A three-floor, 31,000-square-foot compound on Halsey Lane in Bridgehampton, which is listed for sale for $49.5 million, raised the hackles of neighbors last month when its owner, Joe Farrell, a prominent builder of luxury houses on the South Fork, applied for permission to build an equestrian barn on his property.

    The spread, called Camp Farrell, includes a 12-bedroom house on a 3-acre parcel where Mr. Farrell and his wife and three children now live, and an adjacent 8.6-acre reserve, where a 4,410-square-foot barn is proposed that would house seven horses. It would add to the outdoor features of the compound, which already include a sunken tennis court, 60-foot swimming pool, and a baseball field.

    The house, which is named “Sandcastle,” is designed around a recreational pavilion, which has a 10-seat interactive theater, a D.J. booth, a spa and gym, basketball and squash courts, a two-lane bowling alley, rock wall, and a half-pipe skateboard ramp. According to the Web site Curbed Hamptons, it can be rented for two weeks in August for $550,000.

    The application now before the Southampton Town Planning Board is for a special exception permit for the barn and permission to relocate a deeded 20-foot-wide right of way onto the agricultural reserve, which had been set aside by the former owner of the property, Ahmet Ertegun, in 1999.

    At a well-attended public hearing of the planning board on Feb. 9, several neighbors spoke in opposition to the barn and took issue with the relocation of a gravel driveway.

    In an interview on Tuesday, Kristen Farrell called the house the “most detailed home yet.” Although it is listed for sale, she said “it was not our intention to sell it.” She explained that having the house on the market made it possible for prospective customers to see what the Farrell construction company was capable of. However, she added that they would sell it if the right offer were made.

    Debra Srb, a neighbor since 1994, objected to moving the access, fearing it would decrease the value of her property. She also complained about glaring spotlights, A.T.V.s, and the use of sprinklers and removal of sod on the reserve. Another neighbor, Daniel Rosen, called the proposal an inappropriate use of an agricultural reserve. He said that the deeded easement called for “no streets [or] roadways for non-farming use.” He also said the reserve was smaller than the 10 acres required as a minimum for equestrian barns in the town’s zoning code.

    Ms. Farrell disagreed. She said the code allowed the planning board to approve barns on smaller parcels provided they were for fewer than 10 horses and for private use. The relocation of the driveway had been a planning board recommendation, Ms. Farrell added. The driveway had been a planning board recommendation, Ms. Farrell added. The original access would have gone through neighbors’ yards and right beside a swimming pool, she said.

    Ms. Farrell said she was not prepared for the neighbors’ comments at the hearing, neighbors whose grandchildren, she said, have played baseball on their property. She alleged that other neighbors knew about the plans when purchasing their house. And, she added, those who complained at the hearing about parties on the property had not noted that they were benefits, for hospitals and other local causes.

    Mr. Farrell’s attorney, John Bennett, said on Tuesday that the proposed equestrian use was traditional and neither invasive nor dangerous, as another agricultural use, such as crop farming with pesticides, fertilizers, and fungicides, might be. He clarified a misconception that the barn required a variance, saying it was instead “a use permitted upon special exception, appropriate to the area.”

    “I guess the neighbors have no sense of mom and apple pie,” Mr. Bennett said, “They are against horses and baseball?”

    The only variance involved, Ms. Farrell said, is a matter of 10 feet. “The horse farm makes sense. It’s an equestrian community.” She said the couple were in no rush to complete the project, but believe they should have permission in place.

    According to documents on file, Bruce Anderson of Suffolk Environmental Consulting, a private firm, agreed “the use is consistent with the agricultural easement.” He confirmed, after questioning at the hearing, that the horses would be for private use, not for boarding, equestrian events, or commercial enterprise.

    The planning board had sent letters asking for recommendations to the Bridgehampton advisory council, the Southampton Fire Department and fire marshal, and the town agricultural advisory committee, engineer, and conservation board, and the county planner and Department of Health. It had left the hearing open for comments for 30 days, so a decision may be imminent.

    On Monday, the Department of the Interior officially designated the Montauk Point Lighthouse a national historic landmark.

    It took the advisory board of the agency’s National Park Service six years to study the application submitted by the Montauk Point Lighthouse Museum.

    “It’s great. The designation will be a financial advantage,” said Brian Pope, the museum’s assistant site manager. He explained that grant proposals, for instance, might be given a priority as well as help in the event of damage from a monster storm or other calamity. He said a celebration would take place sometime next summer.

    The Lighthouse is the 12th national landmark on Long Island. There are only 2,500 in the entire country, one of which is the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor, and two of which are in the Town of East Hampton — the Thomas Moran House on Main Street in East Hampton and the Pollock-Krasner House on Springs-Fireplace Road in Springs.

    The Montauk Point Lighthouse was commissioned by President George York City Chamber of Commerce going back to 1792 to show the dominant role the Lighthouse played in both pre- and post-Revolutionary War trade between New York and England.

