At 3 a.m. on Saturday, when Kimberly Esperian woke up “by the grace of God” to get a glass of water, she looked out the window and noticed bits of ash falling. She walked onto her porch and was shocked to see sparks raining down against the black sky.

“What the hell is that?” she thought. She grabbed a hose and doused the fire. The source turned out to be a Chinese lantern almost three feet high, one of the rice paper and bamboo balloons beloved of beachgoers.

The candle left a black mark on her shingles.

“I look up and the frickin’ thing is on fire on my roof!” she said. “It was like a spaceship up there!”

Ms. Esperian lives on Second House Road in Montauk, parallel to Fort Pond and a mile north of Kirk Park Beach. On the Fourth of July weekend, she had discovered a red, white, and blue lantern tucked into her privet. The metal rods were still hot, she said, hours after it landed.

She had heard of these lights settling on neighbors’ roofs, but this was the first time she had laid eyes on them, let alonespotted two on her property a few weeks apart.

The lanterns add yet another item to the list of destructive merriment caused by weekend partiers in the easternmost hamlet. The danger they pose has actually been a topic of discussion for several years. In 2012, New York State declared them a “recreational fire.”

“So as soon as you let go of them, they are now an unattended fire, which would make them a violation of the fire code,” said David Browne, chief fire marshal of East Hampton Town. Violators could be presented with a fine of up to $1,000.

Ed Michels, the chief harbormaster, worries about the lanterns “getting into the beach grass or into the house. If it goes out to sea, it’s fine. But they’re not going to set them off at night and look at the wind direction.” Sometimes the lanterns float toward land.

Over the years, they have made contact with several buildings while their candles continued to burn. In 2012, one started a fire atop Montauk’s Albatross motel, and another was found tangled in a power line. That same year, Mr. Browne’s department handed out memos to local businesses selling the lanterns, noting the new state classification. However, selling them is not illegal — only untethering them is.

There have been several attempts at the town level to make the state rules even stricter. Former Supervisor Bill Wilkinson urged the town board to adopt a law forbidding their use altogether, but red tape at the state level killed the proposal.

Now, years later, dozens of lanterns continue to glow on summer nights. Over the weekend of the Fourth, beaches lit up with floating lamps ascending into the sky.

While most instances have occurred in Montauk, the issue is not confined to that hamlet. A letter to the editor in this issue of The Star rehashes a tiff between the writer and her neighbor in Amagansett, who wanted to release a lantern.

“They’re still out there. It’s still happening,” said Mr. Browne this week. He has not seen anyone ticketed, though. Packed beaches make it difficult to spot individual violators, he said. “The question has been catching them when they’re lighting them. By the time you get down to the beach, they’re gone.”

Mr. Michels said the same. “They’re very hard to control. Unless you watch them do it, who did it? Especially in the dark.”

The Marine Patrol hands out summonses and walks the ocean beaches to spot wrongdoers, who, Mr. Michels acknowledged, likely do not know that releasing the lamps breaches the fire code. Patrols have pinpointed only a handful of violators since 2012, with just a single person ticketed so far this season.

Mr. Michels said there have been fewer lanterns this year than in the past, though several residents have recently found crumpled remnants on their property. For several days last week, Joan Palumbo, Ms. Esperian’s neighbor, watched a white plastic bag caught on her roof before a storm on July 15 propelled it to the ground. Ms. Palumbo was enraged to realize it was a Chinese lantern, displaying a burn hole the size of a small apple.

She immediately filed a complaint with ordinance enforcement, stating angrily that “In the name of fun or mystical naval lint picking I do not wish to be burned alive as I try to sleep.”

“It’s like a battle zone,” she said, using an obscenity. “Nobody wants to blame the perpetrators. It is really chaotic and freaky. It’s getting worse.”

Ms. Esperian herself did not call ordinance enforcement or the police, given her exhaustion at 3 a.m. “There’s so many problems in Montauk, I don’t want to add to them,” she said this week.

