East Hampton Town and Village, and the town's several fire districts, are considering spending more than $2 million for a new emergency communications system that would put them, technologically speaking, on a par with the rest of Suffolk County.

At least it would put them on the same wave length - enabling police, fire, and ambulance personnel to talk directly to each other townwide, rather than through a dispatcher as they do now, as well as countywide in the event of a catastrophe.

"We had just fired up the county system before the disaster of Flight 800," Thomas Potter, the manufacturer's representative, told the East Hampton Village Board last week. "At least everyone could talk to everyone."

"Dead Zones" Come Alive

The "800 Megahertz Smartnet" radio trunk system, as it is called, manufactured by Motorola, would replace existing equipment. Some of it is 18 years old, including more than 175 portable and mobile radios in the town and another 100 in East Hampton Village.

The computer-based radio network would connect police, fire, ambulance, highway, parks, and sanitation personnel, and others when necessary - say, during a severe hurricane. Proponents say it would form the basis for a complete East End radio system should Peconic County become a reality.

On a daily basis, the new technology would eliminate "dead zones" in parts of Springs, Northwest, and on Napeague, where firefighters' and emergency medical technicians' two-way radios often fail, requiring them to use a cellular phone or return to their vehicles to call the dispatch center.

Cellular Reliability

Cell phones may not always be reliable, cautioned Nat Raynor, the town's communications director, who has worked on the proposal for a year.

Many do not understand, he said, that every cell phone on the South Fork is linked by fiberoptic cable to a central control office in Woodbury. "If a storm knocks the cable lines out of commission - no cell phones."

The communications system proposal has touched a raw nerve here, reviving thoughts of money the county has collected in a monthly per-telephone 35-cent surcharge for "enhanced 911" emergency dispatch service.

The county has returned some of the E-911 surcharge funds to East Hampton in the form of a new computer, caller identification, and recording equipment now being installed at town police headquarters and at the Village Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street.

Where Money Goes

Most of the money, though, is thought to have gone to pay more than 70 county police dispatchers who handle calls exclusively in western Suffolk. Critics say the surcharge on East Enders pays for services in the west that they do not use,while their taxes go to dispatch services here. If the surcharge money were returned here, some say, it might lower taxes.

"We were promised last spring that this would not happen," Town Supervisor Cathy Lester said this week. She said she was "setting up a meeting about this" with County Executive Robert J. Gaffney.

Revenue-Sharing

Ms. Lester, who is running for re-election, also criticized the Republican County Executive for deleting $200,000 in revenue-sharing fromEast Hampton Town in his 1998 county budget proposal.

"We think this is because of our interest in Peconic County," she said. East Hampton has been in the forefront of the effort to secede from Suffolk County.

The county began installing its emergency communications system, at a cost of about $13 million, in 1993. Vincent Stile, director of police radio communications, said the network now covers the County Police Department, the county sheriff's and District Attorney's offices, bus services, and parks police.

New Antennas

Mr. Stile denied a report that county equipment in Southampton was going to be moved in the spring to Huntington, where service is considered inadequate. East Hampton officials had expressed concern that such a move would endanger South Fork ambulance companies' communications with Stony Brook University Medical Center.

Three antenna sites, but no new towers, would serve the new East Hampton network: at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street (the "prime site"), the tower at the Montauk transfer station off Montauk Highway, and a remote site for the western part of town in the AT&T tower in Noyac.

Ms. Lester just this week signed a contract with AT&T for that space, agreeing to pay an $8,750 one-time fee, plus $1,282 a year for five years.

Exclusive Channels

The system will operate over five "exclusive" channels the Federal Communications Commission has licensed to East Hampton. Some observers have expressed reservations that the police, for the first time, would have a channel inaccessible by scanner.

Ms. Lester defended the Police Department's "privacy needs" in surveillance situations where the element of surprise would be helpful. She said she saw "no down side" to confidentiality if, for example, it meant that a drug task force officer's conversation could not be overheard.

The East Hampton Town Board will consider the communications proposal next month. The $1.7 million or so cost would be a capital expense; the town would have to borrow to cover it.

Cost To Village

The East Hampton Village Board reviewed the plan last week at a work session. The various fire districts have been learning about it over the past several weeks.