    Specifically, Mr. Hefner was able to show that the Light’s position relative to the prevailing winds made the landmark vital to navigation in the age of sail up until the time when steam-powered vessels were deemed trustworthy enough to ply a direct course to New York Harbor.

    By the time the Montauk Lighthouse was built, New York Harbor was handling a third of the nation’s trade with other countries. According to the city’s 1870 commerce and navigation report, 75 percent of all goods imported from Great Britain and 89 percent of all goods from France — a total of 44 percent of all American imports — entered this country through New York Harbor following the same sea routes protected by the Montauk Light.

    “Bob Hefner was one hell of a detective,” Mr. Pope said, adding that Eleanor Ehrhardt, a member of the museum’s Lighthouse committee, “spearheaded the process.”

    Work began this week to buttress and repair the southwest portion of the stone revetment that protects the new national landmark.

    Greg Donohue, a committee member and expert on shoreside erosion control, said the work, being done under a permit from the State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Long Island State Parks Department, was to repair a settling, or “slump,” in the existing revetment that occurred during the last year in the area behind a concrete structure known to surfers as the Alamo.

    The structure was a World War II-era fire-control bunker that years ago fell because of erosion from the top of Turtle Hill, as the Montaukett Indians called the bluff on which the Lighthouse sits.

    Mr. Donohue said that a level of boulders was being added to about 140 linear feet of revetment on the Turtle Cove side to bring its height up to 19 feet above sea level in keeping with the height of the stonework that rings the sand and clay Lighthouse bluff.

    Citizen activists from Springs, frustrated by continuing problems from illegally overcrowded housing in that hamlet, called on the East Hampton Town Board last week to hold a summit on the issue, allowing the public to directly question the head of the town’s public safety and code enforcement divisions. They asked the board to help code enforcers step up their efforts by strengthening town codes, making search warrants more readily available so that complaints are not so often dismissed due to lack of evidence, and said the town should issue weekly reports to the media and public about cases of potential violations, and their resolution in court.

     Members of the Concerned Citizens of Springs, a group formed around the issue of housing violations and their impacts, including rising school taxes and an overcrowded Springs School, issued a written call for action last week, and spoke at a town board meeting last Thursday.

    David Buda, a Springs resident and founder of the group, said that despite the efforts being made by the Ordinance Enforcement Department, violations continue at many properties where owners or tenants refuse a request for a voluntary inspection, impeding the ability to make a case that will stand up in court.

    When they are refused entry into a house, code enforcement officers “are simply closing out complaints” they are looking into, he claimed.

    Although constitutional civil rights issues must be considered before a search warrant is executed, Mr. Buda said that the town code could provide a legal basis for one if certain conditions indicating violations are found, such as multiple cars outside a residence, or more than one utility meter.

    Even after being fined, some property owners continue to violate the code, he said, showing pictures of several properties that he said had ongoing problems.

    “These are not victimless crimes,” Carol Buda told the board. When single-family residences are used as multiple-family dwellings, she said, the entire community is affected, from the children attending a crowded school to the taxpayers paying for it, and the residents whose property values are going down. “Law-abiding people also have rights,” she said. Ms. Buda asked the town board to direct police officers to report potential housing violations to the Code Enforcement Department.

    Mr. Buda noted that he and other representatives of the group have been pressing the town board for solutions for over a year. The board, he said, has had “summit” meetings on deer management, and several on business. He asked that officials “focus the same degree of attention on housing code enforcement.”

    “Imagine yourselves living next to a house with 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 cars,” he said, “and debris strewn about the property — neglected and blighted. And imagine that your taxes are going up every year, significantly, while your property value is going down,” said Fred Weinberg.

    “I have to ask you, do you think your core competencies will allow you to do something about the issue? Do you?” he asked, referring to a phrase often used by Supervisor Bill Wilkinson in assessing what the town should and shouldn’t do.

    Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said that she supported the idea of holding a housing summit. But, she said, “I’d like to see things stay on a positive note.”

    After appealing a denial of a request to receive code enforcement data, The Star learned earlier this month that the town will provide regular reports.

    Patrick Gunn, the head of the town’s Public Safety Division, which includes the Ordinance Enforcement Department, said Tuesday that housing code violations get top attention in the winter months, January to April, when there are fewer other complaints competing for officers’ attention.

    One part-time and four full-time officers work scattered shifts, covering the hours between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. this time of year, he said, although hours are adjusted, if necessary, to develop information about a specific case. In the summertime, officers work overnight.

    Mr. Gunn said that, 18 months after his appointment, the department is “operationally sound” and the officers are “all working hard.” Data about code violation cases are compiled in quarterly reports, he said, that are publicly available. 

   Rarely does someone in the arts or letters live a life as newsworthy as Barney Rosset. Obituaries have been running into three and four pages online and The New York Times began his obituary on its front page. They recount his multiple publishing ventures, the landmark censorship cases he won, and his association with some of the most significant writers of the 20th century.