David King, the Springs fire chief, keeps a tight watch on the department’s Facebook page, especially after an unexpected post implied poor conduct.

A reader once uploaded a photo of a fireman on the scene without turnout gear, the necessary suit and equipment to combat fires. Chief King surmised the picture could have been taken hours after the fire was extinguished, but out of context it evoked sloppy protocol and unprepared firemen.

Now, Chief King refuses to post content that may be misconstrued and does not grant just anyone permission to publish. He sticks with photos that portray positivity, like summer barbecues and department awards. He is convinced no one saw the unfortunate post, but in case it happens again, he does not want someone to think, “Jeez, this is normal operating procedure for you guys?”

In an attempt at transparency, a number of East End police and fire departments and public figures have begun using social media to reach and appease residents. Some have been particularly taking advantage of it since the recent uproar over Montauk’s party scene. Yet, by embracing these outlets, they have also made themselves vulnerable to criticisms and misconceptions.

Michael Sarlo, the chief of the East Hampton Town Police Department, oversees its Twitter and Facebook pages himself, using them to highlight enforcement efforts and provide traffic updates or report on incidents. He also lists the number of arrests, summonses, calls, and citations over a certain period of time in a given location.

37 town ordinance, 16 parking & 24 traffic citations, and 5 arrests made in Montauk overnight.

— EHTPD (@EHTPD1) July 12, 2015

“I’m hoping it’s reaching the people who are coming to visit us to see ‘Wow those guys out there are writing a lot of tickets.’ So it’s hopefully somewhat of a deterrent as well,” he said.

One such post from July 11 provoked anger and an ensuing Twitter spat from Ditch Plains Taxi, which replied, “as law enforcement, this is very unprofessional to use social media to this capacity.” They then linked the department’s tweet to their own Twitter page and wrote the department was boasting “about ticketing the public.”

In a rare move, Chief Sarlo decided to respond. He doesn’t believe Twitter serves as the proper forum for discussion and, like Chief King, is careful to screen for possible misinformation.

“Thank you, law enforcement uses information sharing to help deter offenses, not boast,” read his response on Twitter.

“Save it for the blotter in the @EHStar this is low class and unprofessional,” replied Ditch Plains Taxi. The conversation ended there.

Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Town Supervisor, created a Twitter account in May, and has already received some Twitter bashing as well. On June 5 he tweeted, “@uber cab partners need to be licensed like the 300 local cabs already are in #EastHampton.” Many agreed with Mr. Cantwell, but others called for him to “rethink the laws” and make the town safer by supporting Uberin East Hampton.

Jolene Sugarbaker tweeted back, “@LarryCantwellEH Consumers have spoken, we demand this service! Get off your Political High Horse, Major Cities have accepted just fine.” She continued to tweet several times, accusing Mr. Cantwell of allowing drunken driving on the road.

For Mr. Cantwell, Twitter is not his main social media outlet. He cares more about Facebook, and is a veteran user. He established his “official” page a few years ago and still has a personal profile. Sixty-five people follow him on Twitter and over 2,000 like him on Facebook. So far, he has found that Twitter works well for reaching the out-of-towners, but unlike Chief Sarlo, he wants to focus on residents and prefers Facebook for that.

After the Fourth of July revelries in Montauk, he published a statement on Facebook saying, “The unacceptable behavior of visitors to Montauk last weekend is outrageous and clearly requires prompt and forceful action. I have directed all of our enforcement personnel to bring their full resources to address illegal activity. There are many issues to address and I am committed to do so. I want to thank the Police Department and our other enforcement departments for their cooperation. We will all work with the residents of Montauk and turn this untenable situation around.”

The post garnered 195 likes, 50 comments, and 21 shares, well above his average of 30 or so likes.

“This is me. This is Larry talking. I just want to be able to provide as much information in a timely way as I can. I feel I have a responsibility as supervisor to do that,” he said.

Chief King and Chief Sarlo agree that social media has increased awareness and helped pump up their departments’ public relations. Yet Chief King remains vigilant about gossip or inappropriate comment.

