncredited and undated, Gunster (1894-1979) and his wife, Ruth Harris Work Gunster, who was known as Harriette, owned the house for almost 21 years, between August 1943 and 1964.
They considered Palm Beach, Fla., where Joseph Gunster was a partner in a law firm, to be home, although they spent several months in East Hampton every year. Not long after his wife died in March 1964, Gunster sold the house to the chairman of the company that first distributed Volkswagens in the tristate area, Arthur Stanton (1918-1987), and his wife, Joan Alexander (1915-2009), who was the voice of Lois Lane for early “Superman” radio and film productions.
The Gunsters bought the house from Justin O’Brien Haynes, who had purchased it in March 1940 from the humorist, author, and newspaper editor Irvin S. Cobb (1876-1944) and his wife, Laura Spencer Baker Cobb (1876-1967). While Cobb is little known today, he was once the highest-paid journalist working for Joseph Pulitzer, with prominent colleagues comparing him to Mark Twain. The Cobbs had acquired the house from Theodore W. Morris Jr. (1871-1935) in 1927 and renovated it in 1930, at the height of Irvin’s fame.
Morris, a lawyer at Davis & Polk in Manhattan, had bought the 4.5 acres of land on Hither Lane from Edward M. Baker in March 1916, with plans to build a “large house” there. Like many summer colony residents, Morris hired George A. Eldredge as a builder. Eldredge finished the classic dormered Colonial Revival house by May 1917, when he began working on the garage.
The house still stands today at 33 Hither Lane, although the landscaping looks a tad different.
—
Andrea Meyer, a librarian and archivist, is head of collection for the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.