     As the owner of Grove Press, which he purchased in 1951, he published D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" and Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer," both of which were banned in this country. Successfully challenging the law, he made literary history.

     Grove Press released other novels by Lawrence and Miller, as well as works by Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Jack Kerouac, Edward Albee, Eugene Ionesco, William S. Burroughs, Hubert Selby, Jr., Jean-Paul Sartre, Tom Stoppard, Octavio Paz, Marguerite Duras, Marshall McLuhan, Che Guevara, Vaclav Havel, Kenzaburo Oe, and Malcolm X, among many others, either at Grove or at Evergreen Review, a literary journal he founded in 1957 and published until 1973. Evergreen has continued online  since 1999.

  Mr. Rosset, who lived in New York and East Hampton, died in New York City at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center on Feb. 21 at the age of 89 after heart valve surgery.

     Barney Lee Rosset Jr. was born in Chicago on May 22, 1922 to Barnet Lee and Mary Tansey Rosset and grew up there, attending the progressive Francis W. Parker School, which would shape much of his approach to life and higher education. He attended Swarthmore, Vassar, and the University of California at Los Angeles before joining the Army in World War II, during which he was stationed in China as a photographer. He eventually received bachelor's degrees from the University of Chicago and then the New School of Social Research in 1952.

     His first marriage, in 1949, to the artist Joan Mitchell, whom he knew from Chicago, ended after three years, but the couple enjoyed a friendship that continued for most of their lives. They first came to East Hampton in the early 1950s. In 2008, Mr. Rosset told The Star that he nearly "drove into the ocean in a snowstorm" during his first winter here. In 1952, he bought an eccentric Quonset hut on Georgica Road, which had been built by Robert Motherwell in collaboration with the French architect Pierre Chareau. His plans to move Grove Press there never materialized.

     Later, he bought land off Springy Banks Road, where he often entertained, and developed Hampton Waters. David Myers of East Hampton, a friend, recalled the venture. "He sold the houses specifically to people who were artists, although that quickly evaporated and a lot of people who weren't artists but were sympathetic ended up living there. Ray Parker [an Abstract Expressionist] bought one of the first sites for $40,000."

      "Real estate wasn't as simple a business as I thought," Mr. Rosset had said. Still, he left his mark on East Hampton. Peter's Path was named after Mr. Rosset's son, and Albertine's Lane after his cat.

     It was in 1959 that he published Lady Chatterley, which was banned by the postmaster general as obscene and therefore ineligible for shipment. An ardent free speech advocate, he challenged the censorship. A federal appeals court found in Mr. Rosset's favor, stating that the sexual acts contained in the text were not pornographic as defined by the law.

     In 1961, "Tropic of Cancer" was released, but banned in 21 states. Mr. Rosset's appeal went all the way to the Supreme Court, which decided it was not obscene. The landmark decision set a new standard and allowed the freedom of expression that marked the cultural revolution in the years that followed. Although books such as Burroughs's "Naked Lunch" were still banned in some states, the courts again found in his favor and attempts to stop such works ebbed. In later life he would receive numerous awards for his efforts as his authors garnered awards of their own including several Nobel Prizes in Literature.

     Beginning in his youth, Mr. Rosset was a photographer and filmmaker, which led him to distribute a number of films later in life, including "I Am Curious (Yellow)" from Sweden, which launched a new slew of obscenity charges in the late 1960s. Although the Supreme Court was deadlocked on its 1971 decision because one justice recused himself, it was shown in states that did not have bans and gained him notoriety. 

     After bomb threats and an actual explosion of a grenade along with a death threat by Valerie Solanos (the woman who infamously shot and almost killed Andy Warhol) after he refused to publish her manuscript, all in the 1960s, the following decades were relatively quiet. In 1985, facing financial challenges, Mr. Rosset sold Grove and then unsuccessfully sued to get it back. He continued publishing under the imprints Foxrock Books and Blue Moon Books and Grove was eventually acquired by Atlantic Monthly Press.

     A documentary on his life called "Obscene" premiered in 2007 at the Toronto Film Festival and had a theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles. Mr. Rosset told The Star he was ambivalent about the film and had hoped that it would be titled instead "The Subject Is Left-Handed." This was a reference to his F.B.I. and C.I.A. files, which contained that "most insightful" observation, he said. An autobiography with that title has been submitted to Algonquin Books, which has plans to publish it in the future, according to The New York Times.

  Mr. Rosset was married and divorced three more times before marrying Astrid Myers in 2007, who survives him. His previous wives were Hannelore Eckert, Cristina Agnini, and Elisabeth Krug. He had no siblings. He is also survived by his sons Peter Rosset of San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico, and Beckett Rosset of New York City, and his daughters Tansey Rosset of Ann Arbor, Mich., and Chantal R. Hyde of Boston. He had four grandchildren and four step-grandchildren.

    A memorial service is planned for May.  

Editor's Note: Due to a production error, a different version of this obituary ran in the March 1 edition. This is the correct version.