“I’m going to deal with them harshly,” he said. “Lucky we haven’t had any of that.”

“Hopefully the chief won’t ban me for starting this page,” reads the first status on his department’s Facebook page from 2010. Apparently, things went okay.

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The unacceptable behavior of visitors to Montauk last weekend is outrageous and clearly requires prompt and forceful...

Posted by Larry Cantwell on Saturday, July 11, 2015

Update: After about seven hours and involving at least a dozen fire departments from across the South Fork, a fire that broke out in a Southampton Village house on Saturday afternoon was extinguished. 

Some firefighters remained at the house, located at 50 Wyandanch Lane, until about 10 p.m. The fire started at about 12:25 p.m., when a grease fire was reported in the kitchen. The fire spread and burned for nearly seven hours. The house was destroyed. 

In the early hours, smoke billowed from the stucco house; later, flames could be seen shooting through the roof. Firefighters attacked it with water from a ladder truck. At about 5:30 p.m., the East Hampton Fire Department brought in its "crash truck," which is kept at the East Hampton Airport and can spray foam that suffocates flames. Excavators were also called in to knock down portions of the house so that stubborn pockets of fire could be reached. 

Smoke drifted around the area, including at Southampton Hospital, which is less than a half-mile away. The smell of smoke remained in the area late Saturday night. 

In all, 12 fire departments were called. More than 200 firefighters, fire police, and emergency medical technicians responded. 

During the fire, emergency workers also had to respond to other calls, including an accident in Southampton Village and a reported water rescue in North Sea. 

Lawrence Friedman, a real estate mogul, and his wife, Marilyn Friedman, bought the house in 2004 for $7 million, online records show. The house is several properties north of the ocean at Wyandanch Lane Beach. 

No further information was available late Sunday night.

Originally, 2:31 p.m.: Nine fire departments between Westhampton and East Hampton have been called to respond because of a fire that reportedly destroyed a house in Southampton Saturday afternoon. 

Firefighters from East Hampton, Sag Harbor, and Bridgehampton were called to assist the Southampton Fire Department in fighting a blaze at 50 Wyandanch Lane, which began at about 12:25 p.m.

The North Sea, Hampton Bays, East Quogue, and Westhampton Fire Departments were also called to help.

While East Hampton and Bridgehampton Fire Departments were initially called to stand by at Southampton's firehouse in case there were other alarms, firefighters were moved up to help at the scene as firefighters had to be rotated out after using up their oxygen tanks and due to the heat. As of 2:10 p.m., the Westhampton Fire Department was going to stand by at the firehouse. 

Firefighters were also called over from Shelter Island to keep watch in Sag Harbor while Sag Harbor was tied up in Southampton. 

No further information was immediately available.

Not long before the summer season began, the owners of a Kettle Hole Road house in Montauk heard it was being used as an illegal share house, and, they said Monday, there was nothing they could do about it. "It's a nightmare," Dr. Marie Savard said.

Dr. Savard, a best-selling author of books on health and fitness and a former on-camera contributor to ABC News, and Dr. Bradley W. Fenton, an internist practicing in Philadelphia and the former team doctor for the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association, have owned the four-bedroom house at 37 Kettle Hole Road since buying it 18 years ago from its original owner, Jeanette Rattiner. The 2,500-square-foot house, on 1.37 acres, has over 1,200 square feet of decking, a 700-square-foot pool and hot tub, and a view of Fort Pond Bay. It is extensively landscaped.

In East Hampton Town Justice Court on Sunday, Scott D. Shulman of Dix Hills, 32, said he was "a share-house manager in Montauk," as he was being arraigned on a felony drunken-driving charge, having been arrested early that morning on Flamingo Avenue in Montauk. Mr. Shulman told East Hampton Town Justice Steven Tekulsky that he had been living at 37 Kettle Hole Road since Memorial Day weekend.

Justice Tekulsky asked him if he was aware share houses were illegal in East Hampton. "I am, your honor. I'm just trying to be truthful," Mr. Shulman replied.

