A Sag Harbor Art Collection To Stay in the Village

The historic circa 1804 home at 140 Division Street in Sag Harbor Village will soon hit the real estate market offering three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an extensive folk art collection. The home is located next to Cilantro’s Mexican take-out and grocery, formerly the “Madison Market.”

When longtime resident Joan Tyor Carlson died in 2022 at age 88, friends and neighbors assumed Carlson’s folk art collection would be broken up. Many had enjoyed viewing Carlson’s extensive collection of small painted wooden cut-outs of figures and signs.

“Our boldly decorated home, centrally located on Division Street, hosted many community gatherings throughout the years,” said Dicie Tyor Carlson, Joan’s daughter.

Turns out “Dicie Dear,” as her mother called her, had a plan for Joan’s beloved collection.

“There are a few hand-painted government seals for East Hampton Town, Suffolk County and the USA I feel should be in the hands of a local institution like the Sag Harbor Historical Society,” Dicie said. “A few choice African American pieces [have been donated] to the Eastville Community Historical Society.”

Dicie will offer the entire remaining collection for sale — most still attached to the walls — with the home. There are about 100 pieces in total, about 60 on the walls and 40 in storage.

“My mother’s collection was a source of immense joy for her, not just because of the beauty of each piece, but because of the stories and memories they held,” Dicie said.

Who was Joan Carlson? A city-born and educated girl who loved to get away from it all. A voracious reader, Joan worked for Collier’s and Billboard magazines. She was also the ghost writer of several autobiographies.

A three-time cancer survivor, in her later years Joan would put a book down as soon as it started to bore her. “Life is too short and precious to ever do anything I don’t want,” she’d say.

Bryan Boyhan, longtime editor and publisher emeritus of the Sag Harbor Express, remembers when she wrote for the paper.

“Joan’s column from the late 1970s was Sag Harborview; it was the Vicky Gardner [editorship] years,” Boyhan recalled. “It was largely a weekly column that looked at goings-on around the waterfront. She and her husband, Dick — who was a [naval] architect — were both sailors. The columns regularly spoke about what boats and boat owners were in town, what they were up to, where they were coming from, or going to. Sort of like ‘Shipping News’ for pleasure boats.

“Joan also was one of a group of rotating writers who wrote columns about Sag Harbor life for a section I had on the op-ed pages of The Express called Our Town,” Boyhan continued. “For years, Joan published an annual guide to antique shops on the South Fork. So, when I was looking for someone to organize a kind-of ‘Antiques Roadshow’ for HarborFest, I asked Joan, who put it together each year. It was called something like the Antiques Dock Show, and she lassoed several of the antiques dealers she knew to spend an hour or so appraising stuff people would bring down from their attics.

“Joan was very easy to work with, and she had a great institutional knowledge of the village — especially its waterfront,” Boyhan concluded. “She was clever and smart and was a great person to have a conversation with.”

It was at the suggestion of an antique dealer friend that Joan started the local antiquing brochure, with a map hand-drawn by her husband, Dick.

“Some dealers preferred to pay in trade, and thus her Sag Harbor home became quite the collection of folk art ‘primitives’ and other fun and quirky additions,” Dicie said. “They were a celebration of her passions and travels, and they sparked countless moments of reflection and happiness, as well as humor.”

Dicie hopes the person who buys the house might enjoy these pieces as her mother did.

“Through her collection, she felt a deep connection to the artists and their traditions, finding a special kind of joy in the personal and cultural narratives that each item conveyed,” Dicie said.

“The first piece [in the collection] was a stork with long legs and bobbing neck that my father bought for her as a gift sometime in the early ’70s,” Dicie said, explaining that the piece was purchased before she was born. “She fell in love with it and started collecting more of these animal ‘primitives,’ and the race was on to find more and more.

“Her focus was on what is known as ‘outsider’ and ‘primitives’ — what many may call lawn figures,” said added.

Those figures range from bears, cats, owls, ducks, eagles, squirrels, cows, roosters, dogs, horses and automobiles, to Disney characters and Betty Boop, most rendered in primary colors.

“She had a particular fondness for things that were rough, weathered and a little unfinished. But she also had a deep love of craft, like tile and linoleum marquetry pieces made by local Antonio ‘Pop’ Mazzeo,” Dicie said.

“The bulk of the collection was acquired locally, and often the seller had knowledge of the maker, usually a relative. A few pieces were bought on trips, not many,” she said. “When she bought Betty Boop in Chicago, TSA thought it was a rifle in her suitcase!”

Joan was a “colorful figure” herself. When she scoured sales and antique stores, she typically did so in her signature outfit: 1980s sweater, a chunky necklace or two, red-rimmed glasses, dark pants, brightly colored shoes.

“While it’s a turning point in our family legacy, it’s time to let another take ownership of this incredible home and objects,” Dicie said. “I would love to have the collection be bought as a whole, as it’s just such a rarity to have so many of these pieces of local home-spun folk art in one place.”

The sale is being handled by Carol Sharks, a top real estate agent with The Corcoran Group in Sag Harbor who researched the home.

“When someone is selling a historic home, I’d encourage them to donate any photographs, newspapers, yearbooks, etcetera, to the John Jermain Memorial Library,” Sharks noted. “Their Local History Archives Center is dependent on donations to help preserve the history of Sag Harbor.”

Sharks explained that the home at 140 Division Street was built in 1804 and owned by Revolutionary War soldier Ezekiel Payne, who was a whaler, tavern keeper and member of a prominent local family.

The home may have been the site of Payne’s tavern and mailroom, which was active in the 1820s. It is, after all, just a couple of blocks from the harbor and along a main thoroughfare.

“This was prime time in the whaling industry,” Sharks continued. “Sag Harbor was a thriving whaling port between the years of 1760 and 1850. It’s one of the oldest homes [built] in the Village of Sag Harbor and predates the incorporation of the village in 1846. The Carlson family purchased it in 1972. The house is just under 1,500 square feet, on .08 acres.”

Sharks is known for selling the late Bob Hand’s duck decoy shop on the corner of Jermain Avenue and Madison Street in 2023. That area is known as “Dysfunction Junction” to locals, as the traffic pattern there is odd. The former decoy store now features a display of art for the Monika Olko Gallery.

Sharks noted that Sag Harbor is all about art.

“There are probably a dozen thriving art galleries on the main strip alone plus museums and highly curated boutiques in between. There’s more than wall art to consider, there are actors, musicians, writers and many other creatives prospering here,” she said. “I spent my 20s living in the East Village of New York, and Sag Harbor in its own way has a similar energy. I feel like ideas are entertained, the residents are open-minded and there’s a scene happening behind every door.”