Quogue House Tour Focuses On Festive

A fire roaring in the hearth. Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole singing in the background. Trimming and decorating the Fraser fir, the scent of baking cookies wafting through the house in anticipation of Santa’s late-night arrival.

Christmas is easily the highlight of Dr. Christine Frissora’s year; not to mention her family’s, which includes her husband, Dr. Scott Rodeo, and their four children—Sarah, Scott, Mark and Caitlyn.

And that is why the doctors—she is an associate professor of medicine and he is the co-chief of sports medicine at the Weill Cornell New York-Presbyterian Medical Center and Hospital for Special Surgery, as well as one of the team physicians for the New York Giants—are opening their home, with all of its festive fixings in place, on Saturday, December 17, for the Quogue Historical Society’s second annual “Holiday House Tour,” which shows off five local homes—both historic and contemporary—in their Christmas splendor.

Dr. Frissora’s family bought their tree from the East Quogue firehouse, she said. It stands in the living room across from the wreath hanging above a fireplace made with historic brick from the Garden City Hotel, she explained. She urged tour-goers to visit her home on Bayview Drive early on during the tour to appreciate the views that she de-

scribed as “somewhere between Quogue and Heaven,” she wrote in an email last week.

And while Dr. Frissora is eagerly awaiting the tour, perhaps her 7-year-old daughter, Caitlyn, is the most excited.

“We were recently at a dinner party at which the hosts alluded to a party they had for 100 people,” Dr. Frissora said. “Caitlyn lifted her chin and proudly stated, ‘Well, we are having a Quogue House Tour for 175 people!’”

In its inaugural year, the tour drew a whopping 242 people, co-chair Maureen Leness said during a private tour of Dr. Frissora’s home last week. She expects it will be better attended this year, thanks to what she calls an “impressive” lineup with an interesting spin on the typical house tour.

“It’s a unique holiday tradition,” she said. “It’s a very festive, informational and historically-significant way to spend an afternoon.”

The oldest home on the tour, the Crowe House on Quogue Street, dates back to 1886, when it was built by newlyweds Lucy Post Young and William Joseph Young. They named it “Bonnyfield.” One of the sons in the family painted the name on a board and nailed it above the shed in the backyard.

“It gives you a feeling of Christmas past and Christmas future,” Ms. Leness remarked.

In contrast, the newest home—the Confort House on Ocean Avenue, which the society calls “the historic house of 2111,” is a “richly detailed, classic Long Island, shingle-styled home,” she explained. Though it sits between two of the oldest homes in the village (the Post house, circa 1734, and the Page family house from the late 1890s, neither of which is on the tour this year), it’s a mere 10 years old. But it’s a structure with “great bones” that will stand strong for many years, she estimates.

Yet another house on the tour, the Renioso House, tucked behind the dunes on Dune Road, is exactly as it was built in 1928, Ms. Leness said, except for renovations to the kitchen. It was formerly the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wilhelm Merck of Merck Pharmaceuticals, she said, and was the anchor to four other cottages they built on the beach and across the road on the canal side.

The French influence in the Murray House, on Club Lane, can be attributed to the Duchess de Richelieu, née Eleanor Douglas Wise of Philadelphia, according to the home’s current owner and vice president of the society’s board, Chester Murray. Ms. Wise was a socialite from Baltimore who, when she went to Paris to study voice, met and married the Duke de Richelieu.

She purchased the Quogue property in 1936 and, to bring the house up to her liking, moved a 40-foot-by-20-foot mill to her land from Beaver Dam in Westhampton, which is now the home’s living room—one of the oldest structures in Quogue, dating back to 1746, Mr. Murray said.

The Duchess then added two old barns and an icehouse from farming communities on the East End to create a U-shaped structure, a typical feature of French country homes. Mr. Murray and his wife, Christy, renovated the house in 2005, which included connecting the icehouse to the main house while maintaining the original fireplace and hand-hewed beams, and restoring the diamond windows, he said.

For the tour, the home’s dining room table, glittering with silver and green decorations that tie into the stockings hanging from the mantel in the living room, will easily be a shining feature in the house.

“The last time I saw the table, there was just a reindeer thing,” Ms. Leness said.

“I moved them,” Ms. Murray replied. “Chester said, ‘It’s so stark. We’re not in the Adirondacks.’ I started flipping things around, and I’m happier with this. Much happier.”

The tour will conclude with a cocktail party at the Mullan-Demirjian House, on Quaquanantuck Lane, Ms. Leness said. A Queen Anne-style home built in 1903, it may be the only home in Quogue with a sunroom, conservatory and gazebo, she said.

“We feel that five houses is enough,” Ms. Leness said with a laugh. “It’s the right number because we want people to have a chance to see each one, and if you have any more than that, it just gets too overwhelming. It’s just a wonderful holiday tradition. It’s going to be fabulous.”

The Quogue Historical Society will host its second annual “Holiday House Tour,” featuring five village homes decorated for the holidays, on Saturday, December 17, from 2 to 6 p.m. The tour will culminate with a cocktail party from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Mullan-Demirjian House. Tour tickets are $50, party tickets are $40; tickets for both are $85. Patron-level tickets are $100. For more information, call 996-2404.