The village's cost, about $348,000 - "a lot of money," acknowledged Larry Cantwell, the Village Administrator - might, if approved, become part of its $8 million operating budget. The village spent about $250,000 only seven years ago on a communications equipment upgrade, Mr. Cantwell said.

"We would not have considered this for the village if the town weren't doing it," he added, noting that police, fire, and ambulance personnel "can communicate adequately" throughout the village's 16 square miles.

Fire Districts

The village receives roughly $220,000 under contracts for dispatch service from the fire districts of Amagansett, Bridgehampton, Montauk, Sag Harbor, Springs, and the Sag Harbor Village Police.

Additionally, the village has asked the fire districts to contribute, proportionately, their share toward the upgrade of the village dispatch center, as follows: Amagansett, $10,000, Bridgehampton, $17,000, East Hampton Village fire and ambulance, $32,000, Montauk, $15,000, Sag Harbor, $17,000, Springs, $9,000.

Sag Harbor's Mayor Pierce Hance this week said he was awaiting final figures before deciding about the expenditure. Supervisor Lester said all the other fire districts had indicated their support.

The fall and the spring are the worst months here for thefts at construction sites. That is not surprising: In the summer, when more houses than not are occupied, a thief can never be certain of being unobserved, and in the wintertime less building takes place.

Last month and this one have, unfortunately, more than kept pace with the dreary statistics. There are more new houses going up these days than there have been since the late '80s, and hardly a week goes by without a report that someone's brand-new air-conditioning units (or stove, or Jacuzzi), often still in the boxes they came in, have been stolen. Expensive materials are another favorite target: lumber, copper wiring, Andersen windows.

Sometimes the building contractor is the victim, losing the kind of supplies that cannot easily be taken home at night - heavy drills, power tools, air compressors, and the like.

Can good citizens do anything for their soon-to-be-neighbors in the way of damage control? Sure. They can keep an eye out for strangers who seem to be doing nothing but hanging around, and they can report suspicious activity to the police.

Politics can seem like someone else's game until some issue or other touches you as an individual. Such was the case this year when the Artists Alliance of East Hampton, formerly the Jimmy Ernst Artists Alliance, heard that a member of the Town Board had said, "Art in public places smacks of pork-barrel politics."

The group, interested in art in public places including the East Hampton Town Airport and in developing an artists center that would need financial assistance from the town, has been turning out for Town Board meetings and organizing its 300 members into a constituency to be reckoned with.

The candidates for Town Supervisor and Town Board, and even the two Councilmen who are not running for re-election this year, have been "invited" to a Meet the Candidates breakfast on Sunday morning and sent a list of topics on which they should be prepared to speak. The alliance has hosted such receptions in the past, with 75 or 80 members attending, but this year it is expecting a greater share than ever of its members to take part.

Another group, the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, which has been a powerful lobby for many years, found reason this year to include the Town Trustee candidates in its debates, which begin at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Montauk Firehouse. The Trustees haven't had jurisdiction in Montauk for nearly 150 years. But, since the Trustees had offered to take on the management of shellfish in Lake Montauk and are now proposing to take over some of the regulatory power of the Zoning Board of Appeals, the C.C.O.M. sees itself as having a stake in who is elected next month.

The League of Women Voters hosts candidates forums each year too, as does the American Association of University Women. All of these debates can be seen on cable's Channel 27.

Care who will decide whether you get that new dock? Want your tax dollars to support the arts? Interested in the improvement of the airport? Mad because you recycle and your neighbor doesn't? Sick of driving to Bridgehampton for groceries? Worried about whether the golf course next door is leaching chemicals into your well water?

Show up, tune in, see and hear for yourself.

Shadmoor, Columbus Day weekend. A stone rolls down the cliff, the ocean is almost heartbreakingly blue, and a handful of surfers take towels, wetsuits, the usual, out of their van. It could be 25 years ago, given a Volkswagen and longboards.

There's no one else to be seen. Except, half a mile to the west, three mountain bikers inspecting a decrepit World War II bunker. Looking out through slits in concrete, they see the same ocean, but with an international aspect and tankers on the horizon.

Two hikers exit a trail a little farther west and stop where the surface ends and precipice begins. Facing south, they are surrounded on three sides by low brush over which they can see for miles. They are plainly amazed at their good fortune in time, place - and weather.

