09/17/2026
https://www.pinesmodern.org/141-ocean-walk
In Memoriam
And some thoughts
The Solar House, 1976-2026
By Bob Howard
The Solar House at 141 Ocean Walk—one of the most original, adventurous and environmentally prescient houses ever built in Fire Island Pines—was destroyed by fire on Wednesday, September 16, 2026. No one was injured. Suffolk County police subsequently said that the fire appeared to be noncriminal in origin. The cause is under investigation.
The house was fifty years old.
Built in 1976, the Solar House was designed by architect Steven Robinson for its first owner, George Willets Davison-Ackley, a New York lawyer and businessman from a prominent banking family. Davison-Ackley, who also maintained a residence at the Dakota, was remembered as an exuberant and cultivated figure in New York society. He died in 2007 at the age of 61, according to a death notice published in The New York Times.
Robinson described his design as an “ecologically pioneering, year-round vacation house.” Long before sustainability became a familiar architectural principle, the Solar House was conceived as an active collaboration among architecture, sunlight, wind and the dunes themselves.
The profile of the house followed the natural contours of the barrier beach. Its cedar exterior blended into the surrounding sand and weathered landscape. A sloping north wall reduced heat loss during the winter, while the south façade incorporated expansive glass walls for passive solar heating. Roof overhangs blocked the high summer sun but admitted the lower winter sunlight, allowing Mexican-tile floors to absorb and retain its warmth.
Solar collectors heated the domestic water and swimming pool. A 225-gallon storage tank circulated water through collectors on the roof. Wood-burning stoves and a gas system supplied additional heat when necessary.
One of Robinson’s most imaginative devices was a tall, black, sheet-metal thermal draft inducer. Heated by the sun, it drew warm air upward and out of the house while pulling cooler air from below through interior grilles. The hotter the exterior became, the more vigorously air moved through the house.
Even the waste system was radical for its time. A Swedish Clivus Multrum composting system required neither water nor chemicals, converting organic waste into material that could help sustain the fragile dune grasses. The house reportedly cost approximately $250,000 to build—an extraordinary investment in both design and environmental experimentation in 1976.
The architectural history has been documented by Chris Rawlins and Pines Modern, drawing in part upon Robinson’s own description and photographs. Additional history was assembled by Robert Bonanno & Virun Rampersad for the Fire Island Pines Historical Preservation Society.
The Solar House subsequently became the home of Lee Hulko and Joachim “Joe” Paschek, founders of Sterling Sound, the legendary New York mastering studio established in 1968. Their work placed them near the center of the American recording industry. They also maintained a remarkable Manhattan townhouse near the southern entry of Riverside Drive.
When Hulko and Paschek decided to sell the Solar House, they asked Bob Howard Real Estate to represent them as their broker. I sold it to advertising executive Peter Rogers.
Under Rogers, the house entered another remarkable chapter of Pines history. Rogers had worked with the celebrated copywriter Jane Trahey on the Blackglama mink campaign, which began in 1968 at Trahey/Wolf. After acquiring the firm in 1974, he renamed it Peter Rogers Associates and continued producing the campaign.
Its unforgettable line asked:
“What Becomes a Legend Most?”
The answer was never stated because it did not need to be. It was Blackglama mink.
The stark black-and-white portraits, photographed in the campaign’s early years by Richard Avedon and later by Bill King and others, presented some of the most celebrated performers of the twentieth century wrapped in Blackglama coats. Among them were Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, Judy Garland, Maria Callas, Barbra Streisand, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Lena Horne, Liza Minnelli, Ethel Merman, Elizabeth Taylor and Rudolph
Claudette Colbert was the only legend to appear twice in the campaign. She became a close friend of Peter Rogers and a frequent guest at the Solar House, where she was seen on the deck and around the community. In 1981, the house and pool also served as a setting for the Pines Olympics.
The campaign belonged unmistakably to its time. A mink coat was then presented as the ultimate emblem of glamor, arrival and sophistication. In later years, public sensibilities changed. Fur became associated not with elegance but with cruelty and excess; paint—and sometimes blood—replaced glamor in the public imagination. Yet the words “What Becomes a Legend Most?” remain among the most memorable advertising lines ever written.
Peter Rogers remained at the Solar House for many years. When he eventually left the Pines, I represented the property again , selling it to its present owner, a private attorney who quietly and carefully preserved the house.
His commitment to privacy and to this extraordinary corner of the Pines later led him to acquire the adjoining residence, itself an iconic modern structure known as the TV House. By some providence, the TV House escaped destruction in Wednesday’s fire. Its two stories of broad cedar planking, directly facing the flames along the western wall, were reportedly only singed.
The Solar House could not be saved.
Its loss is greater than that of a single residence, however valuable or beautiful. Here was a half-century record of architectural daring, environmental foresight, and Fire Island Pines creativity. Its rooms and decks connected a pioneering architect, a flamboyant banker, leaders of the recording industry, an advertising visionary, movie stars and generations of friends and guests and muscled Pines men engaged in Olympic styled events. Another day in The Pines.,
But Fire Island Pines is more than its architects and owners and its glamorous image. We are the repositories of summers: cocktails poured, meals shared, music played, friendships formed and stories repeated until they become part of the community’s collective memory. We are a community of ideas and ideals and of neighbors who care about each other.
The Solar House spent fifty years proving that a house could belong to its landscape without surrendering its theatricality—and could be technologically serious while remaining unmistakably glamorous.
The architecture is gone. Its history is ours to preserve.
My deepest sympathy—and sending love, from the entire Fire Island Pines family. We mourn with you at the loss of this irreplaceable house.