"I'm trying to be truthful, as well," Justice Tekulsky replied, before setting bail at $7,500.

When a visitor knocked on the front door of the house Sunday afternoon, the woman who answered said she was not one of the renters, but was there as a guest. Behind her, an L-shaped couch in the middle of the living room had sheets and blankets on it and appeared to have been slept in.

For the two doctors in Philadelphia, none of this was news. Their three sons are now adults, and this was the first summer that everyone in the family was headed in a direction that did not include Montauk. Dr. Fenton and Dr. Savard decided to rent the house for the season.

They had gone through a broker, Atlantic Beach Realty Group. As subscribers to The Star, they said, they had read of horror stories involving Montauk houses rented through online web sites. They wanted to do this rental the right way, through an agent.

Atlantic Beach Realty presented them with two men who were interested in renting for the season. The price would be $85,000, less the 10 percent commission for the real estate company. The men agreed to pay an additional $8,500 as a deposit. All this was done by the end of April.

Dr. Savard and Dr. Fenton, to prevent the possibility of the house being used by a group, included a stipulation in the lease restricting occupancy to eight people, allowing for guests.

The names on the lease were Christian Arcello of West Islip and Anthony Pisciotto Jr. of Lake Grove.

Betsy Bambrick, director of the East Hampton Town Ordinance Enforcement Department, announced in a release yesterday that Mr. Pisciotto, who lives in East Setauket, has been cited for multiple violations at the house. They include "health/safety violations (smoke/carbon monoxide detectors) zoning violations relative to change of use converting rooms to sleeping quarters, partial occupancy, and no Building Permits or Certificates of Occupancy, plus additional charges."

Mr. Arcello's LinkedIn page identifies him as a real estate and restaurant investor.

The homeowners, who said that they in no way blamed Atlantic Beach Realty Group for what happened after the lease was signed, interviewed the two men. Lynden Restrepo, head of the real estate company, said Tuesday that the company and the two doctors worked together to screen potential renters, checking references.

Mr. Pisciotto and Mr. Arcello asked whether they could move in a couple of days earlier than Memorial Day, and leave a little after Labor Day. The homeowners agreed.

"The biggest mistake we ever made," Dr. Savard said.

The week before Memorial Day, the doctors discovered that a carbon monoxide detector in the house had malfunctioned and kept going off. They sent a handyman to fix it. It was May 20, the day the tenants took possession.

The handyman called the homeowners soon after he arrived at the house. In the basement, he found that new wallboard partitions had been installed in just hours, creating new rooms. The garage, which is large enough for at least two cars, had been divided as well.

In addition, the couple's home gym had been cleared of equipment and set up as a bedroom.

According to Mr. Pisciotto, the handyman entered the house illegally.

"These young kids are so savvy, knowing how to pull things like this off," Ms. Restrepo said. "It amazes me how smart they are."

Mr. Pisciotto denied the allegations yesterday. "We put up a divider, not a wall," he said. He pointed out that until yesterday, he and Mr. Arcello had not been cited for any violations.

For his part, Mr. Shulman said that he was aware that questions had been raised about the house he was staying in and managing. "I wanted to give you a heads-up, absolutely there will be a defamation-of-character lawsuit, minimally, in regards to anything of that nature published," he said.

In a subsequent phone call, Mr. Shulman said there was a "fixed number" of renters in the house, six. The East Hampton Town Code limits rentals to four unrelated adults and prohibits the selling of shares, fractionalized interests, or partial occupancies.

After receiving the call from the handyman, the doctors wanted the tenants evicted. But all the lawyers they consulted with told them the same thing: The eviction process would be costly and likely not successful until the end of the season.

Instead, they contacted code enforcement. According to Dave Betts, the town's director of public safety, officers visited the house on May 22. They issued a warning, and when code enforcement officers returned on May 23, the walls were gone. No summonses were issued.

Mr. Pisciotto asked yesterday how it would be possible, if they had put up wallboard, to clear it out so fast. He called the charge "ridiculous."

