Sag Harbor House Tour Will Be Held On Friday

Jennifer Johnston loves looking at houses, and as an interior designer, she does it for a living.

Those who share Ms. Johnston’s guilty pleasure, but not her profession, don’t usually have the same luxury—unless they’re on a house tour.

“It’s an amazing curiosity that people have and this legitimizes that curiosity, lets them do it,” Ms. Johnston said last week during a telephone interview. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to see the houses you only admire from the outside.”

Ms. Johnston and her husband, Thomas Knight, are among the homeowners who will be opening their houses—three in Sag Harbor, two in North Haven and one in Bay Point—from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday, July 8, for the annual “Sag Harbor House Tour,” which is sponsored by the Friends of the John Jermain Memorial Library.

“It’s fun to peek into fabulous homes, learning about what other people do with their money,” Friends of the Library President Gloria Primm Brown said during a telephone interview last week. “People are fascinated by what other people have in their homes.”

The tour, which kicked off in 1974, is the Friends’ single-biggest fundraiser for the library, Ms. Brown said, bringing in at least $20,000 annually.

“I know people who have made the house tour part of their itinerary for decades,” she said. “We leave the lineup to the house selection committee. They have an outstanding track record. They’ve been doing it for many, many years. We don’t question success.”

As early as December, the committee canvases the streets, seeking interesting architecture—both historical and modern—while even stealing quick looks through first-floor windows. From time to time, they’ve gotten caught, said Ms. Brown, laughing.

“Yes, they’re being nosy but people are kind of open and once they see why we’re doing it, they’re flattered that someone is interested in selecting their home,” she said.

Kerry and Michael Gaynor had only just moved into their Main Street home last summer when they were approached about opening it for this year’s tour, Ms. Gaynor said with a laugh during a telephone interview last week.

Frequently piquing the interest of passerby, their three-story Victorian-style townhouse is a staple in the village. Reputedly built by a jeweler shortly after the Civil War, the two-bedroom, four-bathroom Gothic residence features a mansard roof, lacy ironwork and heavy cornices and brackets. It spent decades as an apartment building, Ms. Gaynor reported, but was recently transformed back into a single-family home by its previous owner.

“Literally, we’ve met, like, 20 people who said, ‘We used to live in that house, we used to rent an apartment. My bedroom used to be over there,’” Ms. Gaynor said. “It definitely has a history with a lot of people in Sag Harbor.”

Ms. Gaynor said it’s not a big house—nestled on one of the smallest lots in the village at 3,000 square feet—but pointed out that it has hidden qualities, such as a back garden, rooftop patio and media center that monopolizes the entire third floor.

While the Main Street house was near perfect when the Gaynors moved in, Ms. Johnston’s Bay Street home was far from it, she reported. Though the house wasn’t up to her standards, she knew it was “the one” when she first laid eyes on the backyard, she said.

“I am English, and when I saw pictures online of the garden, it just sold me,” she said. “It reminded me of a wonderful little English cottage back there and I fell in love with it. That was the house I wanted. That was the house we got,” she added with a giggle.

Immediately, Ms. Johnston said she knew what she wanted to do with the house—a Sears Roebuck prefabricated structure, dating back to 1911. Her plans involved putting in a new kitchen, bathrooms and doors, freshly-painted walls, vaulted ceilings and floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The three-bedroom, 2½-bathroom home features its original staircase and second-story hardwood floors.

The great room, a 20-by-20-foot addition, is Ms. Johnston’s favorite feature, she said. Painted a light robin’s egg blue that she custom-mixed herself, the room overlooks the backyard’s perennial garden, now flowering with hydrangeas—purple flush against the main house and white surrounding the quaint cottage, which is covered in ivy.

“This tour is unique in that these aren’t necessarily large properties. Quite to the contrary, they’re small properties in Sag Harbor,” Ms. Johnston said. “When people buy these things, they’re doing wonderful things to maintain the authenticity of the houses while modernizing them so they’re ready for today’s living. Really, people are keeping the wonderful old qualities of the houses.”

The annual “Sag Harbor House Tour,” sponsored by the Friends of the John Jermain Library, will be held on Friday, July 8, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tickets will be sold in advance at The Wharf Shop and the library on Main Street in Sag Harbor for $35. On tour day, they will be sold at the library only for $40. For further information, call the library at 725-0049.