Is this a magnificent public park? Unfortunately not. The 99-acre Montauk property just west of Rheinstein Park, which is in turn just west of the western Ditch Plain parking lot, is privately owned and will be completely off- limits when sold as four ultra-exclusive house lots.

The East Hampton Town Planning Board is ready to approve its subdivision, and hope for a public purchase plummeted a week ago when a Congressional committee declined to set aside the money needed to preserve it, citing a huge discrepancy between the owner's asking price and the Government's appraisal. The price, indeed the disparity, is in the millions.

We are talking about an irreplaceable piece of the coastline. The public has access to nothing like Shadmoor on the East End, and those who have not seen it are well advised to do so before it's too late. The surveyor's stakes are up, the fortune-fetching views are being inventoried, and the Nature Conservancy - which has been working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service toward purchasing Shadmoor to save a protected wildflower, the sandplain gerardia, said once to have blanketed Montauk in purple - seems almost resigned to the idea of the developers' simply putting some 50 acres into a private preserve.

Are we really going to allow so few to enjoy so priceless a chunk of wilderness? Is there no way to pool the resources of those who use the land unobtrusively with those who want to protect the habitat, even perhaps the history?

The town and the Nature Conservancy are publicly committed to joining a partnership with the Federal Government to purchase Shadmoor. The land is on the Fish and Wildlife Service's wish list. Instead of complaining that the loss of $2.5 million from Congress leaves them nothing to negotiate with, the three parties should take the lead to put something substantial back on the table. Perhaps that would convince the state and county to follow suit.

Anything less than a Herculean effort is a recipe for regret.

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

A medley of extemporanea;

And love is a thing that can never go wrong;

And I am Marie of Roumania.

- Dorothy Parker

Although Hannah Pakula came to her calling relatively late in life, this author of two major historical biographies stumbled upon her first subject at the Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles, where she grew up.

"Rebelling against a boring French assignment, I asked the teacher to let me translate some of Dorothy Parker's light verse instead," she said. "That set me wondering about Marie of Rumania."

In writing "The Last Romantic," a life of the legendary Queen Marie, and "An Uncommon Woman," the story of the Empress Frederick of Germany, Ms. Pakula chose as her subjects two British princesses who were married off to German royals, perhaps for the civilizing effect it was hoped they might have on Teutonic bellicosity.

The King And The Kaiser

Both failed to calm the troubled waters in the Balkans, however. Marie produced King Carol II, a Machiavellian politician who betrayed his country and tried to destroy her, while Vicky, as the Empress, Queen Victoria's eldest daughter, was called, gave birth to Willy, "the son from hell."

As Kaiser Wilhelm II he would lead Germany into battle against his own mother and grandmother during World War I in a failed expansionist offensive that sowed the seeds of Hitler's rise to power 20 years later.

"There's no doubt that the eldest sons of these two inexperienced young queens were bitter disappointments," said Ms. Pakula, who was interviewed at the East Hampton house she shares with her husband, the filmmaker Alan Pakula.

Growing Up

Vicky's letters to her mother fret about the hazards of raising a child in a palace. Indeed, in both cases the boys were brought up by grandparents who frowned upon their mothers' attempts to educate the people and who still believed in the divine right of kings.

"No wonder the British monarchy is the only one left today," Ms. Pakula laughed.

Born Hannah Cohn in Omaha, Neb., the future biographer grew up as "the ingenue of the expatriate music community" in Southern California. Her parents hosted Sunday evening chamber concerts where such luminaries as Jascha Heifetz might play.

No Bluestockings

While most of her schoolmates' parents were in the film business, her father, a "mathematical genius" and classic-car buff, was a manufacturer's sales representative for automotive and aviation parts.

He died in England a happy man, his daughter said, as he lay on the ground repairing the oldest car in the world, an 1893 Mercedes-Benz, during an annual London-to-Brighton race.

The young Hannah wanted to go to Radcliffe, but her mother, believing that Harvard's sister school turned out bluestockings and traumatized by her older daughter's conversion to Communism at Sarah Lawrence, packed the protesting Hannah off to Wellesley.

Two Marriages

During her junior year abroad at the Sorbonne she married Robert L. Boorstin, an investment banker, and moved to Dallas. A daughter, Anna, and twin boys, Robert and Louis, were born.

