21 Photos
March 14 - The Accidental Beekeeper: Neonic Ban Is a Lifesaver for Pollinators Imagine you’re a honeybee. Maybe half an inch long, living in a commune with 40,000 or so of your family members. Your job is to fly out to work every day and bring home the bacon, er, nectar. You were born with a GPS so precise that you can fly as far as five miles away from your colony and find your way back home before nightfall. Then suddenly, one day, you can’t. Your GPS shorts out. You leave the hive in the morning, gather nectar from a few flowers, but when it’s time to head back, you have no idea where home is. This loss of orientation has been one of the main issues plaguing honeybee colonies for the past three decades, ever since neonicotinoids, or neonics, became part of the agricultural landscape. Now finally, after a long battle, New York has implemented a ban on the chemicals with the Birds and Bees Protection Act. Signed into law late last year by Governor Kathy Hochul, the law will phase out almost all neonic usage by 2027. BRENDAN J. O'REILLY
March 28 -- A Family Visit L’Hommedieu descendants from California tour an East Hampton home by the 19th century architect The 1892 Brooklyn Daily Eagle obituary for architect James H. L’Hommedieu referred to him as “one of the most prominent contractors and builders on Long Island,” responsible for “many fine residences” in Garden City and the Hamptons, but the extent of his contributions to Long Island’s built environment and his renown was unknown, until recently, to his descendants on the West Coast. That changed when L’Hommedieu’s great-great-granddaughter, Michele L’Hommedieu Hofmann, began researching her family tree. She planned a family trip to Long Island to see her ancestor’s work in Garden City. And when she learned that a house he built in East Hampton Village was currently on the market, she reached out to the listing agents, Liz Wohl and Jim MacMillan of Brown Harris Stevens, to inquire as to whether she’d be able to get a look inside the house. They were happy to oblige. Three generations of L’Hommedieu descendants toured the shingle-style, three-story house at 32 Ocean Avenue, a well-preserved example of his work that, according to historical preservationist Robert Hafner, was built in 1889 for Robert S. Bowne. BRENDAN O'REILLY
February 8 - Late Russian Futurist’s Home in Hampton Bays Is for Sale The Hampton Bays home of artist David Burliuk is currently on the market for $799,000. The three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,592-square-foot Hampton Bays home on 1.7 acres is where Burliuk, along with his wife, Marussia, lived until his death in 1967. Burliuk, who has been called the “Father of the Russian Futurist movement,” was born in 1882 in a rural Russian village in what is now Ukraine. He came of age at a time of transition, when art, culture and politics were evolving into the modern world as we know it. The Russian Futurist movement advocated a shedding of the old world and embracing the new world of speed, machinery, youth, violence and industry.
February 15 - Under Deconstruction Service salvages materials from teardowns The amount of teardowns and rebuilds on the South Fork is tremendous these days. Sometimes, a newly renovated house will be demolished or gutted, simply for a matter of taste rather than necessity. Unwanted materials are most often thrown in a dumpster and taken to a landfill, even though much of it is perfectly fine. Cindi Crain did not want to create a landscape of waste so she sought other alternatives when it came time to tear down her home in Springs. An aversion to, say, a pink marble foyer, wasn’t an issue when Crain purchased a 2.6-acre property on Accabonac Harbor three and a half years ago. Every architect said, “nope,” to renovating the 4,500-square-foot house, originally built in 1978. “The problem is that nothing was done to building standards,” Crain said, at her home before it was deconstructed by Second Chance, a nonprofit organization based in Baltimore, Maryland. KYRIL BROMLEY
April 4 - Good Things Come in Small Packages An East Quogue home of just 1,080 square feet provides comfort and low maintenance While large houses offer more space to spread out in, a new home in East Quogue shows that a house that is below-average in size can be just as comfortable and convenient for a family to share. The house is the second home of the Farruggio family of Whitestone, Queens. It’s two stories tall, with 1,080 square feet of living space above ground, plus a 600-square-foot finished basement, on an undersized lot. They developed the property themselves as a retreat from the city. Construction began in 2020, right before the COVID pandemic emerged. Fortunately for the Farruggios, the house was framed and the electrical was roughed in by the time New York shut down. Closures plus restrictions on how many people could work on the site at a time slowed things down a bit, but the project was spared the supply-chain issues that came later. “It’s a small house, too,” Joe Farruggio said. “It’s not like you’ve got so much stuff to do. There are pool houses out here that are probably triple the size of this thing.” He recalled that the framer he hired told him, “I haven’t framed a house this small probably in the last 20 years.” Joe Farruggio
