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\n Berthold Nebel\u2019s studio.
\n Photo: Realty Plans\n <\/p>\n
The sculptor Berthold Nebel left his mark across Manhattan, from the sea nymphs in the ceilings<\/a> of the old Cunard Building at the foot of Broadway to the limestone reliefs<\/a> at the Hispanic Society up on 155th Street. He was a Swiss immigrant who won spots at Cooper Union and the Art Students League and hustled in studios downtown, cranking out bronze Great Men and lounging marble ladies<\/a> for garden fountains. But Nebel spent the second half of his life outside the city on an old apple orchard in Westport, Connecticut, where he built a studio that could serve his specific needs. The floors are reinforced. The ceilings are 17 feet high. A pulley system allowed him to wheel a heavy piece out from the main room to a terrace, through high double doors, where he could look at his work in daylight.<\/p>\n \n The interior. Barrister bookcases date to Nebel\u2019s use of the studio, and the plaster medallions on the walls are his work. \n Nebel in the studio with The Wrestlers, his student thesis project. He died in 1964, aged 74. That studio is now on the market for the first time. It looks less like a house than a tiny English church with thick stone walls and a vaulted ceiling. A local architect is named on the original plans, but Nebel may have also relied on some masons he knew to build it. There\u2019s a great room at the center where Nebel would work, and wings with lower ceilings hold a study and bathroom on one side and a small kitchen on the other. A basement allowed him to store supplies, which could be driven in through the garage. A slice of the ceiling also opens up to allow a crane to reach in. With one bedroom and one bathroom across 1,500 square feet, it may be an oddity in today\u2019s Westport. But when Nebel arrived in 1928, the area was known for its artists<\/a>. Landscape painters liked the Connecticut River, and Nebel\u2019s mentor, James Earle Fraser, designer of the Buffalo nickel and a lot of other Americana<\/a>, had settled in Westport, building himself a custom studio<\/a>. When Nebel won a major commission in 1928 to build a set of bronze doors for a building in Manhattan<\/a>, he followed him, buying an 1883 farmhouse<\/a> with nine acres of land, according to a family history<\/a> by relative Sara Drought Nebel.<\/p>\n \n The home was built in 1932, and the plans name architect Lewis Welch. This view of the back shows garage-style doors that lead straight to the basement. The farm life appealed to Berthold\u2019s wife, Marietta, who came from a small Italian village; they met when she modeled for him at the American Academy in Rome. She entertained the local art crowd with big Italian meals and fresh-baked bread. They had two children, and after Berthold\u2019s death in 1964, their son took over the main farmhouse and cared for his mother.<\/p>\n The couple\u2019s daughter, the photographer Lucia Nebel White, was a bit more bohemian, according to her daughter Maria White Keogh. She married an architect who subdivided the old orchard and built six homes there. Then the 1970s economic crunch hit.\u00a0\u201cThe studio was sort of empty,\u201d explained Keogh, \u201cand my father couldn\u2019t have an empty building. So we all moved in.\u201d There were, for a time, four kids sleeping in the great room\u00a0\u2014\u00a0the two boys up in\u00a0a loft, the two girls on the main floor below \u2014 and everyone shared a bathroom. The basement became a darkroom and studio. But White never removed<\/a> her father\u2019s old sculptures\u00a0\u2014\u00a0busts of generals on a mantel, casts for doors against a wall. \u201cShe didn\u2019t want to change it,\u201d said Keogh. \u201cShe loved any opportunity that she\u2019d get to bring people over to show them the artwork.\u201d<\/p>\n White lived there until her death in 2017 at age 93. Her eldest son moved in during the pandemic and nursed the orchard\u2019s last remaining tree back to health. Selling the place was impossible until the siblings could figure out what to do with their grandfather\u2019s stuff, which wasn\u2019t the usual matter of donating a few boxes and holding an estate sale. One of Nebel\u2019s major works was still there\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Wrestlers, a huge plaster work of two sinewy men locked in combat, which had been his thesis as a student. Moving it out would cost thousands. And where would it go? One potential site fell through and then a proper plan emerged: donating it to an art academy in Lyme<\/a> and fundraising to get it there. Last month they pulled it off, watching as a crane plucked the sculpture off the terrace and set it onto a truck. Once it was gone, the last Nebel heir followed it out. The space is now being emptied of a few remaining smaller objects. As for the house itself, \u201cThe interest is keen,\u201d said broker Kelley Long Thrush. \u201cBuyers know you\u2019ll never find this architecture here again.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Nebold\u2019s The Wrestlers as it was taken out for display at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts. ![\"The](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Brookgreen_Gardens_4_(3281520384).jpg\")
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\n Photo: Realty Plans\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Photo: Lucia Nebel White\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Photo: Lucia Nebel White\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Photo: Maria White Keogh\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n