Mr. Boorstin died unexpectedly seven years later of a heart attack while the couple were riding donkeys during a vacation on the Greek island of Rhodes. "I had to grow up fast," recalled Ms. Pakula. "My children are fabulous," she added proudly.

Marriage four years later to Mr. Pakula and a subsequent move to New York and East Hampton delighted her.

"This is a wonderful community for a writer, especially in winter," she said. "When we first drove out and dined with the group at the old Bobby Van's - my dogs were allowed in under the table - I looked at Alan and said, 'This is what I hoped being grown up was going to be like.' "

Encouragement

The life of a filmmaker's wife does have certain givens, she said. "One is that my bags are always half-packed - I never know where I'll be tomorrow. Another is that while Alan is shooting, we have no social life at all."

"I'm a depressive and tend to isolate when I'm writing, so I see friends for lunch or tea to keep myself 'up.' At night, I have dinner waiting."

The marriage is no one-man show, however. Mr. Pakula always thought his wife was a closet writer, andencouraged her to begin. At first she limited her efforts to book reviews and occasional pieces, until, one night, he asked, "Why don't you do something serious?"

"It's not unusual for him to put himself on the line, and he gave me permission to do the same. 'It doesn't matter if you fail,' he said. That was very liberating."

Years Of Research

"In the nearly 25 years we've been married our careers have never conflicted," she went on. "The one who's under pressure gets the support. It's worked out very well. Alan enjoys my world, and I enjoy being called in to watch his rough cuts, which is when he wants a fresh viewpoint."

Her plunge into historical biography was triggered by a book called something like "Love Nests of the Rich and Famous," she said, where, serendipitously, Marie of Rumania was prominently featured. A quick trip to the Beverly Hills Public Library revealed that nobody had yet written her life.

Two years of research into 19th-century royalty and the history of the Balkans, about which she knew nothing, were followed by more years of writing than she cares to admit: "I don't lie about my age anymore, only about how long it takes me to finish a book."

In 1989 her 500-page life of the legendary Marie appeared, subtitled "The Most Famous Beauty, Heroine and Royal Celebrity of Her Time" - a sort of 1930s Princess Di.

Hailed by Graham Greene as one of the three best books of 1989 and the best biography of that year, it also established Ms. Pakula as an authority on Rumania, and was cited as "required reading" for Rumanians.

"That was because in the bad old days of Communism under the Ceaucescu dictatorship no one, for better or for worse, was taught the history of their country's royal family."

"It was as though nothing between Peter the Great and Lenin had happened," Ms. Pakula explained, implying that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.

Mother-Daughter Letters

While working on "The Last Romantic," she came across the mother/daughter letters between Queen Victoria, Marie's grandmother, and Vicky, her niece, "some of them cluck-clucking gossip about Marie's alleged frivolity and many affairs. Not true. She only had one grand affair, with a remarkable man who became her Prime Minister."

Fascinated by Vicky, Ms. Pakula plunged into research for "An Uncommon Woman," a 700-page biography subtitled "The Empress Frederick, Daughter of Queen Victoria, Wife of the Crown Prince of Prussia, Mother of Kaiser Wilhelm."

She found the Queen's letters to her daughter preserved in a German schloss. The Empress's letters and papers reposed in the archives at Windsor Castle, however. Fortunately, Vicky had had them shipped to England just before her death, thus saving them from certain destruction by her son the Kaiser.

Seeds Of Hitler

Ms. Pakula worked her way through Vicky's more than 8,000 letters to her mother, written almost daily over 43 years - 60 volumes of them - and then tackled those to her father, Prince Albert. Happily for the burdened researcher, he died after amassing only three years of correspondence.

When Vicky's story was published in 1995, nearly 100 years after her death, it came as something of a surprise, especially in her adopted country, where Wilhelm had assiduously tried to suppress any memory of his mother's enlightened attempts at educating and democratizing Imperial Germany.

"German publishers were seen fleeing," said Ms. Pakula of the book many consider essential to understanding the climate in which Hitler's military despotism, anti-Semitism, and national paranoia originated.

Human Rights

She is gratified that the paperback version, to be issued imminently, will coincide with the first translation into German to be published in Germany. Her own ancestors left the country after the revolution of 1848.

A member of PEN, Ms. Pakula serves on its Members Council and is active in the Freedom-to-Write Committee. In 1992 she established Film Watch (under Human Rights Watch) to help monitor the human rights of film directors around the world.