September 26 - The House That Jack Built “Let’s think about it,” textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen told his friend, architect Lee Skolnick. “What happens when I’m gone?” Larsen was always a visionary, so it’s no surprise he was confronting his death head on and looking at how LongHouse, his legacy, would continue without him. It’s been nearly four years since Larsen died in his East Hampton home, set among 16 acres of lush gardens and an ever-changing array of artwork from around the globe. Skolnick spoke at LongHouse with writer Alastair Gordon and LongHouse Director Carrie Rebora Barratt on September 15. “The House That Jack Built” was the penultimate talk in the “Long Island Modern” series. “This was Lee and Alistair’s idea,” Barratt said when introducing Gordon to the stage, in front of Buckminster Fuller’s “Fly’s Eye Dome,” near the entrance to the property. The series was based on the highly acclaimed Guild Hall exhibit “Long Island Modern: The First Generation of Modernist Architecture on Long Island, 1925-1960,” which Gordon curated and Skolnick designed in 1987. Barratt thanked her guests as protectors of modern architecture from the first wave, “to the next wave and the next wave.” The two men have passionately encouraged people to respect, understand and save modern architecture. KELLY ANN SMITH
March 7 - Factory Built BuildLabs takes home construction to the ‘next level’ A crane slowly lowers a package of six sections of 10-foot-tall walls onto the second story of a house being assembled in Hampton Bays fronting Great Peconic Bay. Two workers free one wall section from the package and help the crane guide it precisely into place. A code printed on the wall tells them where it belongs, and bolts preinstalled in the floor allow them to secure it in seconds before moving on to the next wall. The walls, floor and roof were all manufactured in a factory in Germany in three weeks, before being shipped to New York and assembled on-site by a crew of four in just two weeks. Punit Chugh, the founder and operations director of BuildLabs in Bridgehampton, says he believes this method is the future of construction. BRENDAN J. O'REILLY
March 21 - ‘The Landscape of Home’ Hollander Design explores the ways to live outside “The Landscape of Home,” the latest book on the work of Hollander Design, captures the joy and the “magic” of the firm’s design work. “Part of what we do is engineering. Part of what we do is science. Part of what we do is design, and part of what we do is magic. And magic is where the fun of this comes in,” said Edmund Hollander, the firm’s president and namesake, during an interview last week at The American Hotel in Sag Harbor, the village he calls home. BRENDAN J. O'REILLY
June 20 - Home Sweet Home Two families get the keys to affordable homes from Habitat for Humanity, Housing Authority The Southampton Housing Authority and Habitat for Humanity of Long Island hosted a ceremony to dedicate two new houses to two families on June 14 in Riverside. The ceremony featured staff from both groups, Town of Southampton officials and local residents as they gathered with the two families to celebrate their new homes and cut ceremonial ribbons to mark the dedication. Located on Vail Avenue, both houses feature three bedrooms and two bathrooms, as well as an open concept living room and kitchen. The main entrances and hall bathroom are also ADA compliant to accommodate those with disabilities. The overall design goal of the houses was to make sure that they are “compatible for anyone to grow in and relax and live in easily,” according to Curtis Highsmith Jr., the executive director of the Southampton Housing Authority. The ceremony started with a speech from Jimmy Jack, a pastor who serves as the executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Long Island. He emphasized that the new houses are “homes of hope” for the new families as they move in. “I always share with everybody that there’s no place like home, and this is a home of hope,” Jack said. “And the hope is that they have their security, their love and their family.” DAN STARK
August 15 - House Proud: Saving a Piece of East Hampton History: Jackie Aster is home in the former Riding Club East Hampton has long proven its historic value with treasured monuments and properties that have earned their right to be preserved. Longtime local Jackie Astier demonstrates true beauty and adulation in her refurbished house that was once The Riding Club of East Hampton. “Casual and precise,” this property is a sacred gem to the community. The property is a landmarked historic building dating back to 1752. Once owned by stage, screen and radio actor Frank Lovejoy, it earned Astier an award for restoration and preservation from the Village Preservation Society of East Hampton with applause to her victory of keeping the house’s bones intact and highlighted. Modernizing every inch of the house to bring its soul into active fruition was the ultimate trajectory of the assignment. “It was a serious project,” she said. “We exposed the beams, and I wanted to celebrate the integrity of the age of the property. My design direction was a Scandinavian barn vibe, and I didn’t want to get too busy with patterns and wallpapers. I wanted it to feel like a part of the new and the old.” Macrae Marran
