Lake Montauk’s enterococcus bacteria levels have risen, despite last week’s higher than normal tides, which normally would have led to lower levels, according to a news release from the Concerned Citizens of Montauk.

Bacteria counts are measured by the number of colony forming units, or viable cells, per 100 milliliters of water. Anything over 104 cells surpasses the federal health standard and is rated "high" in the tests.

Little Reed Pond creek and East Creek, both of which drain into Lake Montauk, had high bacteria levels in samples taken on Wednesday. A west side creek sample site in the lake had a "medium" level. The presence of any enterococcus indicates a chance of disease-causing feces in the water.

Both the Route 27 "kayak launch" and the Cove Hollow Road access at Georgica Pond in East Hampton tested far above the health standard this week, at 616 and 2,755 cells, respectively. The ocean beach cut at Georgica Pond is closed, which has likely caused increased enterococcus counts because water cannot flush well, the concerned citizens said.

The Nature Trail in East Hampton Village, tested at David's Lane, measured 6,867 cells, likely from the large flocks of ducks and other waterfowl there. A test site in the south end of Hook Pond measured high for the first time in recent months, with 498. Pussy’s Pond in Springs' count was 876 cells.

Fresh Pond creek in Amagansett tested lower than other samples taken this summer, at 63 cells.

Ditch Plain in Montauk had a medium enterococcus level of 52 cells yesterday. The beach at Surfside Place in downtown Montauk had a count of 31.

State and local officials gathered with administrators of the new Stony Brook Southampton Hospital on Monday to celebrate their merger, which took place officially earlier this month, and to watch as a new Stony Brook Southampton Hospital sign was unveiled at the main entrance of the hospital and a new flag was raised.

“This has been a huge journey, truly,” State Senator Kenneth LaValle said at lunch, which followed at the hospital’s Parrish Memorial Hall. Senator LaValle, who has worked to improve health care on eastern Long Island for nearly a decade, was praised at the event as a major force in making the merger a reality.

The senator, who hails from Port Jefferson, spoke of a phone call he had received in Albany from a Southampton constituent who wanted to become a physician and described how “medically underserved” the South Fork was. The merger, he said, means that the people of eastern Long Island “will be beneficiaries of the kind of quality of health care so no one will be calling me again to say this community is medically underserved.”

The merger brings academic and community medicine, faster access to life-saving services, as well as to the results of the latest medical research and clinical trials to the South Fork, Dr. Samuel L. Stanley Jr., the president of Stony Brook University, said. A cardiac catheterization laboratory will open soon, the first on the East End, and the new Phillips Family Cancer Center is under construction.

The existing hospital in Southampton Village is eventually to be replaced by a new facility on the Southampton Stony Brook University campus, to the west off County Road 39, and Dr. Stanley said it would bring new jobs and economic growth. The new cancer center is to remain in place.

Stony Brook University Hospital has collaborated with Southampton Hospital over the last 10 years on internship and residency programs, among others, and the joint effort will continue to grow, Dr. Stanley said. Stony Brook also recently became affiliated with the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, including researchers and clinicians.

“Bringing these two institutions together . . . provides tremendous new opportunities to train our providers in a community-based, excellent medical setting in the real world outside the boundaries of academics,” Dr. Stanley said.

 State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who was among officials at the lunch, said, “This is something that is going to make a difference in people’s quality of life and the health care they receive and the lives they are able to live for decades — for literally a century to come. That’s how important I think today is.”

Mr. Thiele, a Sag Harbor resident, said Robert Chaloner, who until the merger was chief executive officer of Southampton Hospital and is now chief administrative officer of the merged hospital, deserves much gratitude. Mr. Thiele spoke of Mr. Chaloner’s leadership and direction, along with that of Robert Ross, the hospital’s vice president of community and government relations, whom he called Mr. Chaloner’s sidekick.