"I'm a big human rights person," she said, "and passionate about the dignity of others. I monitor individual cases, and if I can get someone out of prison, fine. I have to watch out for hubris, however. Recently a Sri Lankan girl was killed whom I'd thought I could help."

She is currently working on a piece about Jeri Laber and the origins of Human Rights Watch for The New Yorker.

In The Works

Her next book? "I'm not ready to talk about another book yet. I have two or three projects in mind, but I haven't decided. Once I commit, it's for a long time. I have to know my subject very well before I begin writing."

"I can be one of the great bores of all time," Ms. Pakula concluded with a laugh. "When someone at a dinner party asks me what I do and I tell them I'm writing about the Schleswig-Holstein War, it can really put a damper on things."

"I try not to do that to people," she said.

A former cabana boy at the Maidstone Club, former line cook at the Blue Parrot, and former clerk at Reed's Photo, Jesse Feigelman returned to East Hampton this week to direct his first full-length film in the place where he spent his boyhood summers.

"Snapped" is about a young man who commits a minor crime and, in a panic, runs home to East Hampton, where, said the film's producer, Kevin McLeod, he tries to "reintegrate his life with his ex-girlfriend's."

The ex-girlfriend is played by Gaby Hoffmann, a 15-year-old veteran of Hollywood who came east for the filming with her famously unconventional mother, Viva, of Andy Warhol fame.

Not For Money

The teenager had a role in Woody Allen's "Everybody Says I Love You," and other productions, but has reportedly told her mother she is tired of making movies for money and intends from now on to work only on art films.

Viva, a former member of the notorious gang at Warhol's Manhattan studio/crash pad, the Factory, and a star of his avant-garde films - one of those who wasn't a cross-dresser - is said to have agreed.

Ill Ville Pictures, which is producing "Snapped," rented a house in Springs for Viva and her daughter, but the pair bolted when they learned the landlady meant to be there herself on weekends. They lived out of their car for a couple of days until they reached Sydney Maag, who lives in Sag Harbor.

Mold

Ms. Maag used to babysit the teenager, and is still hired on occasion as a traveling companion to Paris and other film locations. She let mother and daughter use her house and went on vacation after seeing them settled in.

Reached last week at Ms. Maag's, Viva said she had her hands full. Her daughter could be heard in the background yelling about her tutor being an hour late, saying she was too busy for an interview, and berating her mother for spending $400 on a new bed.

"Her bed here is just infested with mold. She said it doesn't bother her, but I'm allergic to mold and I know what it can do," said Viva. "I think the mold is affecting her brain. It's putting her in a terrible, terrible mood."

"We went grocery shopping and Sydney said she just couldn't stand the sound of the plastic bags rustling around in the back seat. I told her it's a vitamin deficiency. Or the mold."

Old Friends

When the heyday of the Factory ended, in the early 1970s, Viva became a painter of modest acclaim.

Last week, when she and her daughter were temporarily homeless in the Hamptons, she tried to look up some of her old friends - Andy Warhol had a summer house in Montauk and some of the Factory crowd live here still - but Peter Beard was in England and Paul Morrissey, who directed the Warhol films, was unavailable.

Viva was playing golf on Monday but otherwise was said to be watching carefully while Gaby worked. Mr. McLeod claimed all was serene on the set, though observers said Viva had barged in while the cameras were rolling to complain about the Springs landlady.

The producer described the teenager as a professional, with grown-up ambitions. "I think Gaby wants what all actors want," he said. "Leading roles. Self-realization."

On Location

The Ill Ville Pictures crew will be here through next week. Shooting began two weeks ago, with scenes filmed at Plain and Fancy, a gourmet take-out shop on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton, the Honest Diner on Montauk Highway in Amagansett, and on the sidewalk in front of Reed's Photo Shop on Newtown Lane in East Hampton.

All the scenes but one, to be shot at a diner near the Jamaica train station in Queens, are set here.

Mr. McLeod, for whom this is also a first film, said the timing - during the very week of the Hamptons International Film Festival, which draws new and established filmmakers and studio executives to East Hampton - was coincidental.

The budget required shooting off-season, he said, and "You can't shoot in the spring and make it look like summer."

Another "Graduate"?