The owners, however, demanded weekly inspections, and the tenants agreed, to a point; weekend inspections would not be allowed, Ms. Restrepo said.

"In all my years in the business, I've never had something like this happen," she said. The problem for the homeowners, she explained, is that once a lease is executed, the broker can only visit the property with the lease-holders' permission.

Ms. Restrepo has been allowed to visit the house on Mondays or Tuesdays. She has never seen any violations, she said.

But on Tuesday afternoon, code enforcement officers revisited the house. Yesterday morning, they returned, summonses in hand.

Mr. Pisciotto defended himself and Mr. Arcello yesterday. For example, he said, they were cited for putting a lock on a door. "That is to protect our valuables," Mr. Pisciotto said, adding that because the handyman had entered the house without their permission, they felt the need to secure their belongings.

Another summons was for storing multiple beds in the erstwhile gym room. Mr. Pisciotto said those were for guests, in the event they had too much to drink. "We're in our 30s. We are in Montauk to have fun," he said.

He denied that they were using the premises as a share house. "I think some things have been misconstrued."

The arrest and arraignment of Mr. Shuman, the house manager, is reported elsewhere in this issue. Mr. Pisciotto and Mr. Arcello are to appear in Justice Court on Aug. 10.

After reports of overcrowding and other problems at Harbor Raw Bar and Lounge near the Montauk Docks, East Hampton Town got a judge on Wednesday to agree to put the clamps on the party.

In her decision, Acting Supreme Court Justice Denise F. Molia granted a temporary restraining order that blocked the use of the restaurant as a nightclub and said that its owners could face criminal contempt charges if they allowed the number of patrons to exceed its official occupancy limit of 68 guests.

According to a statement issued by East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell, Harbor had been cited on multiple occasions with as many as 300 people on premises.

The restraining order is in place until July 30, when the both sides will return for a court conference.

Harbor was represented in the proceeding by Harvey Arnoff, a Riverhead lawyer.

Spiritoso L.L.C. paid $2.85 million when it bought the property at 440 West Lake Drive in Montauk on Jan. 30. The key management players are James Willis and Robert Hirsh, according to Whalebone Magazine. They brought in Ja Rule for a well-attended Memorial Day weekend rap performance.

In his statement, Mr. Cantwell said, "This is part of the Town of East Hampton's effort to address those businesses that have turned their establishment into nightclubs with the requisite approvals and invited overcrowding without regard to the occupancy limits set forth in state law."

He said that Harbor did not have a sprinkler system and that it had been cited on multiple occasions since May for overcrowding.

A new law dictating that all beach fires be built in a metal container, and not directly on the sand, will be the subject of a hearing before the East Hampton Town Board on Aug. 6.

An increasing amount of charred debris and fire remains strewn across the sand, turning once-white beaches grey, and increasing litter and safety concerns for those walking barefoot across the beach in the daylight hours, is one among the many challenges wrought by the burgeoning summer population in the town.

Such issues are coming to a head this summer, with Montauk residents calling on town officials to pull out all the stops to rein in unacceptable behavior and illegal activities in that hamlet, ground zero for the party scene.

Town officials discussed enacting the new beach fire regulation several weeks ago after a young child burned her feet on embers in the sand. After a meeting in Montauk on Tuesday where hundreds of residents turned out to air concerns about that and other issues, the board voted on Thursday night to set the beach fire hearing. The hearing will begin at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall.

A similar law was passed by East Hampton Village several years ago.

The proposed requirement, according to the board resolution, will help those who enjoy beach fires “to better comply with existing regulations which require the fire to be properly and completely extinguished and the debris properly and completely disposed of to restore the site to its natural condition.”

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is investigating the deaths of three deer discovered in an open farm field in Wainscott on Friday morning. 

A D.E.C. officer was seen looking over the bodies of what appeared to be a doe and two fawns in the field at the corner of Wainscott's Main Street and Town Line Road around 10:30 a.m. The adult deer and one of the fawns were lying nearby each other, and another fawn was lying several feet away. 