“There were questions about whether this hospital would survive and, if it did, how it would survive,” Mr. Thiele remembered. He said it had been a long haul for the board of directors of Southampton Hospital, and that he was sure there had been times “where they literally thought the sun would go black before this day occurred.” It was one of several references to the solar eclipse happening on Monday, and the crowd laughed. “Well, we made it with an hour to spare.”

Mr. Chaloner said since the hospital was founded in 1909 its mission had been to provide access to the highest quality health care and that the merger would allow it to meet its mission.

“This really is a beautiful marriage,” New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul said. The merger took vision, she said, adding that the residents of and the visitors to the South Fork “deserve the kind of quality of care that has been afforded, yes, by this institution for over 100 years, but why not be able to capitalize on all of the advances and services available not far away?”

Ocean beaches on the eastern end of Southampton Town were briefly closed Monday afternoon after lifeguards in Sagaponack spotted what appeared to be a shark close to the beach. The decision came after days of apparent shark sightings in East Hampton Village and elsewhere.

Beachgoers have also been marveling at humpback whales feeding off the South Fork shoreline for several weeks.

Ed McDonald, the beach manager for East Hampton Village, said swimmers and surfers should not be alarmed. There has never been a shark attack off East Hampton beaches.

Sharks, like the whales and dolphins, are coming closer to the shore because of an increase in menhaden, a kind of densely schooling, oily fish known locally as bunker.

“There has been so much incredible life in the water,” thanks to the schools of bunker, Mr. McDonald said yesterday. “It’s like an aquarium out there. It’s like taking a trip to the New England Aquarium.”

Whales, apparently humpbacks, have been spotted frequently in the last month off the south-facing beaches, including at Two Mile Hollow, Main, and Georgica in East Hampton, Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett, and at Scott Cameron in Water Mill.

Beaches to the west of East Hampton — Sagg Main, Mecox, and Scott Cameron — were closed by Southampton Town officials on Monday after lifeguards tracked a shark moving west from Peter’s Pond.

“We can’t confirm it was a shark, but given his experience and the size of the fish that was spotted, our chief lifeguard, Sean Crowley, felt it best to take precaution,” said Kristen Doulos, the Southampton Town parks director. Bathing beaches were open again on Tuesday morning.

Mr. McDonald was aware of the closings in the neighboring town, as well as reports that people bait-fishing off Georgica Beach had caught a sandbar shark. He said sandbar sharks, also known as brown sharks, can be recognized by their large dorsal fins; they are not aggressive.

Sandbar sharks feed on menhaden, snapper, and crustaceans. Landing sandbar sharks is prohibited in New York waters. According to the State Department of Environmental Conservation, anyone who inadvertently hooks one should cut the line or leader as close to the shark’s mouth as possible while it is still in the water.

Harvey Bennett of the Tackle Shop in Amagansett said that mako, dusky, brown, sand tiger, and thresher sharks had been caught in the surf here since about July 4, “this weekend, over 15 that I heard of.” In photographs from his tackle shop customers that Mr. Bennett shared with a reporter, the sharks appeared to be about four or five feet long and under.

There were no shark sightings at the guarded beaches in the Town of East Hampton, John Ryan Jr., the chief town lifeguard, said. However, he said they are out there, feeding under the baitfish. If a shark were seen at the surface, the lifeguards would pull people out of the water, he said.

“We have to understand,” Mr. Ryan said, “we share the ocean with them. . . . I swim in the Atlantic and I’m never worried in any way. Sharks are, as far as I’m concerned, more afraid of us than we should be of them.”

The closer the bunker schools come to shore, the closer predators come. “You can see them from the beach. It looks like a huge dark spot in the water,” Mr. McDonald said of the smaller fish. “They’ve been about 400 yards off the shore, but occasionally they come up right against the beach. Ospreys, too, are a part of the feeding frenzy.”

While sharks can cause fear among beachgoers and swimmers, humpback whales are a welcomed attraction. “The whales are absolutely gorgeous,” Mr. Ryan said, adding that the sight of them breaching the surface has been quite impressive.

“The humpbacks have been blasting and putting on shows,” Mr. McDonald said. A friend on a whale-watching boat told him that the whales have been going under the bunker schools and coming up with their mouths open wide.