He described the film as "a drama that uses comedy in an interesting way," in the manner of "The Graduate" and "Something Wild." The screenplay was written by Mr. Feigelman and a friend, Ian Shorao.

The leading role is played by Johnny Zander, 25, a male model. "With or without this film, Johnny will be huge, a huge success," predicted Mr. McLeod.

Right now, the largest thing about Mr. Zander is probably his shiny, Elvis-sized pompadour.

Meanwhile, Mr. Feigelman, whose parents have a vacation house in Springs, is enjoying being back. He went to employees night at the Stephen Talkhouse last week, and was walking around on Monday with a pocketful of cigars, the gift of a character actor in town for the Film Festival.

A proposal to build a small house on a lot that is not much more than one-tenth the size zoning calls for was approved by a majority of the Town Zoning Board of Appeals last week.

Four members of the board granted several variances for Clare Tolchin, enabling her to build a one-and-a-half-story house with a first-floor footprint of 640 square feet on her 4,772-square-foot property on Morrell Boulevard, East Hampton. The board's chairman, Jay Schneiderman, abstained.

The neighborhood is zoned for one-acre lots, roughly 40,000 square feet. Though board members said they understood the concerns of neighbors who opposed development of the small parcel, they said they saw no reason Ms. Tolchin should not be allowed the use of her property.

"This is one of those cases that brings up the issues of what zoning's all about," said one board member, Peter Van Scoyoc, during the board's Sept. 30 work session.

Three Front Yards

The lot is "way undersized," Mr. Van Scoyoc acknowledged, adding that the neighbors "understand what the zoning requirements are and they use that as security."

"On the other hand, you have someone who owns this piece of property and wants to utilize it."

The board's vice chairman, Philip Gamble, noted that the property is on the town's tax rolls as an individual lot and thus should be considered developable.

He said the variances requested - three from front-yard setbacks, one from a rear-yard setback, one from a scenic easement setback, and one from the pyramid law - and the house proposed were "not out of line" with the size of the property.

The number of variances sought was affected by the fact that, according to zoning, the odd-shaped lot has three front yards, said Mr. Gamble.

"Very Modest"

Mr. Gamble added that the neighbors could have gotten together to buy the property but did not, and said they could not expect the town to buy it just for their benefit.

Mr. Schneiderman abstained from the vote because he thought the town might indeed be interested in acquiring the lot. He suggested writing to the Town Board to bring the property to its attention, but the other four board members disagreed.

"The house is very modest," was Heather Anderson's conclusion. She said she understood neighbors' concerns about their property values, but observed that "there are not a lot of building lots for people of modest means."

Ms. Anderson added that employees of East Hampton Town (Ms. Tolchin is the wife of John Jilnicki, a deputy town attorney) "are not going to be rich." To deny the request "would be a real hardship," she said.

Noelle's Country Market, which opened two and a half years ago on Bridgehampton's Main Street, will be forced to close its doors due to a rent increase on Oct. 25.

Noelle Surerus of Shelter Island, who ran the grocery and delicatessen with her husband, Paul, declined to specify how much the new rent would be, but did say, "We just couldn't absorb the increase."

For now, she has no plans to open another shop. Southampton, East Hampton, and Sag Harbor are all well served by grocers and delis, and Shelter Island does not have enough year-round traffic to support another store, according to Ms. Surerus. Plus, she added, the cost of moving and getting the necessary Suffolk County Health Department approvals would make it too much of a headache.

"I'll probably just take some time off and then look for another job," she said.

Complementary Shops

Ms. Surerus got her start in the food business after working 16 years for Second Nature in Southampton. When that business was sold, she went out on her own, opening her shop in the building that also houses DePetris Liquors and the Bridgehampton Seafood Company.

The three stores complemented one another, she said, with customers frequently stopping at all three as they shopped for that night's dinner. "You could have installed swinging doors between them," she said.

Although the "first three years are usually the toughest" for a new business, Ms. Surerus said she had enjoyed a "wonderful run" and almost made it over the hump.

"Our customers are the best, and I want them to know that," she said.

The feeling may have been mutual. "We'll be crying at the end of the month," said one woman as she picked up a loaf of French bread.

Ann and Ken Bialkin never planned to move. They had spent 30 years in a house on Hand's Creek Road that they had built in 1966, and weren't even looking. "The move just happened," Mrs. Bialkin said.