    An e-mail sent by Carole Campolo, secretary of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, to committee members and circulated outside of the group, expresses frustration with Town Councilman Dominick Stanzione, who was elected on the Republican ticket in 2010.

    At town board meetings, Ms. Campolo said, Republican Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and his other running mate, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, “are pretty much alone,” and “are the only two standing up for the principles that we as Republicans believe in.”

    Mr. Stanzione, she said, is “turning his back” on the other members of the Republican majority, as well as on the party. “I am also sad to say, as someone that worked very hard to get Councilman Stanzione elected as part of the Wilkinson team,” she wrote, “that he will likely throw his lot in with the Democrats.”

    While the majority members had often voted as a bloc, Mr. Stanzione has this year staked out independent territory, differing with the opinions of Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley on both minor issues and key items, such as the future of the town’s scavenger waste treatment plant.

    The supervisor and Ms. Quigley both wanted to accept an offer to purchase the plant from a company that submitted the sole response to a request for proposals to privatize the facility, but Mr. Stanzione, along with the two Democratic board members, disagreed. With a 3-2 split, a vote to make a deal with the company could not succeed.

    Mr. Stanzione is working with Councilwoman Sylvia Overby to organize a community forum on the waste plant decision, which could have long-reaching consequences, raising environmental, economic, traffic, and other concerns.

    Along with Ms. Overby and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, he has endorsed the idea of developing an overall waste management plan for the town.

    Councilman Stanzione declined this week to comment on Ms. Campolo’s assertions.

    In her e-mail, Ms. Campolo charged that, as far as the scavenger waste plant, the two Democratic board members “have absolutely no interest in doing what is right for the taxpayers.”

    “What they and others want is for their special interest environmental zealots and unions to be amply rewarded by a public boondoggle this is surely to become if the site is not handled by professionals,” she wrote.

    She called on those who could attend the next day’s board meeting to do so, “to support our supervisor and councilwoman.”

    The e-mail, which was sent to the Republican Committee members at midday on Feb. 13, a day before a town board work session, also sets forth the agenda items for the next day’s meeting. “As per the resolution voted on at our committee meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 8, please find listed below the agenda for Tuesday’s town board work session. . . .” it says. Democrats have pointed to that statement as an indication that the Republican Committee is involved in setting agendas for town board meetings. Agendas are prepared and distributed by Mr. Wilkinson.

    At several recent board meetings, both Ms. Overby and Mr. Van Scoyoc have raised the issue of a lack of advance notice about items to be discussed at a particular meeting.

    The Hula Hut, a bar proposed at the Montauk Marine Basin on West Lake Drive, wound its way to the East Hampton Town Planning Board for consideration, yet again, on Feb. 15.

    Lin Calvo wants to open the Hula Hut in a 224-square-foot converted office trailer, with a 50-foot-by-18-foot sand patio next to it, and an asphalt parking area. She needs two special permits for a tavern or bar at the marina and for a multiple-business use on the property, as well as a natural resources permit because the bar would be within 150 feet of Lake Montauk.

    At a hearing on the application last week, Ms. Calvo and Carl Darenberg, who owns the marina, said a bar was an amenity marina patrons had come to expect and promised that the Hula Hut would close by 9 p.m. during the week and by 11 p.m. on weekends, but some were not convinced it would remain the low-key hangout they painted it to be and questioned the precedent that would be set if the board approved the bar.

    “Does this bar meet special permit criteria?” asked William Fleming of East Hampton, an attorney for Robert and Marie Rando, owners of the Montauk Sportsman’s Dock adjacent to the marine basin. “Is alcohol consumption at a waterfront marina a water-related use?” he asked. If the Hula Hut is approved, he is concerned that it will be a catalyst for bars at every marina in town.

    “Marina dockside services have become standard in the industry and critically important to attracting all types of boating enthusiasts to Montauk,” Joe Gaviola wrote in a letter supporting the Hula Hut. “It has become essential to provide more than just a slip to compete both regionally and locally.” Mr. Gaviola, a former planning board member, lives in Montauk and owns two businesses in the harbor area. Laurie Wiltshire of Land Planning Services, who represents Ms. Calvo, read Mr. Gaviola’s letter to the board.

    The Randos were unable to attend the hearing, but submitted a letter to the board on Feb. 1 registering their objections. One rental cottage on their property is 50 feet from a fence they say was constructed to reduce noise from the bar, but the buffer, they claim, “not only did nothing for the noise on the both occasions that the Hula Bar was open for business without a permit, but [. . .] is a terrible eyesore from our property,” Mr. Rando said.

    The Randos suggested the bar be moved to a different area on the marine basin property. “We have Liars’ Saloon on the opposite end of our property, which is also an outside bar, and the noise is unbearable. Phone calls and complaining does nothing,” he said. “We would like to not be sandwiched between outside bars.”

    In a follow-up phone interview, Mr. Darenberg said that although there is a fence on his property, the noise buffer has not yet been built.