Aphrodite Montalvo, a spokeswoman for the D.E.C., confirmed that the agency is investigating but was unable to offer further details, other than to say it was first reported to her department earlier on Friday morning. "They don't know if it was illegal or legal at this point," Ms. Montalvo said. 

Wildlife nuisance permits do allow hunters to shoot deer outside of deer hunting season. 

The property, part of a 15.3-acre farm at 75 Town Line Road, is owned by the Estate of Albert C. Hand Jr., tax map records show. The field is less than a half-mile from the Wainscott School. Across the street from the field are several homes. 

Stop & Shop will be taking over the Waldbaum's stores in East Hampton and Southampton Villages as part of a $146 million deal. 

Stop & Shop Supermarket Company L.L.C. announced on Monday that it has entered into an agreement with the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, which owns A&P and Waldbaum's stores and has filed for bankruptcy, to purchase 25 of the stores in the greater New York area. 

When the deal is finalized, the Waldbaum's locations on the South Fork will be converted into Stop & Shop stores. The closest Stop & Shop locations are Hampton Bays and Riverhead. 

The plan has to be approved by the court. Other Waldbaum's stores on Long Island, including the one in Riverhead, are closing. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2015.

East Hampton Town appealed a federal court injunction on Wednesday that barred the implementation of a law adopted in April that would have restricted the noisiest aircraft to one trip per week at East Hampton Airport.

The law was adopted along with two others implementing an overnight curfew for aircraft, which has been in effect since July 2. Opponents of airport use restriction have sued over the laws, and won the injunction against the third law.

According to a town press release, “the three use restrictions were intended to work together to provide noise relief,” and the one-trip-per-week restriction “is an integral part” of the town’s plan to address the aircraft noise issues that have prompted thousands of complaints from across the East End.

"We believe all three laws are lawful and necessary to protect the quality of life on the East End,” said Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell in the release. “The one trip per week restriction was designed to limit the noisiest aircraft during the summer season,when residents and visitors naturally have a heightened expectation that they can enjoy the outdoor environment,” said the press release.

The town has retained Kathleen M. Sullivan, described as “one of the nation’s preeminent appellate attorneys,” to assist its airport legal firm, Kaplan Kirsch Rockwell, in the appeal.

Deborah Ann Light, a philanthropist, founding member of the Peconic Land Trust, and a pioneering Wiccan priestess, died on Tuesday in Gainesville, Fla., after a long illness. She was 80.

Ms. Light, the only child of Dr. Rudolph Alvin Light and the former Ann Bonner Jones, was born in London in 1935 while her parents were attending Oxford University. She grew up on a large farm in Nashville, where her father, an heir to the Upjohn pharmaceutical fortune, taught surgery at Vanderbilt University.

She attended St. Anne’s Preparatory School in Charlottesville, Va., debuted at Nashville’s Belle Meade Country Club in 1953, lived in Italy in the late 1950s, and received a bachelor’s degree in textile design from the School for American Craftsmen at the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1961. Her three marriages — to the sculptor Tom Muir Wilson in 1958, the painter Robert Thomas Taugner in 1962 (with whom she had a son, Michael, in 1963), and the Broadway stage manager Peter Jennings Perry in 1966 — ended in divorce.

After living for a time at 1 Patchin Place in Greenwich Village, Ms. Light settled year round in Amagansett in 1967, purchasing 30 acres known as Quail Hill and devoting herself to local politics and community service. Six feet tall and often impeccably dressed in clothes she made with a Manhattan couturier, she was known to enjoy making an entrance.

She took an interest in grapes, needlepoint, baroque gold jewelry, miniature houses, and other divertissements, along with countless board memberships and fund-raisers. Friends noted that there were also some eccentricities, notably the 36 cats she kept for a short while, which were fictionalized in a 1974 thriller, “Feral,” by her neighbor Berton Roueche, a New Yorker writer.

