Mill Reef at Seventy-Five

The Mill Reef Club was founded in 1947 on the Caribbean island of Antigua. The visionary American architect who championed the 1,500-acre Club was Robertson ＂Happy＂ Ward. Ward solicited interest in the Club among a who’s who of American industrialists and leading citizens, including Mellons, DuPonts, Cowles, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and poet Archibald MacLeish. Ward encouraged members who built homes on Club property to adhere to a mid-century vernacular. Houses were positioned to catch prevailing winds for cooling purposes, and cisterns and catchments were added to collect and store rainwater.

This new, full-color coffee-table book celebrates 75 years of the evolution of architecture to what former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter terms ＂High WASP Modernism.＂ A succession of nearly 300 Mill Reef house owners have reimagined Happy Ward’s original design decisions in the update and remodel of 50 private houses at the club. The fanciful sense of whimsy, initiated by Ward, is echoed today by modern architects and designers who still bow to the founder’s conception and are today arbiters of an updated Mill Reef aesthetic. With 385 color photos and 324 pages, the book is a stunning introduction to one of the world’s most exclusive private clubs.

Elizabeth Ballantine first visited the Mill Reef Club in the 1960s with her family during boarding school vacations. Her grandfather John Cowles, a Minnesota and Iowa newspaper publisher, built Friar’s Head on an exposed peninsula in 1952 and often entertained his family in letters with stories of the early years at the club. Elizabeth was born in Minneapolis and grew up in Durango, Colorado, where her family owned the local newspaper. She is a graduate of Concord Academy and Yale University, where she earned her BA, MA, and PHD in Russian history. She also earned a JD from American University in Washington, DC. Her career includes working as a journalist and service on boards of directors in the higher education, financial, and media industries. She and her husband, Paul Leavitt, own a house at the club. Elizabeth is the co-author with Stephen Lash of two previous books on Mill Reef.

Graydon Carter was editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair for twenty-five years during a golden era of magazines. He is now co-editor of Air Mail, where he serves as tastemaker for the worldly cosmopolitans.