    Walter Kaprielian, who keeps a boat at the Montauk Sportsman’s Dock, and described himself as a friend of both Mr. Rando and Mr. Darenberg, said that Mr. Rando does not have a problem with a second use at the marina, but questioned whether future owners would abide by Mr. Darenberg’s and Ms. Calvo’s assurances about the bar’s hours and character.

    Mr. Rando consented to a bar on the south side of his property years ago, “Which eventually ended up biting him in the butt because it turned into Liars’ bar, which makes noise until 4 a.m. all the time,” Mr. Kaprielian said.

    “It seems to him [Mr. Rando] that it’s a problem waiting to happen,” Mr. Kaprielian said.

    “The Liars’ Saloon, they howl there until 4:30 a.m. every Saturday, every Friday,” said Irwin Jonas, a client of Mr. Rando’s, who often sleeps on the boat he keeps at the Sportsman’s Dock on summer weekends. “The only way that I can get any sleep, quite frankly, is I close the hatches and turn the air-conditioning on,” Mr. Jonas said. “This is kind of like Dodge City. There are more saloons in this area per square foot than I’ve ever seen. Do we really need another one?” he asked.

    Mr. Rando has owned his marina for 60 years, since before zoning, Mr. Fleming said, and has five houses on it. “This bar was open last year, so it’s great that permission is being sought for this coming summer,” he said. He claimed that there is no parking for the bar because boats are stored where it should be. “Bob actually provides affordable housing, and you’re going to make it less desirable housing,” he said.

    Mr. Fleming has an issue with the Hula Hut receiving a special permit, and explained that in a waterfront district, the use must be ancillary to a principal water-related use. “If you’re going to promote lawyers defending boating while intoxicated, this is a water-related use. It’s a bar,” he said. “It must have a maritime character or theme. I don’t know how this could be granted a special permit based upon the criterion that sits in the ordinance,” he added.

    “He makes it sound very odd that a bar would be on a marina, when 80 percent of marinas have bars in the country,” Ms. Calvo said. “It’s not far-fetched, it’s more common than not.” As for the Hula Hut opening last year, she said, “Carl had a party during one of the tournaments, in which someone came by and flicked a picture. There was no money transferred, it was just a party for friends.” She said she would not have gone through the process the legal way only to turn around and open the bar illegally. “That would risk everything I’ve worked for, and that’s not the truth,” she said.

    And she stood by her claim that the bar would keep early hours. “We have no desire to be open late,” she said. Mr. Darenberg’s marina is filled in the evening with people preparing their boats for the next day. “They have valuable boats, some of them are a million dollars and above. They don’t want drunks there all hours of the night,” she said. “Carl is never going to allow that, and I don’t want that as well.”

    “Nothing good happens after a certain hour anyway, in my book,” Ms. Calvo added. “I know I can say it, they’re not going to believe it, but it’s not going to be another Surf Lodge.”

    “My intention,” Mr. Darenberg told the planning board, is to have a bar for my customers to come to in the evening. . . . It’s not going to be a Liars’, believe me. My intention is not to disturb Robert’s clientele, or my clientele for that matter.” In terms of parking, Mr. Darenberg explained that boats are stored in the parking lot during the winter but go back in the water at the beginning of the season, which will free up most of the spaces. 

    Since beginning the application process last April, Ms. Calvo has made four separate submissions for site plan review. The planning board recommended modifications such as moving the trailer and a deck away from Lake Montauk and closer to existing bathrooms. Ms. Calvo complied, but decided, for financial reasons, to eliminate the deck. A handicapped-accessible portable bathroom has been added to the plan, along with a fenced-in area for patrons, both on the western side of the property.

    A hearing was scheduled for Sept. 14, but it was not properly noticed, and was postponed.

    On Feb. 15, Ms. Calvo asked the board to keep the record open for a day, which prompted Mr. Fleming to ask for an additional week to respond to any new submissions to the file. “I’m not so sure any additional time is warranted to keep this application open,” said Reed Jones, the board’s chairman. The board voted four to one to close the hearing, with Bob Schaeffer opposed. A decision on the application is expected in the next few weeks.

    Sag Harbor’s Long Wharf, a Suffolk County road, is likely to be turned over to the Village of Sag Harbor within a few months, County Legislator Jay Schneiderman said on Friday. There has been no lease in effect for the dock and paved area for over a year, according to Mayor Brian Gilbride, and from the village’s point of view there is only a brief window to learn the outcome, as the board is in the midst of the budget process. The options, the mayor said Monday, are for the village to take over the wharf, for the old lease to be extended, or for a new, negotiated 10-year lease.

    The future of the wharf has been the subject of ongoing debate, with a Long Wharf advisory committee, made up of village and county representatives, formed to discuss the matter. The talks have included the cost of wharf repair and maintenance, as well as revenue from boat slips, mooring, and transient dockage at the property, with no conclusion reached as of the last meeting, on Feb. 14. The committee is not scheduled to meet for another two months, Mr. Schneiderman said, but Mr. Gilbride said he needs an answer as soon as possible in order to plan for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that would be required for maintenance.