Great white sharks are also out there, of course. OCEARCH, an organization that researches and tracks marine species, tagged a great white it called Mary Lee in the waters near Cape Cod, Mass., five years ago, and she has frequently been tracked along the coast of Long Island, including off East Hampton.

Earlier this week, the musician Jimmy Buffet joined an OCEARCH expedition off Montauk and helped tag a young great white that the crew named JD, in honor of Mr. Buffett’s father, James Delaney Buffett.

The five-foot-long male’s most recent ping on a satellite tracking system was midday Tuesday within sight of the beach in Wainscott.

With Reporting by David E. Rattray

Potentially harmful bacteria levels were detected in East End waters by the Concerned Citizens of Montauk and Surfrider Foundation Long Island Chapter in test samples taken on Monday.

In the Concerned Citizens testing, a sample taken in the ocean at the end of Otis Road at Ditch Plain in Montauk had an elevated enterococcus count, with 717 colony-forming units, the site's first "high bacteria" level in recent months. Bacteria counts above 104 colony-forming units, or cells able to divide, per 100 milliliters of water are considered unhealthy, according to a federal standard.

Enterococcus bacteria indicates the presence of feces in the water. It can cause gastrointestinal problems and issues with the skin, eyes, ears, and respiratory tract.

Also in Montauk, a sample from Little Reed Pond creek contained 683 cells and East Creek, 120 cells.

A sample from the Head of the Harbor at Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton also had a high count, with 573 cells. Fort Pond Bay in Montauk had a medium level of 82 cells.

Several test sites with recent high bacteria counts were not sampled because of a scheduling problem, Kate Rossi-Snook of C.C.O.M. said. These were Fresh Pond in Amagansett, Pussy's Pond in Springs, Hook Pond in East Hampton, and a stormwater outfall pipe at Surfside Place in Montauk.

Separately, the Suffolk Health Department issued an advisory warning bathers to stay out of the water at more than 60 beaches following Friday's heavy rain. On the East End, Haven's Beach in Sag Harbor was the only bathing beach for which the county issued a warning.

Jerry Larsen, a former East Hampton Village police chief seeking a seat on the East Hampton Town Board, cannot participate in a primary election to be a candidate on the Independence Party line, a judge in the State Supreme Court Appellate Division has ruled.

Mr. Larsen, who will be a candidate on the Republican Party line in the Nov. 7 general election, was among those seeking the Independence Party’s endorsement when it screened candidates in May. The party chose Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Jeffrey Bragman, who are both on the Democratic Party ticket, instead.

As a result, unless Mr. Larsen takes his case to the State Court of Appeals, there will be no Independence Party primary.

Mr. Larsen filed a petition with the Suffolk County Board of Elections on July 11 to be an Independence Party candidate for simply “town board” in the Sept. 12 primary election. The designating petition consisted of seven unnumbered and unbound pages.

On July 14, the Board of Elections determined that the petition was invalid, stating that it “was not in compliance with the Election Law and/or the [Board’s] Designating and Nominating Petition Guidelines and Requirements,” according to a decision dated Tuesday. Mr. Larsen filed a petition with the pages numbered and stapled together on July 17.

One week later, the East Hampton Democratic Party formally challenged Mr. Larsen’s petition, contending that it was defective because the original designating petition consisted of unnumbered, loose pages, and it was unclear as to the office he sought.

“There is no office called ‘town board,’ ” Christopher Kelley of the East Hampton Democrats said yesterday. “You’re either running as supervisor or councilman.” The law, he said, requires that a candidate clearly specify the office he or she is running for.

Mr. Larsen went to the State Supreme Court, which agreed that he had corrected the defects of his original petition and dismissed the proceeding.

The Democrats appealed, and the Appellate Division found that the Supreme Court had erred in finding that the petition had sufficiently described the office Mr. Larsen sought. “Pursuant to Town Law, every town board consists of ‘the supervisor’ and ‘the town councilmen,’ ” the decision reads, noting that the candidates elected to each office serve terms of different lengths. Mr. Larsen’s petition “was not sufficiently informative so as to preclude the possibility of confusion.”

