Effort Underway To Save House on Lovelady Powell Property in North Haven

A handful of North Haven Village residents and officials are sounding the alarm about the impending demolition of a home that they say is a piece of music history that should be preserved.

Legendary musicians including the iconic “supergroup” Crosby, Stills and Nash laid claim to the home during the late 1960s and the Woodstock era, before the famous Broadway actress and singer Lovelady Powell purchased the property and lived there with her fox terriers until her death in 2020.

Southampton Town used $2.7 million of Community Preservation Fund money in 2020 to purchase the 4.1-acre former Lovelady Powell property at 19 Sunset Beach Road in North Haven for preservation and recreational use. Because the CPF was used for the purchase, preserving the land as open space, any structures on the property must be torn down. The house and other structures on the property are scheduled to be demolished in mid-February.

But some residents are concerned that the Village of North Haven and Southampton Town haven’t looked at all the options before knocking down the home, which flourished as an artists’ retreat for years, sitting on 4 acres of land with an interesting history, diverse wetlands, two ponds and a large open field.

“I was just a kid,” Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni said on a recent brisk Sunday morning while strolling around the Lovelady Powell property. “We would hear them jamming.”

Schiavoni said he and his neighborhood friends would ride their bikes past the house. They knew rock stars were rehearsing inside the house — they could hear the guitars from the street.

During the 1960s, the house was purchased by John Sebastian of the band The Lovin’ Spoonful. Their top hits included “Do You Believe in Magic?” and “Summer in the City.” Sebastian invited his friends Crosby, Stills and Nash to stay with them in the winter of 1968 and 1969 to get away from the distraction of the city. They wrote their debut album, “Crosby, Stills and Nash,” in North Haven, songs they performed at Woodstock in 1969.

Judy Collins, who was Stephen Stills’s girlfriend at the time, would visit him at the retreat. Stills wrote “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” for her at the home, which reached No. 21 on the Billboard hot 100 pop singles chart at the time.

Sebastian rented a nearby A-frame house for Crosby, Stills and Nash. However, the band did spend time at the Sebastian residence during those winters before Woodstock.

Powell, who purchased the property later, was a singer and actor and performed on Broadway, and in movies such as “The Happy Hooker” and in a TV series called “Dark Shadows,” among others. She debuted as a nightclub singer and on TV commercials.

Powell had foxwire terriers and dubbed the property Foxwire House, which is seen on a post in front of the residence even today.

The property went on the market soon after Powell, also the proprietor of Glad Hand Antiques on Madison Street in Sag Harbor, died at age 89 on February 2, 2020, leaving behind no children.

In 2022, the property was purchased by the Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund as a community preserve.

“We’ve been hoping to generate some press about the Lovelady property in general,” Anastasia Gochnour, a member of the North Haven Parks and Trails Association, said on Sunday while walking the property. “We have this historical space with all of this legacy.”

Former Mayor Jeff Sander formed the North Haven Parks and Trails Association for the preservation of parks and trails before leaving office in 2020.

“What are the possibilities?” Gochnour said of preserving the home and adjacent structures. “It feels like there is so much that could happen. It feels like there is magic here.”

Village officials plan to create a community park on the property, along with the 5.5-acre adjoining CPF acreage known as Cilli Field. Those 5.5 acres were at one point overgrown and tick infested. The village cleaned out the invasive overgrowth and planted 80,000 square feet of rye grass to complete the first phase of the project.

A walking path, which was the original drive from Ferry Road to the Pallottine Fathers retreat, North Haven’s highest point, with an elevation of 85 feet, overlooking Noyac Bay and sitting beneath a promenade of maples, is near completion.

Before having roots in pop culture history, what would later become the Lovelady Powell property was farmed and known as the Old Griffen Farm, dating back to 1828. It is one of North Haven’s oldest homesteads. A promenade of silver maples lines the property’s entrance, near the village’s historic burying ground. It was originally the entrance to Pallottine Fathers Retreat House, built by Reginald Barclay.

Sarah Kautz, director of Preservation Long Island, a not-for-profit organization committed to preserving historical and cultural sites, wrote a letter to the Southampton Town CPF Board and North Haven Village Architectural Review Board, among others, asking to delay the demolition of the structures.

“We share the concerns of local stakeholders and believe conservation of open space/parkland and historic preservation are not mutually exclusive. We urge you to reconsider demolition of the surviving historic structures at the Lovelady Preserve,” Kautz stated in her letter.

Village Mayor Chris Fiore initially favored seeking ways to preserve the house, pursuing ideas with Southampton Town. According to Fiore, it is important to note that the structures do not belong to the village. They were included in the CPF purchase of the land and are the property of the town. That purchase stipulated “no structures to remain,” meaning that the village is also legally responsible to remove the structures.

The house, despite its age and history, does not meet the criteria to be considered a historic structure. The house has been altered many times, expanded from its original box three times, and contains no historic materials, except for four ceiling beams from the original building. Everything else is 20th century add-ons.

The house is in a severe state of disrepair, and contains asbestos. Estimates are $1 million to $1.5 million to get the structure up to code for habitation, Fiore explained.

“There is almost nothing salvageable,” he said. “Windows, doors, floors and walls need replacement. Infrastructure and mechanical all need replacement.”

In addition, a village entity would need to take responsibility for maintaining an occupied structure on parkland.

The mayor dismissed suggestions that the home be utilized as affordable housing. “The Village of North Haven cannot assume the role of landlord. The taxpayers should not fund the creation of an affordable house and its upkeep, maintenance, and liability. And the placement of an ‘affordable residence’ in the middle of a community park would be inappropriate and difficult to manage,” Fiore explained. “It would be cheaper, more efficient, and much more practical to build a new, modular structure on another available plot of village land if we wish as a village to create affordable living. As far as other uses for the building, the cost prohibitive factor comes into play.”

North Haven is a small village, with no commercial properties, except the marina. All Village Board positions are filled on a volunteer basis. Therefore, it would be difficult to take on the responsibility of managing properties, staffing, and difficult to oversee actual housing for residents who qualify for affordable housing, Fiore explained.

No part of a CPF property can be used for commercial purposes. Therefore, art shows would not be allowed to be hosted due to sales and an artist earning money. The main idea behind the CPF properties is to preserve open space.

“They simply do not want the financial burden of maintenance, liability, and repair. I don’t blame them. That’s the same reason I do not want to assume the structures for the village,” Fiore said.

Fiore appointed board members for a 501(c)(3) association during 2022, and an advisory board, chaired by Trustee Dianne Skilbred, to work with the nonprofit board in developing plans and concepts for the second phase of Lovelady Park.

According to Schiavoni, the village could at least request a delay in the demolition.

“Once they’re gone, they’re gone, there is no going back,” Gochnour said, adding that a third party could potentially produce a proposal. “We are still considering design ideas for the park. Maybe other ideas could emerge if we press pause.”