Horace Gifford was a beach house architect of the sixties, seventies, and early eighties. He grew up in Florida, where his family had developed the town of Vero Beach. Although Gifford never finished his formal architectural education—and therefore relied on licensed peers to stamp and sign off on his work—he led the Modernist transformation of New York's Fire Island, largely in its gay communities. Across this popular, car-free barrier island, off the southern coast of Long Island, he produced 63 homes, with 15 others further afield.