SHE SAVES HER BIRTHPLACE FROM THE WRECKER'S BALL

A saltbox house that the Osborn family of Wainscott believes was built in 1695 for the first Osborn settler there has been saved from the wrecking ball by a descendant of the family. It went on a short journey on March 12 up Beach Lane to a temporary location in a potato field.

Barbara Osborn Meyer, whose ancestor John Osborn (1631-1687) was the first English inhabitant of Wainscott, plans to move the house to land she owns next to the windmill in the Georgica Association. She won possession of the saltbox after its new owners, Myles and Carol Berkman, decided to have it torn down. Several others were interested, Mrs. Meyer said, but she prevailed because she, like many other Osborns, was born in the house.

The Berkmans bought the property, at 104 Beach Lane, a few months ago from the estate of Dan Flavin. They plan to build a new house.

Guy Davis and his house-moving crew spent nearly four days readying the 300-year-old saltbox for its half-mile journey. Moving it was "no problem," said Mr. Davis. "It was in excellent shape."

The trip itself took just two hours. Once hoisted onto a grid of steel I-beams and then onto three hydraulic dollies, the cottage stood 30 feet high. Telephone, electric, and cable lines, which hang just 18 feet above the southern end of Beach Lane, had to be dropped for the afternoon. The East Hampton Town Highway Department stood by to help get the house past the trees without too much pruning.

The house had been moved once before, in 1945, from its original location on Wainscott Main Street to just behind the ocean dunes on Beach Lane. As a result, it came easily off its cinderblock foundation, Mr. Davis said. His crew had to "fill all the voids and irregularities with wood and wooden wedges" to hold the house on a level plane, he explained, noting that the central fireplace, common in old houses here, required particular care.

The saltbox weighed about 65 tons, which is "not very heavy" as houses go, according to Mr. Davis. It will sit in Mrs. Meyer's potato field behind the windmill, alongside a garage and a small extension, until a new foundation can be poured and the extension reattached.

Despite the effort involved, Mrs. Meyer reportedly relocated her birthplace for considerably less than it would have cost to build a new house. House-moving costs $10 to $20 a square foot, compared to $100 or $150 for new construction, said Mr. Davis.

Mrs. Meyer and other family members have researched the house's history but have been unable to prove that it was actually the first John Osborne's. Family lore and the historic details that do exist suggest, though, that it could have been his.

John Osborn was born in Kent, England, and emigrated with his father, one of two cousins named Thomas who helped settle East Hampton Town. Generations of Osborns were farmers, fishermen, shore whalers, and tanners.

Records show that the first settler acquired a large meadow on the east side of Wainscott Pond on June 8, 1668, and that he was living there two years later.

The Hand and Hopping families had settled nearby by the start of the 18th century. Over the next 100 years Wainscott Main Street became the hub of a small village. John Osborn's house was on Main Street, where Lawrence Osborn's barns are now.

One history book says an old tanning vat was "found in 1904 when digging a cellar on the place where the first John settled," but fails to give an exact location.

Mrs. Meyer said Oliver Osborn was living in the house when he joined the crew that hauled the last right whale onto Wainscott beach in 1907. Local records say he built his own house on the north side of Main Street that same year. He may well have used the profits from whale oil to do so.

In any case, the cottage where Mrs. Meyer was born remained in the family until 1945, when Leroy Osborn gave a lifetime tenancy in it to Dr. Henry Earnshaw of Bryn Mawr, Pa.

"The Osborns are known for making crazy deals," joked Lawrence Osborn, Leroy's son and Mrs. Meyer's cousin, last week. He is of the 10th generation of Osborns in Wainscott.

The Earnshaws moved the cottage to the dunes at the south end of Beach Lane, added some dormers, and brought the plumbing indoors. Dr. Earnshaw had some Government connection, recalled Lawrence Osborn, and during World War II, when the rest of the country was doing without new porcelain bathtubs, the Earnshaws were bathing in the big square kind installed in military barracks.

After their deaths the ownership of the house reverted to Leroy Osborn. He deeded it to his daughters, Charlotte Osborn Pratt and Caroline Osborn Hedges. Mrs. Pratt lives in Florida and Mrs. Hedges in Washington State, so the saltbox was for the most part rented out in summers. Mrs. Hedges said she lived there with her children at one point, teaching school in East Hampton while her husband was stationed in Vietnam.

Around 1980, the sisters sold the cottage to Mr. Flavin. Mrs. Hedges laughed when she heard the artists's heirs had sold the Beach Lane property to Mr. and Mrs. Berkman for $3 million. She said Mr. Flavin paid her and her sister about $300,000 for the house and the land - "a really good price at the time."

It will take a few more weeks until the house comes to rest on a new foundation. It will be rented for the summer. In fact, showing how hot the rental market has been this season, it was rented for the coming season in its new location before it had even left its old one.

JULIA C. MEAD