Ms. Light loved the East End, and over the next two decades steadily acquired, parcel by parcel and often from her friend Evan Frankel, contiguous farmland. She was known to have joked that “come the revolution, we’ll at least have potatoes to eat.”

Dependably Democratic, she ran for a seat on the East Hampton Town Board in 1978 but was defeated. Appointed by a Republican in 1981 to the Suffolk County Farmland Committee, she served on it for a decade and in 1983 was asked to help establish the Peconic Land Trust.

While she enjoyed what she called her “Wyoming view” east of her driveway, Ms. Light’s intention always had been to preserve her land, and in 1990 she started the process with a donation of 20 of Quail Hill’s 30 acres to the Peconic Land Trust. Five years later she followed with 190 acres of adjacent farmland.

Her neighbors to the north, the de Cuevas family, similarly began commitments in 1990 to the trust, which together ultimately resulted in the protection of the bulk of the Amagansett watershed. This was anonymously noted in the Aug. 6, 1990, Talk of the Town section of The New Yorker under the tag “Sharecroppers.”

The heart of Quail Hill became one of the original Community Supported Agriculture farms in the United States, and Ms. Light moved to a modest house in Sag Harbor, where she lived until 2009, delighted, according to her son, to have a postage-stamp backyard, a lower local profile, and “walkable proximity to the post office.”

In the early 1980s, she began questioning why the three dominant world religions defined divinity as exclusively masculine. She began to study and practice Wicca, a neo-pagan, Earth-revering religion, and, in 1985, received a master’s degree in religious studies from Vermont College, Norwich University. Her thesis was “Contemporary Goddess Worship: The Old Religion as Currently Practiced in the United States.”

That year, Ms. Light met Jeri Baldwin of Ocala, Fla., and they became committed life partners, dividing their time between the North and the South. Living in Quail Hill’s historic 1870s windmill, Ms. Light took up the moniker “Hedgewitch” and apparently delighted in shocking some members of the community with what she called “radical pagan Wiccan feminist lesbianism.” But she was more often than not traveling, giving presentations celebrating life’s rites of passage before women’s and pagan groups.

“The Crooning of Crones,” “Medusa Speaks to Men,” “Of Witches and Wise Ones,” and “Women’s Work in Women’s Words” were some of her written pieces. She began weaving poetry and performance in her travels, and also became a passionate quilter, working for many years with a South Fork quilting group named the Gathering of the Goddesses.

From 1986 onward, Ms. Light and Ms. Baldwin assembled 741 contiguous acres in north central Florida’s Marion County, creating an educational organic farm, feminist retreat, and nature preserve known as Crones Cradle Conserve, and providing produce and farm products to the neighboring towns of Ocala and Gainesville. It became a private foundation in 2010.

Her mother, Ann Jones Light, a longtime resident of East Hampton, did not approve of her daughter’s transformation. After her death, in 1989, Ms. Light promptly auctioned her mother’s jewelry at Christie’s, using the proceeds to start the Thanks Be to Grandmother Winifred Foundation, which gave 321 grants over the next decade to individual women age 54 and older for projects designed to enrich the lives of other adult women. The archives of the foundation are in the Schlesinger Library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

In 1993 Ms. Light attended the second Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago. She was clergy in the three largest United States pagan affiliations: EarthSpirit in Massachusetts, Circle Sanctuary in Wisconsin, and Covenant of the Goddess in California.

In 1994, Ms. Light was diagnosed with inoperable, terminal lung cancer and given a 95-percent chance of dying within six months. Refusing chemotherapy but undergoing 36 rounds of radiation, she lived another 21 years with what her son said was verve and characteristic aplomb, finally moving in 2009 from Sag Harbor to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, a retirement community.

In a life of philanthropic generosity, civic service, spiritual practice, and no small amount of questioning and bold living, Ms. Light leaves numerous and diverse people across America inspired by her example.

She is survived by her partner, Jeri Baldwin, and her son, Michael Light, an artist based in San Francisco.

A memorial for Ms. Light is planned for Sept. 19 at Quail Hill.