June 27 - In The Garden With Jane Iselin Gardener is a dedicated community volunteer for various groups Hurricane Gloria was about to strike Long Island in September 1985 when Jane Iselin and her friend decided to take the three-hour round-trip car ride from her home in Roslyn east to Southampton to hear the painter Robert Dash talk about art at Southampton College. The two women were so fascinated with the lecture, they spent time talking to Dash, instead of dashing home. “Why don’t you come home with me?” Dash asked his new acquaintances. “I can show you my gardens and my studio.” When reports of the storm circulated, Iselin and her friend shrugged it off. “Well that’s silly,” Iselin recalled thinking. “It was gorgeous all day.” “Do have a drink,” insisted Dash when they arrived at what is now Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack. “His drinks are lethal,” Iselin reminisced. “Suddenly all hell broke loose. The upshot was we spent the night.” Dash was fast asleep when the women woke up. “We walked outside and the salt spray had turned everything white. It was bizarre,” she said. “That started my love affair with gardening on Long Island.” BRENDAN J.O'REILLY
November 28 - Moving Into The Next Phase of Life Senior housing professionals guide late-life relocations For retired people planning their next move, perhaps from a long-held home to senior housing, there is much to consider to ensure the transition is smooth and enjoyable. That’s where a Certified Senior Housing Professional comes in. The Seniors Real Estate Institute, headquartered in Oklahoma, trains real estate agents and brokers in the niche of guiding mature home sellers through late-life relocations. Lorna Leibowitz, an associate broker with Sotheby’s International Realty, is the first Certified Senior Housing Professional in New York City and the founder and president of NYC Senior Living Solutions, which helps clients not only to sell their homes but also to link up with services and resources for transitioning to the next stage of life and preparing for their future care needs.
August 29 - Native Plant Garden Educates It’s said that in a perennial garden’s first year after planting, it sleeps. In the second, it creeps, and in the third year, it leaps The East Quogue Native Plant Garden is in its leap year. Located at East Quogue Marine Park, fronting Shinnecock Bay, the garden is the work of the East Quogue Beautification Committee, a nonprofit sister organization of the East Quogue Civic Association. It’s designed to serve pollinators while also beautifying the park and educating the public about the value of native plants. Native plants are those that are indigenous to the area. They did not come over with early settlers of the East End, and they were not brought over — whether intentionally or unintentionally — by the nursery trade. They have not been selectively bred to enhance traits that humans want in plants at the cost of their important ecological services. Native plants co-evolved with native insects and birds, and as a result, they are vital food sources, host plants and habitat for wildlife. “People always say, well, native gardens are great, but they don’t flower, and they don’t look that pretty. And I have to disagree. I think it looks really, really pretty right now,” said Marissa Bridge, the president of the East Quogue Beautification Committee, during a recent visit to the garden. “There’s a lot in flower, and I think it’s just really important for people to know that they can do this in their homes as well. … You can do a really beautiful native garden.” BRENDAN J. O'REILLY
July 25 - House Proud: ‘A Real Slice of Heaven’: Art and Design Merge in East Hampton Gracing the shore of Gardiners Bay, Robin Wilder’s East Hampton house is a sanctuary of bliss and revitalized romance of design. Finished in collaboration with artist and interior designer Sean Rush, the property lends itself to authentic living with celebrated refinement of eclectic design. The home consists of a reconstructed main house — with a new addition to an original structure built over 100 years ago — and a spacious guest house. Every room was completed with nothing untouched and no margin of neglect. Displaying a striking comprehension of curating a fusion of diverse design, the home exudes a holistic nature, embodying spiritual accents coexisting with modern art. This property confidently knows its worth of accented value and the meaning of serene living. “The property has a lot of warmth and comfort. It’s not pretentious, and I love that it’s just for me,” Wilder said. “It’s meant to be used and enjoyed and is very friendly, a real slice of heaven.” Macrae Marran
January 24 - Climate Change Costs Coastal homes, and more, threatened by severe storms, erosion and rising seas “Climate change is already here and our weather has already changed,” noted Stony Brook University Associate Provost for Climate and Sustainability Kevin Reed when asked what eastern Long Island residents can expect when it comes to climate change in the near future. “Long Islanders need to continually adapt to these changing conditions,” he said. “We can expect warmer temperatures (both daytime highs and nighttime lows) and more impactful extremes, including hotter heat waves, more intense flooding and strong storms.” But this is only part of the climate change picture as the phenomenon will have local as well as national and international repercussions in ways in which we are only beginning to understand. DOUG KUNTZ
May 16 - The Agency Opens New Office in East Hampton Managing partner Tyler Whitman, East Hampton co-managing directors Randi Ball and Rylan Jacka, and managing partner Dana Trotter ceremoniously cut the ribbon on The Agency’s new East Hampton office at 55 Main Street on May 9. It is The Agency’s second Hamptons office in less than a year. GAVIN MENU