Mr. Larsen did not immediately return a call yesterday afternoon seeking comment.

Another coyote has been found on the South Fork, this one spotted and photographed by Chris Bustamante in a grassy opening north of County Road 39, between Majors Path and North Main Street in Southampton less than a week ago. Dell Cullum, one of the first to see and photograph a coyote several years ago in the Sagaponack area, thinks it might be the same one that appeared in Water Mill a few years later.

Scientists who have studied the Eastern coyote now call it a coywolf, as it also has some gray wolf genetic material. It is a hybrid that probably resulted from the eastward march of the coyotes in the mid-1900s meeting up with the few remaining native wolves at that time in Canada and northern Michigan. When I was a wildlife conservation student at Cornell University in the 1950s, students there from rural New York State would talk about the coydogs, apparent hybrids between coyotes and dogs. 

Now we know from numerous studies of the creatures’ chromosomes and mitochondrial RNA that the coywolf is about 60 parts coyote, 30 parts wolf, and 10 parts dog. Wolves have apparently been interbreeding with dogs for thousands of years in the Old World, and now they are doing that with coyotes here in North America, probably because wolves have been slaughtered right and left since colonial times, and coyotes have increased their numbers greatly. It is now much easier for a horny wolf to find a willing female coyote than a purebred wolf. Thus the scientific name of the coydog has now become Canis latrans X Canis lupus. One could add “X Canis domesticus,” but scientific naming has yet to reach that level of sophistication.

In “The Mammals of Long Island, New York,” a definitive work on our mammals written in 1971 by Paul Connor of the New York State Museum in Albany, the coyote is not mentioned, but gray wolves are, as they were not uncommon here in colonial times. It is even postulated that the local wolves had been inbreeding with Native American dogs a long time before European settlement. 

An early act of the East Hampton Town Trustees forbade the letting loose of the Native American dogs because they could attack livestock pastured in Montauk and elsewhere in the town. Our gray wolves completely disappeared long before, along with the native wildcats, beavers, and black bears.

The existence of the last species on Long Island before settlement remains to be determined. The only evidence that Ursus americanus might have been on Long Island in the past are the teeth, bones, and claws recovered from Native American archaeological sites here.

The question raised by this latest observation is: Are these three sightings one and the same animal? We know that other coywolves occur here and there on Long Island. They have been seen in Nassau County and Queens. We know that there are a few in the Bronx, or at least they have been spotted there in the past. Will the local coywolf or coywolves find a mate or mates? Will they eventually prosper?

If they do multiply they will be competing for food with red foxes, raccoons, feral cats, and a few other here-and-there carnivores? Might they not keep the deer populations in check? The literature tells us that the coywolf is larger than a Western coyote, but smaller than a gray wolf. Several adult red foxes have been seen in the last couple of weeks, including one seen by me during a firefly expedition in Amagansett. But we know that the foxes have had a very tough time increasing their numbers after two very severe visitations by the mange in the years since 1985.

Then, too, there are those among us who would opt to suppress the coywolf population the way they have tried to suppress the white-tailed deer, the only large land mammal that has survived on Long Island for thousands of years. Indeed, the white-tail deer was here before the first Native Americans came ashore.

And then there’s this question: Is Wile E. Coyote a real coyote or just another impostor coywolf? Dell Cullum is trying to keep track of our coywolf or coywolves. If you see one you might call him. He’s in the phone book.

A police badge and new, state-of-the-art septic systems were topics at Friday’s meeting of the East Hampton Village Board, along with familiar disagreement about deer management and the perennial issue of parking.

In a brief ceremony, Michael Tracey, who was appointed acting chief of the village Police Department after Jerry Larsen announced his retirement in December, was named provisional chief. Though he stepped down in January, Chief Larsen’s retirement was official only as of July 31, the end of the fiscal year. The new title is provisional until Mr. Tracey passes the Suffolk County Civil Service test for police chiefs, which is offered in March.

