Little follies? Not in this Hamptons home office - sharing a home office - Office Design - Column

Home Office Computing, July, 1992 by Anne E. Magruder

Two Publishers (and One Literary Alter Ego) Share A Sunny Long Island Home Office

There are two desks and two chairs in Eric and Madeline Kraft's home office in the Hamptons, but three minds are at work. By day, it's business as usual at Kraft & Kraft, an educational publishing company. In the early morning hours, however, Peter Leroy slips in to craft his life's work. Peter Leroy--the author of Little Follies: The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (So Far) (Crown Publishers, 1992)--is also Eric Kraft. Peter vacates his chair around 10:00 a.m., and Eric and Madeline step in to begin their work.

SPLIT PERSONALITY

An editor by trade, Eric Kraft initiated the dual use of the home office as a publishing house and writer's den in 1975. He also began speculating on the inner life of an imaginary little boy named Peter Leroy. As Peter Leroy began to come to life in the writer's subconscious, Kraft found himself composing the boy's Huckleberry Finn-style memoirs. Using his desktop publishing equipment, Kraft published Leroy's tall tales, biographies, and literary pursuits in the form of a serial newsletter. By 1981, Kraft had amassed a subscriber base of 200 and persuaded a small press to serialize Leroy's memoirs and musings in novellas that would come out four times a year. Kraft--as Leroy--has since published three novels with Crown.

Eric, 47, and Madeline, 49, lived in and around Boston for many years. After teaching English, Eric worked as an editor at Ginn and Company until the house went on a cost-cutting spree during a publishing lull in 1975 and laid Eric off. "Because it was a recession period for educational publishing, there really weren't any jobs to be had," says Eric. "But there was work to do, and I just kept getting freelance jobs and never went back to work in-house again."

Eric's first home office was the kitchen table. The business grew quickly, and Madeline, who had been an instructor in a Concord, Massachusetts, nursery school for emotionally disturbed children, joined Eric at home in 1976. Kraft & Kraft was born. Today the couple, aided by a team of farflung editors, writers, and designers, develops language-arts materials.

A HOUSE IN THE HAMPTONS

The Krafts moved to East Hampton, New York, in early 1990. They had spotted a three-bedroom house they liked, and when they saw its big loft with "home office" written all over it, they were sold. "This is the fourth house where we've had an office," says Eric. "It's not our biggest office, but it's definitely our best. The atmosphere is so open and airy. It's also the most practical. It's a big, rectangular room, so all our equipment and work space is immediately accessible." The loft, which looks over the living room, provides an open view and plenty of space for the couple. "We're together all day, every day--and neither of us has bruises," says Eric.

DRAWING A FLOOR PLAN

Before the couple moved in, Eric plotted a floor plan for the office on a computer and designed trial furniture arrangements. "I also did a floor plan when we moved into a two-bedroom co-op in Boston. That was the smallest space we had ever had, and we wanted to make sure we could fit an office into it," he recalls. It all worked perfectly--except for the pie-shaped leaf on the computer table. "I had misrecalled the dimensions of that leaf, so my whole chart was off by three inches. There was no inconvenience, just annoyance whenever I looked at it."

Eric uses Graphic Works for the floor plans. But the program wasn't designed for such complex tasks, so he must stretch his pixels to the limit and his patience to the brink. He recommends this practice to all, perhaps with more suitable software, such as Abracadata's Design Your Own Home: Interiors. He often rearranges the couple's office on-screen. "It's a lot easier on the back."

DIVISION OF LABOR

Madeline handles business management, accounting, billing, and accounts payable. Eric handles editorial functions. Eric works on an 80MB Mac IIcx with a removable Syquest drive for archiving and daily backup and a two-page, black-and-white monitor. Madeline has a Mac SE with a full-page display. They have Sony Model IT-D150 telephones with two lines--one for voice calls and one for the Canon Faxphone fax machine. Their software complement includes WriteNow, PageMaker, Microsoft Excel, Dollars and Sense, and TypeStyler.

Although their desks are but four feet apart, the technologically fearless Eric and Madeline have linked their Macs with a local area network. They also share a 1200-bps Apple Personal Modem.

INSPIRATIONAL VIEW

Teak desks and tables and honey-colored wood floors add a feeling of warmth to the clean, modern loft, enhancing the glow of sunlight from 11 windows. A print by Madeline's artist brother-in-law and several pieces of original artwork from the Little Follies book series adorn the walls.

"It's the view that makes it the best office ever," says Eric, who finds inspiration gazing at the serene Three Mile Harbor and the Northwest Woods, on a flat rise of land nearby. Across the street is an undeveloped wetland, just the setting to conjure Peter Leroy's many exploits, from dangling his feet from docks to his more figurative foot-wetting forays. "In the warmer weather," says Kraft, waxing into Leroy-esque nostalgia, "I look out and watch the boats bobbing at their moorings. My favorite sight is a pair of great blue herons."