August 8 - Holiday House Inspires Designer Elissa Grayer in the room she designed for Holiday House Hamptons. Below, Designer showhouse is a breast cancer benefit Holiday House Hamptons, the East End edition of the designer showhouse that has raised more than $2 million for breast cancer research since 2008, returned on August 10 with an Opening Night White Party and remained open for four weeks to provide visitors with design inspiration while supporting a good cause. Holiday House started in New York City and has also hosted a London showhouse. Founder and chair Iris Dankner — an interior designer and a breast cancer survivor herself — explained during an interview last week that the reason she named her organization Holiday House is “because after cancer, every day is a holiday.” DANA SHAW
September 5 - At Home With Eric Dixon Artist repurposes surf and sailing gear into sculptures and furniture It’s a hot August afternoon with high winds in Springs. Eric Dixon is itching to get out on one of his six windsurfing boards. “This is the best type of day,” he said, standing barefoot in the sandy driveway of the beach house built by his father, Alan, on Accabonac Harbor in the 1970s. The elder Dixon bought the half-acre at auction in the 1960s. There’s no fancy landscaping. Native prickly pears, scrub oak, bayberry and cedar surround the stilted A-frame with porches that face east toward Gardiners Bay and west over Accabonac Harbor, affording a sunset view. DANA SHAW
July 4 - Club Presents ‘Gardens & Rooms Tour’ The Westhampton Garden Club is took a new tack with its biennial tour this year, introducing the Gardens & Rooms Tour on July 12. Westhampton Garden Club tours have been a beloved tradition in the greater Westhampton area since 1950, if not earlier, showcasing spectacular houses and the beautiful gardens around them. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tour’s emphasis has shifted to the gardens, and the 2024 event will include a peek inside the houses, highlighting a special room at each stop. The stops on the tour are kept a surprise. Ticket-holders don’t learn the addresses of the gardens until the day of the event when they are given a map, and the names of the homeowners are never revealed — with one exception this year. In another break from tradition, 2024 tour co-chair Dorothy Hom has let it be known that her and her husband’s Westhampton Beach garden is one of the stops. “My husband, Michael Strauss, he is a rosarian, and we have had a summer home here in Westhampton Beach since 2000, but moved out here permanently in 2018,” Hom said. There was an older contemporary house on their property, and they tore it down to build a very traditional home that they call their “English cottage.” And the new home needed a new garden. “I said, ‘Well, you love roses, so why don’t you go to town and put up something to keep the deer away and go hog wild on your roses,’” Hom recalled. “And my husband being my husband … he doesn’t do things modestly. He goes full out.” DANA SHAW
February 22 - Next Generation Needs Options Jane Holden, an associate broker with Brown Harris Stevens of the Hamptons, grew up in Sag Harbor and has been selling real estate in the area for going on 43 years Speaking from the audience at the Express Sessions conversation on the Hamptons real estate market at Page at 63 Main in Sag Harbor Village on February 15, she recalled selling homes when mortgage rates were 18 percent — 10 points higher than today’s rates. “I sold three houses that summer because we’re always going to have somebody who’s dying, getting divorced, moving away — and there will always be a buyer there,” Holden said. She noted that in the next couple of weeks, she will list a house in the village for someone she grew up with. “During our conversation, I said so her, ‘You know, when you leave, you cannot come back. And just make sure you’re making this decision and that’s what you want to do.’ And she looked at me — and she’s already found something her and her husband like — and she said, ‘My daughter doesn’t want to stay. My son can’t afford to live here. They’re all leaving,’” Holden recalled. Holden said she is blessed that her children remain local. “But I don’t know if my grandchildren can stay here,” she added. DANA SHAW
May 23 - At Home WIth Monica and Matt Frisbie Matt and Monica Frisbie are a rare breed of Hamptonites. They grew up in Sag Harbor and East Hampton respectively, met at the movies when they were teenagers and got married years later on the beach in Amagansett. They raised daughter Tilly and grew a prosperous retail business here, despite the odds. Leonard Frisbie, the clothing line Matt named after his grandfather, is the “Hamptons’’ lifestyle brand that larger corporations want to emulate but fall short. Leonard Frisbie works because it’s not forced. It was created organically.At the first hint of summer, the couple celebrates by opening the Frisbie family beach house and cooking a seafood pasta dinner with friends, coworkers and family. Designed by architect Andrew Geller in 1958, the A-Frame, as it was named, is nestled low in the Amagansett dunes. The house alone is something to celebrate. It is only the second in a string of playful, summer homes that Geller designed on the East End through the 1960s. It is an amazing house not only in its uniquely simple design, but because it still stands. The barely 1,200 square-foot house represents a place in architectural history while offering a sense of timelessness. DANA SHAW
Staff Writer on Dec 31, 2024