Mr. Tracey has “demonstrated an ability to administer the department in a professional manner that is responsive to this community’s needs,” said Richard Lawler, a member of the board and its police commissioner. The provisional chief thanked the entire Police Department, whose members he called dedicated, hard-working, and well trained. “But the most important thing I’m going to take from today and endeavor to do every day I go to work, is remember that the reason I’m here is the work of others, the support of others, and the guidance over the years that I’ve gotten from others,” he said.

The promotion was “especially pertinent to the time that we’re living in now,” Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said, in an apparent reference to civil unrest and President Trump’s seeming endorsement, at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood last month, of rough police tactics.

“Godspeed to everyone in law enforcement who’s here today and around Long Island. . . . Hopefully our country is going to come together, reconcile, and be better as the future unfolds, but more importantly, to all of you in law enforcement, stay safe so you’re able to go home to your families at the end of the day,” the mayor said.

He also said the village board was in solidarity with the town’s anti-bias task  force, which issued a statement earlier this month on the recent violence in Charlottesville, Va.

As expected, the board voted to amend its freshwater wetlands regulations to exempt from village review the installation of innovative and alternative onsite wastewater treatment systems that the County Department of Health Ser­vices and State Department of Environmental Conservation have approved.

 Billy Hajek, the village planner, had told the board at its July 31 meeting that the amendment was intended to encourage the replacement of conventional or nonfunctioning systems with new ones that remove significantly more nitrogen.

Sara Davison, executive director of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, a group of private property owners that is seeking solutions to that pond’s degraded water quality, commended the board for its action. “These systems greatly reduce the amount of nitrogen entering our coastal wetlands and our groundwater,” she said. The amendment “will greatly help expedite the transition in the village.”

Earlier this month, the East Hampton Town Board adopted legislation requiring all new residential construction and commercial development to install newly approved low-nitrogen waste systems. The legislation also established incentives for replacing conventional systems. On Friday, Ms. Davison asked that the village follow the town’s lead with respect to new construction or major renovation of existing structures. “In these cases,” she said, “the soil is open, the site is disturbed, it’s much easier to get these newer systems,” which are larger than conventional systems, “into the ground without disturbance.”

The conversation about managing deer began with three speakers, all of whom have criticized the board’s efforts, appealing to the board to try a different approach or to simply leave deer alone.

A program to sterilize does “turned out to be a rather grisly process for a lot of the animals and people who saw them,” Zelda Penzel said, referring to the death of several sterilized does while birthing stillborn fawns. She said the white-footed mouse, and not deer, was the primary vector of ticks that carry Lyme disease.

Beverly Schanzer spoke out to criticize the questionnaire about deer recently distributed to residents by the village. When the questionnaire asks whether tick-borne illnesses that are associated with deer are a concern, “there is just one answer,” she said. She charged that a recent forum on ticks hosted by the Village Preservation Society, which had made a substantial donation toward the sterilization program, was instead a lecture,  “and not a totally accurate one at that.”

Yuka Silvera asked if the village could hire a specialist to count the deer population. “I don’t know how valid that would be,” the mayor said, citing a previous study. “The bottom line is, there are too many deer in the village.”

“That’s just your opinion,” Ms. Silvera responded. She also asked for stricter enforcement of speed limits to reduce deer-vehicle collisions.

“As [police] commissioner,” Mr. Lawler said, “I can tell you we have almost doubled our summonses from last year to this year. . . . We have done the things you’re suggesting.”

“Deer overpopulation is an extremely sensitive issue,” the mayor said. “Please understand, we are compassionate individuals, we love those creatures as much as anyone else, but have responsibilities as elected officials to try to grapple with it. What we come up with is not going to please everybody, but that’s a work in progress.”

