Dan's Papers - October 13, 2006

Unlike in other communities on the East End, the Town Hall in East Hampton is set well back on the thirteen-acre property it occupies. In front of it is a grand front lawn several acres in size, which would really be grand if the Town Hall building behind it were in any way distinguished, which it is not. Built in the early 1960s, it was designed originally with a nice pitched roof, but for budgetary reasons, that was eliminated. Instead, East Hampton conducts its affairs in a single-story, flat-roof building of no great consequence that, upon some occasions, leaks.

Around twenty years ago, the town proposed building a new structure or at least adding an addition to it, but it was turned down. After that, a rather creative Town Supervisor - I think it was Tony Bullock - got the idea to add a little class to the experience of coming to Town Hall by making use of the front lawn for a sculpture garden. For six months after that, the sculptures remained but for some reason - it certainly was a good idea - the project came to an end. Things were put in and then not removed. Some neighbors objected to the sculptures, or to particular sculptures. There was a big discussion in town about whether a sculpture garden was a proper concern of a Town Board. Personally, I thought it was. Others did not. And so the project ended.

This past week, however, something absolutely stunning in its concept has been announced for the front lawn of Town Hall. I think the idea for it came from the creative mind of the wealthy art collector Adelaide de Menil who has an oceanfront home on Further Lane not far away. But wherever it came from, it was heartily embraced by Town Supervisor Bill McGintee and very shortly the dirt is going to fly.

Adelaide de Menil and her husband Ted Carpenter have lived on Further Lane since 1972. An heiress to an oil fortune, Ms. de Menil has been involved not only in the collection of individual works of art, but also in the creation of entire museums around the country. With the rest of her family, she has, under the aegis of the Dia Foundation, created galleries, museums and installations in such widely diverse places as southwestern New Mexico, Salt Lake, Utah, Beacon, New York and Bridgehampton, where a former church on Corwith Lane across from the Candy Kitchen, now a part of what is called the Dia Project, is dedicated to the work of Dan Flavin.

In addition to this, and it is not widely known, Ms. de Menil began a collection of small historic East Hampton buildings on her Further Lane property. The property is hedged. And it is about 35 acres in size. So you really can't see this. But beginning that year with the purchase of what was known as the "Purple House," an old eighteenth century home on Main Street that once stood next to the East Hampton Library, the project began.

Ms. de Menil bought the building, which was in the way of a library expansion, and she had the Kennelly House Moving Company gently lift it up, put it on a trailer and, after taking down many telephone wires, take it down Main Street one sunny summer afternoon to be put onto a foundation on the front lawn of her home. I took a photograph of it being moved at the time. It appeared in this newspaper and the linecut version of it is published in this edition of this newspaper. Note the rather befuddled young man holding the big traffic light in his arms, standing right near the center of Main Street in front of the house. He is clearly wondering what to do with it before the house comes through. This was the light at Egypt Lane.

Other houses followed. They included the Peach Farm Farmhouse, built for Mary VanScoy in 1730 in the Northwest, a farmhouse on that same property built for Mary VanScoy and her husband, Dering Ranger, in 1796, a cottage from Cutchogue built around 1820, a barn called the Baker Barn, which was moved from Pantigo Road to make way for a telephone building, and another barn.

Say what you will about Ms. de Menil's "collection." But the truth is that she saved these houses for future generations. And she also kept them up and used them as part of her family's experience living in their Further Lane home.

Here is what she wrote to the East Hampton Star in 1974 about her plan.

"Here are my motives behind such an impractical venture. These buildings were designed like Coast Guard stations - practical, comfortable, beautiful in their simplicity. The result was perhaps one of man's greatest architectural achievements.

"It was the desire to preserve and present this achievement that led to saving and moving several of these houses to Further Lane.

"In 50 years, we're all going to be history. But a small bit of man's past will have been preserved here, in this case, a good moment from his past."

About two years ago, for one reason or another, the de Menils decided it was now a good time to place these historic buildings back into the community. They may have bought them for cash in the 1970s. They would put them back, transferring the title for $1, and transferring the buildings themselves at their own expense. It was time for these homes to rejoin the town.

Ms. de Menil's first attempt at this was rebuffed. She offered the Purple House to the East Hampton Library. She knew it could not go back exactly to where it was before. But it could go nearly back to where it was. There was a space in the back. But the Library said the Purple House could not be used because the library was suffering from a space problem. They would, in the future, need more parking. And if they did expand the library, the new addition should match the architecture of the current building, which was constructed about 1930.

By this time, in this story, you may have already figured out what is going to happen on the front lawn of Town Hall.

These eighteenth and nineteenth century buildings are going to be placed on a quadrangle on the lawn directly in front of Town Hall. They will serve as the "public face" of the Town Hall campus, and they will be occupied, one of them as the office of the Town Supervisor, another as a meeting room for the Town Council and a third for the offices of the Town Attorney. Behind these old buildings, the old Town Hall is to be torn down, and a much bigger new Town Hall constructed, with its design in keeping with the rest of the "campus."

I forgot to mention that besides everything else, the current situation with Town Hall is just a mess. The population of the town has quadrupled since the present Town Hall was built. And the needs of the town can no long be attended to by this little building. Those that work for the town have long since outgrown the place. There are half a dozen trailer buildings out back - you don't really see them unless you go back there - and all of these trailers are occupied by Town Department employees because there is simply nowhere else to put them. And there is another problem. Did you ever notice that there is no single phone number you can call at Town Hall where a single switchboard can transfer you over to the department you want to reach? Every department has its own phone number. So you have to hang up and call back. Still other departments, for example the Building Department and the Police Department, have actually fled. Police are now in their own building in Wainscott in a structure that is half again bigger than all of the old Town Hall. And the Building Department now has all its offices in a commercial office building one street away to the east. This has been some way to run a Town. And everybody knows it. Now all the departments, except for the police department which is very happy up in the woods in Wainscott thank you very much, will come together in a new and much larger Town Hall, built where the old one was, and sheltering and overlooking the campus of early town buildings out front saved by Ms. de Menil and her husband for all these years.