The East Hampton Historical Society, with five sites, allows us to look back over 350 years and see how people lived on the East End of Long Island. Except on one day of the year, however, when it focuses on the present and encourages us to see how people live right now. On Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend the society conducts its annual house tour, with the owners of five very special houses opening their homes to ticket holders as a fundraiser for the organization.
The house tour benefits the historic properties that the society owns or administers, but the houses on the tour this year cover quite a span of time, ranging from the mid-nineteenth century right up to the current moment. The newest of the houses, completed only last year, is a sumptuous modern residence named Arc House. If you remember your geometry, an arc is (or was when I attended school) an unbroken portion of the circumference of a circle, and the main living section of this home by East Hampton architect Maziar Behrooz, appears to be exactly that, a curve gently rising out of the ground and forming a harmonious crescent.
But elegance comes in many shapes, and approximately 160 years ago Captain Wickham S. Havens (or more probably his builder) in Sag Harbor managed to construct a superbly refined Federal style home that was moved to an exclusive area of East Hampton in 1960 and still dazzles the eye with its precisely correct proportions and unique third story window.
When William B. Tuthill, the architect of Carnegie Hall was commissioned to build a house for Charles H. Adams (who started in knitwear but went to politics) on Lee Avenue in 1891, he did not hold back in the least. The huge, Queen Anne style home is probably the largest of the remaining summer cottages in the East Hampton estate area. You can not only get to see this house on the tour but you can sip drinks and nibble hors d’oeuvres in this spectacularly restored home the evening before by purchasing a ticket for the benefit cocktail party.
For proof that a less ambitious undertaking can still be a wonderful building, visit the tour’s Windpump Tower on Huntting Lane. In 1894, before there was a piped water system in the village, this utilitarian structure was built to house the equipment supplying water to the Greycroft estate. In 1945 it was moved a short distance and with an addition became one of East Hampton’s most fascinating residences.
Finally, a contractor’s own house on Cooper Lane ought to be a showcase example of what people look for in new construction. Built for his own family, it is the result of his years of working for Hamptons clients.
House tour tickets and benefit cocktail party tickets are available from the East Hampton Historical Society, (631) 324-6850, www.easthamptonhistory.org