SEA SPRAY ON THE DUNES

It was World War II that really made the inn a success. There were no travel opportunities other than domestic. Families from as far away as Chicago summered here.

DONALD HUNTING

Standing by the Main Beach bathing pavilion at the foot of Ocean Avenue and looking east over the stockade fence at the cottages strung out along the dunes, most people do not realize they are looking at the site of what, less than a quarter-century ago, was the biggest hotel in East Hampton.

One hundred twenty-five guests were catered to by a staff of 55 employees. The dining room served three meals a day, seven days a week, from Memorial Day weekend until after Labor Day. A kitchen staff of 14 and a dining room staff of like number catered not only to guests but to local residents and visitors as well. The huge, airy, oceanfront dining room seated 166 people.

Adjoining that and jutting out from the main house practically to the flagpole, which stands there yet, was a cocktail porch with a sunken bar running across its front, permitting guests an unobstructed view of the ocean. Surrounded by large windows, both the cocktail porch and dining room enjoyed the ocean breeze.

The main house, destroyed by fire in 1978, also contained offices, 12 guest rooms, seven staff rooms, wraparound porches furnished in wicker, a living room comfortably furnished with Victorian antiques, and a small gift shop.

No one, neither house guest nor transient, was seated in the dining room after 8:30 p.m. Guests visited the gift shop, read, socialized, listened to the radio, or played cards and board games, and the inn was "tucked in" by midnight.

About 1950, Catherine and Arthur Murray (of "I can teach you dancing in a hurry" fame), longtime guests, decided the inn should have a television set, and donated a table model bearing their nameplate. It received a place of honor in the living room by the west fireplace on a sturdy Victorian table with a graceful, curved-edge marble top.

Quite a departure for the staid old inn, but it was received enthusiastically by the nannies. By 5 p.m. each evening, a dozen or more children in their starched dinner outfits were glued to this wonderful new endless parade of cartoons.

The main building had been moved to the beach shortly after the turn of the century, from its location on Main Street about where the "pocket park" fronts on the "old barn" today. Already a boarding house, it slowly became an inn or hotel, with all the usual attributes - switchboard service, room service, concierge services, bellmen, beach boys, and chambermaids who would even hand-launder your personal clothing for a modest fee.

After the main house was brought up to the beach, it was enlarged a number of times and three large cottages were built. Two are those you see today in the foreground from Main Beach; the third is the last cottage to the east on the dunes.

After World War I, four more cottages were purchased from the United States Army and barged here from the South. They had served as bachelor officers quarters. These still stand, just beyond the grassy knoll where the main house was located. All of these cottages had living rooms and accommodated from seven to 10 people. They were rented room by room or in their entirety to a single family.

In addition, there was a large two-story structure sitting behind the inn that accommodated about 20 members of the staff. Also behind the inn were three more cottages, one of which remains in place today, a maintenance shop, two sets of four garages, and two small staff buildings.

Originally, the Main Street boarding house was bought and moved to the beach by Edward Terbell to be used as a summer home for his family. Mr. Terbell owned most of the land from Terbell Lane down to the dunes. His personal guest list increased to a point when, with the addition of the seven cottages, it became a business.

The living room had woodburning fireplaces at either end, over which hung oil portraits of Mr. Terbell and his wife. The room was large enough to accommodate two sets of square-dancers.

Some time before the Depression, the property was sold to a group of local investors, but by the mid-'30s it had come back into the hands of the family, and Ruth Terbell Bayley was assisting the owner, her cousin, Peggy Lambert, in its operation. Ed Terbell's grandnephew (Ruth's son), Arnold Blakeman Bayley, had graduated from Stanford in the early '20s, had a striking success in vaudeville, and was an aviation pioneer, flying his own plane from one engagement to another. By the mid-'30s vaudeville had pretty well run its course and Mr. Bayley was eking out a living as a pilot instructor at Flushing Airport when a student nose-dived their plane into the Flushing swamp. They said he wouldn't survive, and when he did, he was told he would never walk, and when he did, he came straight out to Sea Spray to recuperate and help his mother and cousin Peggy run the inn - as best he could.

Business was building by the early '40s, by which time Mama and Peggy had departed to resume their own lives and Arnold Bayley was the lessee-manager, but it was World War II that really made the inn a success. There were no travel opportunities other than domestic, and the seashore, a convenient three hours' distance from New York City, became irresistibly attractive. Families from as far away as Chicago summered there, the breadwinner commuting on weekends.

There were six double rooms, each with bath and ocean view, situated above the east end of the bathing pavilion; a large house just behind the pavilion where the entrance to parking lot one is today, and another cottage with an enormous stone fireplace, just west of the bathing pavilion, all leased from the Village of East Hampton. Additionally, Mr. Bayley was leasing the residence at 3 Lily Pond Lane, and the estate at 86 Lily Pond Lane, where another 25 people were accommodated. The latter facility had its own housekeeper and staff, and breakfast was served in the elegant dining room.

These vacationers, too, were American Plan guests (all meals included) of the Sea Spray. They came to the inn for lunch, dinner, and recreational activity.

