(2010)
Hofmann House Condominiums (Unit 1).
Doric columns, serious and sturdy, hold up a prominent pediment that marks this exceptionally handsome facade from the early 1800s. For a century or so, 76 Commercial Street was owned by the Nickerson and Freeman families.
The house was purchased in 1927 by the seascape painter Frederick Judd Waugh (1861-1940), though it has long been identified most strongly with Hans Hofmann. Waugh built the studio on the Nickerson Street side of the property. Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) purchased the Waugh studio and home in 1945. In the house, Hofmann’s wife, Miz, “created spectacular interiors using red, yellow, blue and white paint,” according to the 1982 Walking Tour.
Paradoxically enough, with the creation in 1982 by Brian M. Oliphant and Holly Oliphant of the Hofmann House Condominiums, the Hofmann house and studio were divided into separate units under different ownership, so one can no longer experience them together. The front of the main house was purchased in 1985 by Daniel Lovette, who had been associated with Scott Dinsmore of Scott Dinsmore Antiques. When Robert Randall Bourne, an artist and landscape gardener, lived in Lovette’s unit, he treated the front yard as a canvas for many imaginative seasonal plantings, inspired by Hofmann’s work, including tall, large-faced sunflowers. These were so distinctive, especially against the white house, that they became the subject of artwork in turn: “Hans Hofmann House,” by George Hirose, in his book Blue Nights (Provincetown Arts Press, 2008).
The unit was purchased in 2015 by Fadi G. Hanna, a managing director at J. P. Morgan and head of firmwide fiduciary and conflicts-of-interest compliance. As a student at Yale Law in 2005, Hanna wrote the paper, “Gay Self-Identification and the Right to Political Legibility,” which tackled the question of whether coming-out speech warranted constitutional protection. Hanna undertook a substantial renovation.
For a view of the attic apartment, please see 76 Commercial Street.
For a view of the Waugh-Hofmann studio, please see 76 Commercial Street.
For a view of the rear cottage, please see 76 Commercial Street.
¶ Last updated on 18 July 2018.