hamptonopoly
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Artist Sydney Butchkes first arrived in the Hamptons in the '60s. He bought this Sagaponack barn in 1968 for $15,000.

Barn Yesterday
Artist Sydney Butchkes' Sagaponack Home

by Deborah Schoeneman

In 1968, painter and sculptor Sydney Butchkes, bought a barn on Sagg Main Street in Sagaponack for $15,000. The dwelling was previously owned by potato farmers; they were using the 6,500-square-foot space to house migrant workers. The barn didn't even have electricity or water, and the white farmhouse next door was the Southampton Poorhouse. Now it could be called the "Sagaponack Rich House," as could any of the homes in one of the most expensive zip codes in the world.

At the time, the farmers had put up 100 acres for sale, priced at at $7,000 per acre. Butchkes bought 3.5 acres, though "I should have bought all 100," he now says.

Butchkes' original broker Tina Fredericks, who owns an East Hampton realty firm and sold Andy Warhol his Montauk compound, thinks the artist could get a bundle for his barn. "South of the highway in Sagaponock costs about $2 million-and-up per acre," said Fredericks. "The place down the street has 2 acres and is asking $8 million."

Butchkes, 86, says he has no plans to sell the property. He won't even rent it. "I would never entertain such a notion," he explains. Known for his three-dimensional canvases and sculptures made from objects found, he also owns an apartment in midtown Manhattan. Last year, he had a show at Southampton's Ferregut Tower Gallery.

"If I sold it, it would be a teardown," says Butchkes, who seems a good deal younger than his years. He only recently stopped playing tennis at the court on the property. "The house isn't really suitable for many people."

One thing that might not be suitable for many people is the barn's old birthing stall where Butchkes sleeps. There's only one other small bedroom on the property, which also has no pool.

An unheated upstairs loft with 25-foot ceilings could also pose a problem. Aesthetically it's beautiful, with exposed shingles and beams. One wall is glass, with a view of sky and trees. Butchkes' paintings and sculptures fill the space, along with a hammock that hangs from two wooden pillars in the center of the room. Butchkes originally planned to work in the space, but instead set up shop downstairs in the former milking barn, where he keeps a kiln to fire his pottery. The loft is only usable about eight months a year. Heating it warm would sacrifice its look.

Clockwise from top: The artist's private office/study is open to nature; the old birthing stall where Butchkes sleeps; Butchkes relaxing in the loft's hammock; the loft housing his three-dimensional canvases. Photographs by Stephanie McNiel.

"You could insulate it from the outside," says Butchkes, "but that would cover the shingles and it wouldn't look great."

Butchkes is very particular about design. His close friend Luis Rey worked with him on the house's decor, which features Iraqi blankets in the rustic living room and remnants of the barn's history, like old horseshoes.

Barns are increasingly hard to come by in the Hamptons. Most of the area's farmers have sold off their land and the original dwellings have been largely replaced by McMansions. Some barns remain as art galleries, such as the Silas Marder gallery in Bridgehampton, or artists studios such as Chuck Close's in Bridgehampton, David Salle's in East Hampton, and Robert Dash's in Sagaponack. Steven Spielberg's East Hampton estate appears barn-like, but the director hardly sleeps in a birthing stall. Interior designer Alexia Kondylis and her father, architect Costas Kondylis, are renovating an old barn in Southampton which Costas bought many years ago.

"There are very few barns left," offers Fredericks. "Most of them were grabbed up by people who needed space. Some people have imported barns from New England. But I do keep getting those requests. There will always people who want barns, but there will not always be barns to sell them."

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