Coping with war shortages was no mean feat, with roughly 175 souls to sustain. The inn's gasoline ration permitted one daily trip to the village, and if a department head forgot to order something, it was done without. What is today's parking lot two was the inn's victory garden, a small truck farm that provided much of the produce for the kitchen. Fresh local fish was continually provided by Gene Winbergh, who had a studio apartment over the west end of the bathing pavilion, and whose lifelong avocation was tending a gill net set just behind the surf at Main Beach. The guests loved to greet this sweet giant as he came over the dune with his buckets of fish, knowing his catch would appear on the menu that very evening.

Another war effort was a pig pen abutting Hook Pond. The swill from 500 daily meals provided nourishment for half a dozen piglets, who grew large by fall and were slaughtered. The meat was smoked or frozen, and served the following summer.

After World War II, the leased Lily Pond Lane properties reverted to private residences, and in 1945 Mr. Bayley purchased the oceanfront mansion immediately west of the bathing pavilion for his residence. He renamed it "HiTide" (and the little cottage which still abuts the west side of the pavilion parking lot number one, "LoTide"). Sea Spray guests were accommodated there, and all the desserts for the inn were prepared in HiTide's large oceanfront kitchen by the beloved "Miss Mary," Mary Jackson of Salisbury, Md., who in earlier years had been in charge of the wonderful kitchen at Mr. and Mrs. Gurney's inn in Montauk.

Mr. Bayley subsequently bought the Sea Spray property itself and the 10 Bayberry Close cottages on Ocean Avenue, which were operated as an adjunct to the hotel as seasonal housekeeping cottages.

There is a temptation here to go into the celebrity aspect of Sea Spray in its heyday. Stars of stage and screen, captains of industry, diplomats, journalists, authors, all were there. But the more important function of the inn to East Hampton was the role it played in introducing potential second-home owners to this area. Many became pillars of the community and later retired here.

Working at an American Plan inn in those days was a total commitment: seven days a week, three meals a day.

Typically, a dinner menu would offer a choice of appetizers, a hot and cold soup, four entrees, and (undoubtedly because Mr. Bayley had an outrageous sweet tooth) six or eight homemade desserts. The foregoing was supplemented by two college students, one passing a relish tray and the other an electrically heated roll-warmer. Beach plum jelly, grown and made on the premises, was unfailingly one of the selections from the relish tray; hot-from-the-oven raised rolls, sticky buns, and popovers were passed continually.

But the highlight of the Sea Spray food service was the daily lunch buffet on the lawn in front of the inn. It grew and grew and grew. More local people came for a cocktail on the terrace and the buffet lunch than ever had for the more formal dining room atmosphere.

On holidays, the buffet followed a theme: Hawaiian, Carnival, July Fourth celebration, etc. The staff wore appropriate costumes. Bouillabaisse simmered over an open fire in a huge "rendering" kettle from an old whaling ship; a six-foot American flag fashioned from blueberries, sugar stars, and alternate rows of onion and tomato slices, and Miss Mary's merry-go-round cakes were typical features. One of the unanticipated aspects of the buffet was that it gave the kitchen staff an opportunity to know and become known to the guests, which promoted a warm family atmosphere in this fairly sophisticated summer retreat.

The man at the center of all this, Arnold Bayley, was a charismatic showman with a keen analytical mind. From Yankee stock, he was the original recycler - but first he would re-use. In those days, for instance, auto and bicycle tires had inner tubes which, when beyond patching, were normally discarded. But, for winter work, Mr. Bayley would feed them through his paper-cutter, making rubber bands. Meal and beverage checks from the past year were kept, the clean side becoming this year's memo pads. Use it up; make it do! That was the maxim the staff was required to live by.

Mr. Bayley was a man of contradictions, a man who would fly into New York in his own plane, register at the Plaza, and be found sitting by his bedroom window darning a sock.

Scrupulously honest, he never questioned whether the other fellow might have an ulterior motive. This resulted in a bit of misunderstanding when, reaching the age of 60 and finding his business well ordered, he became interested in politics, embracing every conservative stand. As in other endeavors, he hit the field running and took to leaving piles of literature from conservative organizations about the inn, to permit guests to share his enthusiasm. It was plain to most that some of these organizations had ulterior motives, and these, unfortunately, were attributed to Mr. Bayley.

Eventually, he narrowed his primary support to an organization that had succeeded in getting a constitutional amendment introduced that would have repealed the income tax. His pureness of purpose left him with an inability to understand why people began looking at him askance. He became somewhat withdrawn, sold the inn in 1969, and died of cancer the following year.

The Sea Spray operated differently in the '70s. The cocktail porch was now the "bar" and the wicker-furnished sun porches became an extension of the beverage service facility, as did the Victorian living room. Entertainment was introduced. The dining room was leased out to a restaurant operator and service was provided late into the night.

On a cold February night in 1978, that which Mr. Bayley's staff had successfully avoided for so many years finally happened. The unoccupied main building was consumed by flames within hours.

East Hampton Village wisely purchased the entire 1,800 feet of beach front. The storm-compromised two-acre parcel behind, now used for parking, was donated. One reason that so much of the property remains undeveloped is that Mr. Bayley was such a conservative Yankee that he would only expand the facilities from profits. With innkeeping as with farming, one makes a "living" and the profit doesn't come until you "sell the farm." When that day came, it was sold, not to a developer, but to a conservator, permitting open space and our fond memories to remain very much intact.

Donald Hunting was associated with the Sea Spray Inn on and off for 25 years, until 1969. He descends from a younger brother of East Hampton's second minister, Na thaniel Huntting.