Quogue Village Leaves Itself Defenseless

By Dan Rattiner

I was invited to the Quogue Library two Sundays ago to be the featured author for their weekly "Conversations with the Author" series. It seemed appropriate that I was there, because downtown Quogue is just about as peaceful and lovely as it was when I first went there a half a century ago. And my book, In the Hamptons: Fifty Years With Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities, is certainly largely a celebration of the peace and quiet that I once knew in the rest of the Hamptons. I read to about 150 people under a tent on the lawn of that library.

Without a doubt, however, there are soon going to be big changes in downtown Quogue if things continue as they have in the rules and regulations department. The proverbial barn door has been left wide open. There is no zoning law or historic district designation created that could prevent any historic buildings from going under the wrecker's ball, as there is in many of the other towns in the Hamptons. This makes no sense to me whatsoever.

The centerpiece to downtown Quogue is Quogue Street itself, which runs in a great arc for a mile and a half through the center of that village. Historic old mansions and churches - and the library - line both sides of it for the whole way, except for one intersection, where Jessup Avenue shoots off to the north. Here, there is a "downtown," which consists of exactly five little stores. And that's it.

If you look at postcards of downtown Quogue, you will invariably see the beautiful old Inn at Quogue, a colonial-era building of three floors and perhaps 40 tiny rooms that sits behind a picket fence right on the corner of the "downtown" intersection.

Today, that building is still there, and it still functions as an inn, and now includes a restaurant, which grandly calls itself "Q." The rooms upstairs are for staff. The inn is, of course, a historic landmark. Although, in fact, it isn't. Remember there is no historic district here. The village voted to form one in 1981 and then again in 1995. Both efforts failed because, according to those who were there, the people said they'd rather have their freedom.

A few hundred yards down the road and across the street, however, there is another inn, less historic perhaps, but still, having been built in 1838, very precious to this community. At one time, that inn, having grown with the building of two wings, one on each side, from its original function as a private home, was a second "Inn at Quogue." It was, in fact, owned by the old Inn at Quogue, and used by them as an overflow for the main inn. And at one point, the Inn at Quogue was so very, very popular that there were overflow structures built for the overflow. Behind this second Inn at Quogue are 48 motel units, probably built around 1935, and now in disrepair.

Certainly life has changed since the halcyon days of the two Inns at Quogue and their cabins in the back. Quogue today is mostly a community of private homes, some for the local people and some for the summer people. When people come out today they come as house guests. The inns are not as prosperous as they once were.

It seems to me that what happens to these two structures, the old Inn at Quogue and the new (which still takes in boarders), should be of considerable interest to those who live in Quogue. One might think that there would be a flurry of activity to keep these mansions the way they are, one way or another. Other communities on the East End have done that. Surely Quogue would do the same.

But apparently not. Last year, a developer named Rocco Lettieri bought the "new" Inn at Quogue, known by old-timers as the Weathervane House, and the derelict cabins in the back, and has offered up two plans for its future.

One plan is that he simply make a phone call to the bulldozer operators and have them come in and knock everything down, including the Weathervane House, and build a shopping center. He points out there is absolutely nothing to prevent him from doing this.

The other plan is that he divide up the property into six lots (there are 2.5 acres here), knock down the cabins, and where they were build five large new mansions in a style in keeping with the traditions of the town. As for the Weathervane House, which, though still used as an inn but needs work, he will spend the million dollars or so to do that work, and restore it to its former glory.

As I said, the developer does not need any approval from the village to implement option one. He also does not need village approval for option two, IF he had only proposed to build four homes on the site instead of five. But he has proposed five.

And so, this past Friday, the village board met to decide whether or not they will make an exception to allow one more home than allowed on that property. At that meeting they decided to delay a decision in order to further tweak the wording of the code amendment.

I understand there is considerable opposition on the part of some of the village residents to allowing this fifth house. I find this amazing. It is one more house. What is the big deal? Is there anger in the rather crude way this has been gone about? Emotions fade. Shopping centers do not. Is there something about the legacy of the village that is not understood?

While I was at the library, I asked a few people about another matter, which is the draconian way the police department in that village behaves. The speed limit is 25 miles an hour. I was warned to not go 26. I have heard many stories of people being stopped for no reason in the village by this overenthusiastic force, questioned and delayed, and I heard another while I was there which was that one older resident has been stopped frequently for no reason, except, perhaps, because he drives a very, very expensive automobile. There seems to be no other explanation.

What I learned at the library, when I asked about this situation, and what, if anything, was being done about it, was that people do not want to talk about it. They look around. Who is listening? They'd rather not talk, if that would be okay.

Maybe there is no fear of what this developer might do to downtown Quogue because deep down they know that, well, if he puts one shovel in the ground, an officer will come over and shoot him.

Anyway, at the end of the evening, I very carefully drove out of Quogue at 22 miles an hour, tops. It's hard to drive that slow, but I did it.

Back to Contents