Parking came up at the meeting when Anne Chaisson, executive director of the Hamptons International Film Festival, and Steven Ringel, director of the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce, asked the board to consider increasing the time allowed in the Reutershan lot from two to three or four hours on the weekend of the festival. The 25th annual film festival will be held from Oct. 5 to Oct. 9.

A two-hour limit is impractical for those attending screenings, Ms. Chaisson said, and the village’s shuttle service between long-term parking off Railroad Avenue and the commercial district is underutilized. “The point that really should be addressed by the board,” she said, is, “We want people to stay in town. We want them to go shopping. We want them to go eat. We’re here, hopefully, for economic development as well.”

“We’ll take that into consideration,” the mayor replied.

A giraffe at the East Hampton Village impound yard? That’s right: A 9-foot-tall plastic giraffe impounded after being found chained to a tree at the Nature Trail in June of 2016.

The Highway Department cut the chain and took the exotic animal to the Department of Public Works yard where it has been impounded ever since. It was never reported stolen, no one ever stepped forward to claim it, and now, more than a year later, the village is trying to figure out what to do with it. 

Rebecca Hansen, the East Hampton Village administrator, explained this week that having been abandoned for a full year, the giraffe is officially village property and state law allows the village to sell it in a property auction.

“It all depends on what it is,” June Lester, the East Hampton Village Board secretary, said. “If it’s worth something we sell it; if it’s not worth anything it goes to scrap.”

The village does not seem to consider the giraffe scrap, however, and its fate remained up in the air even though it has been declared surplus. “We can get rid of it now,” Ms. Lester said. “It will probably be an online auction, but it’s out of my hands.” While an auction seems likely, a date has not been set.  

Ms. Hansen suggested an alternative might be found, but she did not offer ideas about what that might be. “It could be auctioned off, or we may work out another arrangement, which may or may not be happening,” Ms. Hansen said

Despite the rain on Saturday, which forced the Rell Sunn Surf Contest in Montauk to be moved to Sunday, the event was a success.

“Because of the rain, it was postponed, but it was the best decision,” said Alice Houseknecht, an assistant to Roger Feit, a co-founder of the East End Foundation, which holds the Rell Sunn contest annually. “On Sunday we had weather on our side and we had waves, and therefore the turnout was greater than ever.”

The number of contestants was relatively typical, about 100 over all.

Jared Bono, 17, of Montauk, a junior professional surfer who competes in New York, California, and Costa Rica, also surfs in the Rell Sunn contest almost every year. He agreed that there were a lot of spectators this year. On Sunday, he won the men’s short board competition, but even with his many surfing accolades, this first place was special.

“It’s always nice to surf for a good cause and give back as much as you can,” Mr. Bono said. “And it’s fun to win something for your hometown, with your family and friends watching.”

In addition to the money raised from competitors’ registrations, throughout the day the East End Foundation sold raffle tickets and Rell Sunn T-shirts, sweatshirts, and posters. Ms. Houseknecht said they made several thousand dollars on Sunday but are continuing to tally it up.

The foundation is also looking forward to raising more money for the six families it is supporting this year during the Rell Sunn benefit art auction, which ended bidding on Tuesday. A party at the Atlantic Terrace Gallery in Montauk will take place on Saturday from 5 to 9 p.m. Jettykoon will provide the music.

The list of contest winners includes Noah Berkhofer in the menehune body board category;  menehune short board, Chase Leider; boys long board, Noah Avallone; girls short board, Chloe Coleman; open long board, Eric Schwab; stand-up paddleboard, Julius Yudelson; women under 30 long board, Brooke Esposito; women over 30 long board, Kristin Angiulo; women’s short board, Brooke Esposito, and men’s short board, Jared Bono.

Historical houses throughout East Hampton could be designated as landmarks, protecting them from demolition or substantial change, through a program being considered by the East Hampton Town Board that would also give their owners the right to build a second residence on their properties.

Thirteen of the most historically significant houses have been selected as candidates for landmarks in the first phase of the program, which was outlined on Tuesday for the board by Robert Hefner, a historic preservation consultant.

The program is modeled after one adopted by East Hampton Village through which 23 houses were tagged for preservation.