    At present, the village is footing the bill for insurance, plowing, sanding, sweeping, repairing potholes, removing garbage, policing the property, and overseeing the docks.

    The county has made investments, too, including the replacement of the steel bulkhead, which Mr. Schneiderman said cost more than a million dollars. It now needs to be painted. Additional expenses to be budgeted include dredging, as discussed at a Feb. 14 harbor committee meeting.

    Making it safer for pedestrians, with railings, lighting, and other improvements, is also on the agenda following the November death of a man who fell from the wharf. Bruce Tait, the chairman of the harbor committee, said such precautions are critical in light of the recent proposal for passenger ferry service from Long Wharf, a potential source of revenue for the wharf’s owner.

    On Monday, Mr. Gilbride said he was willing to take over ownership. The village hasn’t always been so willing, having turned the wharf over to the county years ago because of the high maintenance costs, according to Mr. Schneiderman. But as the county is in a financial crisis, with a $100 million budget deficit, transferring ownership is probably the right answer, he said.

    The Long Wharf committee is likely to vote in favor of giving the wharf to the village, he said. If County Executive Steve Bellone doesn’t take the initiative, the legislator said, he would draft a resolution within the next two months.

    Mr. Schneiderman has already introduced legislation to hand over to the village free of charge the beach adjacent to the wharf, including the windmill and property beneath the bridge to North Haven. It is expected to be voted on this month.

    Whether your interest is in deep-fried butter or ridiculously oversize hamburgers, exotic foods, “Top Chefs,” or restaurants on the verge of failure, in French food, budget food, Southern food, hopeless cooks, or food trucks, there’s probably a TV show out there to satisfy your cravings. But if you want to know more about how the food you eat affects your health, you may find yourself channel surfing in vain.

    Stefanie Sacks, a culinary nutritionist who lives in Montauk, aims to change that, starting in East Hampton Town, where her new show, “Chew on This,” began airing this week on LTV.

    Ms. Sacks works with clients whose health issues range from severe allergies to cancer and chronic illness. Her goal, according to her Web site, is to “help prevent illness and restore health through personalized nutrition therapy and culinary guidance.”

    “I’ve been devoting my career to working one on one with people, but feeling frustrated that I haven’t been able to reach a larger audience with my messaging,” Ms. Sacks said Friday. Her message: Smart food choices and healthy eating not only support good health but can also help people live better with their health challenges. The show is her way of spreading the word beyond her individual clients and the workshops she leads at Urban Zen, the New York Open Center, and the Kripalu Institute.

    She wants to change people’s way of thinking about food, and also to change the field of nutrition, “so we’re not just looking at clinical environments, but looking at all the different aspects of a person’s life and how it relates to food.”

    “I love listening to people’s stories, and seeing how I can use my personal experience and professional expertise to help others in a way that’s nonjudgmental and nonthreatening,” Ms. Sacks said.

    She first wrote the show eight years ago with hopes of finding a national audience for it, but as she has two children and a full schedule of clients it sat on the back burner until this winter, when she decided to take an LTV producers and directors class and make it herself.

    “I didn’t think I would do it on LTV, but I said, ‘I’m not waiting until some television executive wakes up and realizes this is a good concept.’ ” With her husband, Rich Dec, as co-producer, she filmed the first two episodes on Feb. 13.

    “I live with illness and have used food to help me get well and feel better, so my goal here is to teach you to do the same,” Ms. Sacks says in the introduction to the show, alluding to her own genetic kidney disease, which she manages through diet.

    On each episode a guest will join her to discuss a different health concern and cook dishes that work with his or her dietary needs or restrictions. On the first, airing this week and next, she and her 6-year-old son, Jack, talk about developing good eating habits from an early age. Then they cook turkey tacos and sautéed kale with garlic. Getting kids involved in cooking or assembling their own food helps them to eat well and broaden their culinary horizons, Ms. Sacks said. Her tip for cutting the bitterness of kale to make it more palatable to kids? Add a little apple juice.

    She talks with her second guest, Marilyn Behan, also of Montauk, about Ms. Behan’s sulfite allergy, which she developed as an adult and which forced her to radically rethink how she cooks and eats. Ms. Behan is still learning how to avoid the many foods that contain sulfites, which can be found in everything from wine to marinades to dried fruit, and to enjoy a diet without those foods.

    “Doctors tell people they have allergies, but then they don’t give them any resources,” Ms. Sacks said Friday. “I want to be that resource . . . in a way that’s not hokey and too granola-crunchy, that’s accessible to different socioeconomic levels.” People learn what ails them, they’re told to change their habits, but without much guidance, many feel paralyzed, she said. In her work and on her show, she wants to move them past that.

    She has guests lined up for her next few shows and is also inviting viewers to get in touch if they’re interested in being a guest. On episodes she’s filming next week, Ms. Sacks will cover irritable bowel syndrome and healthy weight gain for athletes. On another, she’ll talk with the mother of an infant who has kidney cancer about how the family “about-faced their lives and changed their way of eating and the products they used in their house.” The culinary segment of that show will focus on developing children’s palates and introducing new foods.

