Sixty Years of Spiritual Renewal
As other land-rich retreats disappear, Cormaria takes stock and looks forward
(11/26/2009) Cormaria in Sag Harbor, the only retreat house on
 Taylor K. Vecsey
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eastern Long Island that offers workshops year round, will celebrate its 60th anniversary on Sunday. It is run by a Catholic order, the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. Bishop William Murphy will celebrate a liturgy of Thanksgiving there on Sunday.
Since its first one on the Thanksgiving weekend of 1949, Cormaria has held spiritual retreats that cater to small, private groups. Others are guided by Cormaria’s staff, which now consists of five nuns. Bishop Murphy’s service on Sunday afternoon is by invitation only because of the chapel’s small capacity.
In the beginning, retreats were open only to women, and they attracted many career women, according to Sister Ann Marino, the retreat’s director. Then parish groups and high school classes began going there. Sister Ann first came to the retreat when she was a student at the Academy of the Sacred Heart of Mary in Manhattan in 1954.
After the liberalizing influence of Vatican II, some changes were made: Retreats became ecumenical and were opened to men. Sister Ann said the types of retreats shifted, as well. “Marriage encounters” were offered starting in the 1970s. From the 1980s until now, Cormaria has hosted 12-step groups.
The retreats, including theme-based and guided ones, ongoing spiritual direction, and Day of Prayer celebrations, continue to draw new participants, Sister Ann said. The retreat house can accommodate up to 70 people.
“People are looking for a time to kind of be still, to tap into what is real and listen to their God speak to them, to hear him say, ‘Do not to be afraid. For I am with you,’ ” she said of the retreat’s success over 60 years. By the year’s end, Cormaria will have provided services to more than 5,000 people.
The nuns recently led a retreat called “Celebrating the Woman Who You Are.” Forty-five women attended to explore the idea of “finding out who I am, rather than what I am,” Sister Ann said. “We’re always saying what [we] do, and we forget who God created [us] to be.” She said she knew of one woman who recently came to the retreat 50 years after she first visited with a group from Metropolitan Life.
The commanding house overlooking Sag Harbor Bay is itself nearly 105 years old. Frank C. and Lila Havens of Piedmont, Calif., built it as their summer villa in 1905. With views of Shelter and Cedar Islands in the foreground and Gardiner’s, Plum, and Gull Islands farther north, it was “one of the most desirable shore plots,” according to an article that year in The Sag Harbor Corrector. It was one of the village’s most lavish waterfront homes and, on 18 acres, it remains the most expansive.
When the couple brought the property, it included what is now Havens Memorial Park and Beach nearby. Mrs. Havens gave the land to the village in memory of her husband in 1922.
The Havens family sold the property to Alfred Marshall, who founded Marshall’s department stores, in 1917. His family sold it to the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary in 1943.
Better known as the Marymount nuns, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary came to New York from the order’s home in Beziers, France, more than 125 years ago. It was in Sag Harbor that the order began its work in this country in the late 1870s before founding the Marymount Schools, the first of which was in Tarrytown, N.Y.
In 1879, the nuns came to Sag Harbor to teach at the St. Andrew’s Parish School, now the Stella Maris School, the oldest Catholic school on Long Island.
The Academy of the Sacred Heart of Mary, an all-girls boarding and day school, opened where the Sag Harbor Elementary School now stands. For some time it was the only Catholic secondary school in Suffolk and Nassau Counties. It attracted young girls from as far away as Central America. After more than 90 years, it closed in 1968.
After the order acquired the former Havens property they founded a religious camp, and then Cormaria, which opened as a junior college at the end of World War II. In 1949, the sisters shifted its purpose from an educational ministry to a pastoral one by starting the retreat for women.
Sister Ann said there is pleasure in seeing the effect the retreats have on participants, especially on those who come for a weekend. When they arrive on a Friday, she said, “you know they’re harried and tired, and some are scared — it’s their first time. When they leave, they are free, like weights are lifted off of them.”
While the main house has remained intact and the interior, with its dark hardwood finish, has gone unchanged, the exterior has changed somewhat since Mr. and Mrs. Havens built it. An east wing was added to provide 28 additional beds, and an old boathouse from elsewhere on the property was connected to the west side of the house and turned into a chapel. A hermitage opened 20 years ago.
Now there is also a professional kitchen, a modern dining room, and several small conference rooms. Cormaria’s most recent addition is a series of “gardens of the spirit,” which are maintained by a group of volunteer landscapers.
As Catholic schools around the country have closed, so have Catholic retreats. In recent years long-time retreats on the East End, such as Villa Maria in Water Mill and St. Gabriel’s Spiritual Center on Shelter Island, have shut their doors. The Passionist order of priests put St. Gabriel’s last 25 acres of waterfront on Coecles Harbor up for sale over the summer. It is listed at $19.9 million.
The only other Catholic retreat on Long Island that offers year-round programs is St. Ignatius Jesuit Retreat House in Manhasset.
Sister Ann attributes Cormaria’s success to its history, location, and hospitality.
“We’ve been here for so long that we kind of have a reputation, where people know us,” she said. “It is quiet,” she added. “It is very, very beautiful.”