The lots on which numerous historical houses sit are of a size that would allow for large new houses to be built, some of them of the maximum size allowed, 20,000 square feet.

Town officials fear that new property owners would likely look to build new residences, leaving the fate of the historical structures at risk.

“Unfortunately, given the trend of new home development in our town, I think you’d have to guess that the likelihood is that many of these homes would be destroyed or expanded upon in such a way that their historic value would almost cease to exist,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said Tuesday.

Having two dwellings on one residentially zoned lot is not currently allowed, and bending that rule raises concerns about increasing density in neighborhoods, Mr. Cantwell acknowledged. He was an East Hampton Village administrator when the historic landmark program was established there, and said “there was such a compelling argument and need for protecting these priceless homes that it seemed warranted . . . and it’s worked out really well.” He endorsed “the idea of giving [property owners] some additional rights in return for limitations on what they can do and a commitment to protect the important historic house that’s there.”

The houses under consideration are “important homes in the community’s history,” Mr. Cantwell said. They include two houses on what was known as the East Side, along Old Stone Highway in Springs, that were in the Miller family. One, built in 1790, became the home of the keeper of the Montauk Lighthouse; the other dates from 1840.

Another house, that was also in the Miller family and is on Old Stone Highway, is Willow Hill, which Mr. Hefner said is “one of the oldest and best preserved in Springs.”

The list includes the Zadock Bennett house on Three Mile Harbor Road, the site more recently of the now-closed Pig Pen Produce farm stand. The 2.3-acre property, which is for sale, would accommodate a much larger new house, and the historic structure, said Mr. Hefner, “would, without question, be torn down” to make way for it. The 1850 John Dart house next door to it is also on the proposed landmark list.

The site of the historic Edwards house on Barnes Hole Road could, under current zoning, accommodate a 20,000-square-foot house, Mr. Hefner said. Designating the existing house as a landmark would ensure it remains, no matter what is built on the property in the future.

Another property on the proposed landmark list is an 1805 house on Fireplace Road in Springs, the only existing house “known to have been built by Nathaniel Dominy V, a millwright and cabinetmaker,” Mr. Hefner said.

Also on the list are the 1812 Talmage Barnes house on Abram’s Landing Road, and the 1892 Judge Vernon Davis house on Indian Wells Highway in Amagansett, which is “one of the best preserved summer cottages,” according to Mr. Hefner. A new house seven times its size could be built on the property should it be torn down, he said.

  Two other candidates for landmark designation, the Abraham Baker house on Cross Highway and the Samuel Hedges Miller house on Cedar Street, both in East Hampton, “illustrate the evolution of the Cape Cod from the 18th century to the mid-19th century,” Mr. Hefner said.

“The 18th-century Thomas Strong house on Wainscott Hollow Road [in Wainscott] has an authentic historic character that is so far removed from what we see in our town today as to be from another world,” Mr. Hefner said.

“I know all the board members appreciate the value of those important historic homes. They’re all about what we have been as a community; the history of them is fascinating, I think, because of who built them and who occupied them over time,” Mr. Cantwell said.

“It’s a very innovative approach to preserving the houses and it incentivizes for the property owner to do that,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said. Those who purchase pricey properties in East Hampton do not want to live in what may be considered “an inadequate house to maintain a modern lifestyle in,” he said.

Overall density, he pointed out, will not increase under the program, as the cap, based on property size, on the square footage of buildings on each lot will remain the same, though divided between two structures. Even though two families might live in the two houses on one site, he said, the number of bedrooms allowed on a property will not increase, “so we’re not just opening a floodgate for higher densities.”

The owners of the properties in question have been notified and provided with a set of the guidelines that would pertain should their historic houses become landmarks. Some changes would be allowed after review by the town’s architectural review board.

Councilman Fred Overton asked whether property owners could veto having their historic house landmarked, should the board enact the program. It would not be a voluntary program, Mr. Cantwell said. “In the end, zoning and those rights are rested in the authority of the board.”