A Private Tour of Beatrix Ost and Ludwig Kuttner’s Avant-Garde Country Paradise
Stretching across 500 acres of Charlottesville, Virginia, is Estouteville, a 19th century Edwardian ranch and home to arts patrons and textile entrepreneurs Beatrix Ost and Ludwig Kuttner. An artist, writer and theater producer, the German-born Ost, together with her philanthropist partner Kuttner, discovered the idyllic estate in 1982, when she swung a pendulum over a map of the East Coast which lead her to Albemarle County. “There are endless treehouses, sculptures, and art pieces made by other people on the property,” says today’s filmmaker Columbine Goldsmith. “They live a life that is very community-based and focused on encouraging the talents of the people around them.”
Ost’s idiosyncratic personal style and snow white, purple-tinted hair have earned her a cover of the New York Times Magazine and editorials for Harper’s Bazaar, while Kuttner is the unlikely gourmand, using the grand scale of their private playground to grow local produce. “We really followed them around on what is more or less a normal day,” adds Goldsmith, who was joined by the couple’s granddaughter, Eva, as the family explored the nearby lily pond, with its very own resident snake. “Every part of the farm is a seamless fusion of wild eccentricity and homely life.”