    “I’m fascinated by all of this,” Ms. Sacks said.

    “Chew on This” can be seen on LTV’s Channel 20 in East Hampton Town on Mondays at 1:30 p.m., Tuesdays at 9 p.m., Thursdays at 5:30 p.m., and Saturdays at 9:30 a.m. It can also be viewed on Ms. Sacks’s Web site, stefaniesacks.com.

    They met at the ranch, got married within viewing distance of the ranch, and now Patrick and Kate Keogh will be running the Deep Hollow Ranch in Montauk. They have secured the lease from Suffolk County and have taken over the facility from Diane and Rusty Leaver, who moved to Texas.

    Managing the ranch was a dream for the couple, but one they never thought would come true. They assumed it would be passed down to the Leavers’ children, as Mrs. Leaver is part of the Dickinson family and the fifth generation to work the ranch. Her father, Frank (Shank) Dickinson, was born nearby at Third House in 1924 and started doing chores as soon as he could walk.

    The couple have worked with horses most of their lives. As a student at the Montauk School, Mrs. Keogh (née Smyth) guided trail rides there. She remembers sitting with Mrs. Leaver at a card table under an umbrella collecting fees when she was a youngster. Born and raised in the hamlet, she has five sisters, all of whom continue to live there with their husbands and children, 29 of them in all.

    The couple’s enthusiasm is obvious when they talk about their plans for the ranch. They said they want to make it part of the community and family-friendly. They want to hire locally and joked that they inherited Morgan Hammond, a high school student who worked for the Leavers for several years, and Brittany Cocuzza, a trail guide. Anthony Del Percio of Montauk, a former East Hampton Town police officer, is the ranch foreman and his wife, Ginger, is a manager.

    They will be offering half-hour trail rides — good for children, Mr. Keogh said — for $35, and hourlong rides for $65. Trails wind through pastures dotted with wildflowers in season and along the coast of Block Island Sound. (More than 17 acres of pastureland across Montauk Highway from the ranch sold to Mickey Drexler, the C.E.O. of J. Crew, for over $11 million in 2010.)

    In 1998 when the couple married, they wanted to hold the ceremony in Third House but were told by county officials they couldn’t, so they settled for an outside wedding on the grassy grounds. On the big day, the sky turned gloomy and raindrops fell as they readied for the ceremony.

    Unbeknownst to them, a crew of county workers, most of them Montauk residents, turned into a swarm of worker bees and hustled everything inside - tables, flowers, and other adornments. They ended up getting hitched in front of the large stone fireplace that is the centerpiece of Third House’s main room. “It was lovely,” Mrs. Keogh said.

    The county has been very supportive of their plans for the ranch, the couple said. “They were worried about the horses. They didn’t want to leave the place vacant. It’s come full circle and it’s something I’ve always wanted,” Mr. Keogh said.

    Montaukers in general have also been supportive, he said. People have stopped them on the street, in stores, and at the post office to congratulate them.

    “Everybody who’s a local has a history with the Deep Hollow. We want to bring that back,” Mr. Keogh said, adding, “This isn’t just a place to ride horses. It’s got spirit. It has soul. People who come here with issues usually leave resolving them.”

    They are now the proud owners of 53 horses, 2 donkeys, 2 ponies, and a slew of wild birds that chirp from the rafters of the main barn that Mr. Keogh helped build with Amish carpenters in the 1980s. Each animal is named. “You have to remember their names because each horse has a personality just like people,” he said, as Frieda and Pedro, the donkeys, roamed the dusty grounds.

    Their plans include re-establishing the horse shows that were once held at the ranch and on Indian Field. They’ll host birthday parties, school groups, and Scouts and offer pony rides for the little ones. They’d like to come up with special events for all the major holidays and get the community involved.

    “It’s going to be very fun and family-oriented,” Mrs. Keogh said.

    Deep Hollow Ranch is known as the oldest cattle ranch in the United States and the last on Long Island to hold a cattle drive. “We don’t want that to be true anymore; we’re going to try for a cattle drive. We want to bring it back to what it was — a cattle ranch,” Mr. Keogh said.

    “I never thought I would be standing here saying this is ours now,” he said, standing on the weathered wood porch, surrounded by saddles hanging over the porch rails. “It’s a good fit.”

    It’s a little warm in the office of Eric Woellhof, the East Hampton School District’s director of facilities. No matter, Mr. Woellhof just turns to his computer, which features on its monitor something akin to the plans for the Death Star, pushes a few keys, and the temperature comes down from 74 to 70 degrees almost instantly.

    “The system monitors air quality,” he explained. “It turns up the heat — or the air-conditioning — before school begins, and shuts it off afterward. If the CO2 builds up in a room, like if there’s a lot of people in there, it automatically senses it, and the vents open to let in fresh air.” He grinned. “It’s monitoring us right now.”

    This is not your father’s maintenance man: a tough guy in a jumpsuit, somewhere between a custodian and a cop, a thousand keys jingling from his belt as he roams the halls of the building.

    Mr. Woellhof has the keys on his belt, but the similarities stop there. This job requires as much heavy reading as it does heavy lifting.

    Over the past five years, it’s been Mr. Woellhof’s task to work with the architect during renovations and to upgrade the school district’s systems — heating, vents, and air-conditioning, as well as the health and safety of the buildings and grounds — so that they are energy-efficient and meet the district’s “green” goals.

    A rebate check from the Long Island Power Authority for $212,000 is just the beginning of cost savings the district is realizing with the new initiatives that have been put into place.

    Having Anthony DeFino on board has helped. Mr. DeFino had worked for Carrier, the company that installed the new H.V.A.C. system in the high school, but retired to join Mr. Woellhof.

    “It’s a nice change of pace,” Mr. DeFino said.

    “My background was construction management,” Mr. Woellhof said. He worked for the Miller Place School District before coming to East Hampton, and was on the ground floor, so to speak, for discussions on the $80-million renovations to the John M. Marshall Elementary School, the East Hampton Middle School, and the East Hampton High School.

    “The first talks we had were about what would be green,” he said. “The old system was the way most school districts are,” Mr. Woellhof said. “Time clocks, manual controls.”

    The goal was to meet or exceed the recommendations of the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, a non-profit organization that sets the standards for energy-efficient learning institutions. The idea, according to the C.H.P.S. Web site, is that “a well-designed facility can truly enhance performance and make education more enjoyable and rewarding” for students, faculty, and staff.

    The H.V.A.C. system at the East Hampton High School was key to obtaining a green designation. It is a leviathan, with “hundreds of zones,” Mr. Woellhof said.

    “In the high school alone, there are over 70 pieces of equipment — belts, pullies, filters, bearings,” he said.

    The computer system sends out alarms when a filter needs to be changed, which is a crucial part of keeping the air quality top-notch and the machinery running at peak efficiency. The alarms, to keep everything effortless, are sent to Mr. Woellhof’s cellphone.

    How big a deal can it be to change a couple of filters? Mr. Woellhof explained. “A big piece of equipment can have 8 to 12 filters going in, maybe 8 to 12 inside, then another 8 to 12 going out,” he said. The school district spends between $15,000 and $20,000 just for filters, but it’s necessary, Mr. Woellhof said.

    “It maintains the air indoors,” he said. “There have been several scares about mold and so on. But when an outside test was conducted, there were more pollen and mold spores outside than in here.” He called it “a stark contrast.”

    It also saves on the amount of electricity needed. A clean filter runs cleanly. A dirty one requires more effort by the system to push through the air. “It cuts down on labor, too,” he said.

    The computer system itself cuts down on labor, as it modifies its own behaviors according to what it does and doesn’t do. “It’s called an ‘adaptive optimal start-stop,’ ” Mr. Woellhof explained, then smiled. “It means the computer is learning.”

    There has also been an overhaul of custodial practices. “The scrubbers use minimal water,” Mr. Woellhof pointed out. “We use green chemicals for cleaning inside all three schools, and the grounds use no pesticides,” he said.

    But the biggest payback, the gift that keeps on giving, are the changes in the lights and other LIPA programs, which Mr. Woellhof and his team have acted upon, including installing a white roof on the high school.

    “I don’t think people realize how much they would save with white roofs,” he said. The district got a rebate check for $18,000 just for that one alteration. For replacing the “chillers” on the roof — Mr. DeFino’s bailiwick — the district received $84,000 back from LIPA, “about three-quarters of the price of one of them,” Mr. Woellhof said.

    LIPA has been very helpful, he acknowledged. With its assistance, Mr. Woellhof has been able to break down the cost of changing one room — the high school auditorium — into an energy efficient Eden.

    “The floodlights in there now are 90 watts,” he said. He held up the new model, a similar-looking bulb, but with an output of only 17 watts, the compact fluorescent cousin of the incandescent. “When we install these, it’s a 75-percent savings. It will save between $2,000 and $2,500 a year for that room alone,” he said, not without excitement in his voice. “And the schools here are loaded with 90-watt bulbs.”

    He stood on his desk and removed a light fixture to show the bulbs inside. “Just this fixture is a rebate of $120,” he said. “The schools are full of them.”

    Mr. Woellhof makes it his job to continue to look for new incentives that will reduce energy use and save money, including solar panels, reclaiming water from the roof, and many other future possibilities.

    For now, he wants to finish getting the elementary and middle school up to high-energy snuff. “Those rebates were just for the high school,” he said. How much more of a rebate could be expected from the other buildings?

    “At least $38,000,” he said. “There are so many items that haven’t been included yet — exit signs, light fixtures.” Then, still pushing the limits, he said, “I don’t know — if it came back at another $50,000, that would be pretty cool.”