Two years ago a real estate broker friend of their daughter, Lisa, casually mentioned an estate on Mecox Bay with panoramic water views. It had been on the market for some time.

"We saw it and loved it. I always said I'd only move if it were to the water," Mrs. Bialkin said. They bought it fully furnished - house plants and all - and moved right in. And they haven't stopped raving.

Compound Geometry

The Water Mill house was built in 1988 for Richard and Alice Conrad by the Sagaponack architect Kenton E. Van Boer, then put up for sale after Mrs. Conrad's untimely death six years later.

According to Mr. Van Boer, who worked with the architects Norman Jaffe and Eugene Futterman before opening his own design firm, the Conrads hadn't wanted a modern house, nor did they want a strictly traditional one. The plan for the house was modeled after the traditional farm buildings of northern England, but with Mr. Van Boer's particular vision. "I call it a contemporary folk art house," Mr. Van Boer said. "We used very simple materials: stucco exterior, terra cotta floors, and pine ceilings."

"The idea was to assemble a whole compound of different yet connected geometries that were built around a central courtyard," Mr. Van Boer explained. "You leave your car outside, proceed into that inner courtyard and out of the wind, and then proceed to the front door."

Versatile Design

The courtyard, handsomely designed by the North Haven landscape architect Diane Sjoholm, pulls the house together. One enters the inner courtyard under a dense arbor of wisteria, then follows a "forced perspective pathway" to the focal point, a central circle of crab apple stones. There is a semicircle of apple trees planted on one side, and a lush mix of hydrangeas, ilex, magnolias, day lilies, and grasses on the other side.

The house is laid out in three separate sections that together form a "U." While each wing flows easily into the next, each can be closed off, creating privacy not only for the Bialkins but also for their two grown daughters and frequent house guests. Each section has its own heating and air conditioning system.

The Bialkins especially like the sliding doors that seal off the kitchen and dining room from the large living room. "We had 100 people here last week and it wasn't even crowded," Mr. Bialkin said.

"The master bedroom upstairs is what did it for me," Mrs. Bialkin said. Compact and elegant, like a ship's stateroom, the bedroom has three exposures and a spectacular bay window that overlooks Calves Creek. "It's wonderful to come up here early in the morning and see all the animals," Mrs. Bialkin said.

"Everything is incredibly beautiful and practical," she emphasized, pointing out the "his and her" bathrooms, the splendid closets, elaborate phone system and the built-in sound system that she calls "unbelievable. The music goes all over the house - inside and out."

"This house was built with care and love. Practically everything has worked from the very beginning. We just had to learn how to use it," Mrs. Bialkin said. "We still haven't figured out how to work the intercom."

An Extended View

Although exceptional light is a given on the East End, the light in the Bialkin house is truly special. Everything glitters, even the over-the-counter glass shelves in the kitchen and pantry. Yet there is no glare.

"All the light is indirect," explained Mr. Van Boer. "We shaded the direct southern light by recessing windows under roof lines, and balanced it with light from the west. The main front view from the living room picture window is to the west," he noted.

In front of the house, Ms. Sjoholm has "tried to connect feelings of water, the natural wetlands, and the beautiful breezes with the plant material. I used a large variety of grasses and soft wildflowers that bend with the wind," she said. At the Bialkins' request Ms. Sjoholm added a lot of colorful annuals. Because they share part of a lawn with their neighbors to the south, the Bialkins also get an extended view towards the ocean.

Under The Sink

"We now come out all year, which we didn't used to. It's beautiful here in the winter," Mrs. Bialkin said. The living room, dining room, and master bedroom all have fireplaces, which the architect delights in referring to as "inglenooks."

Ecstatic as she and her husband are, Mrs. Bialkin does have one word of advice for prospective buyers: "Look under the kitchen sink and see what's there. Here there were a lot of mosquito repellents of varying types," she chuckled. She said the mosquitoes arrive only when it is very hot, though.

Mr. Bialkin, a corporate and financial and securities lawyer, is a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom. He is known for his active role in Jewish affairs. A former national chairman of the Anti-Defamation League, Mr. Bialkin is chairman of the America Israel League and president-elect of the American Jewish Historical Society. Mrs. Bialkin is the founder and president of ELEM, an organization that assists troubled youths in Israel.

Almost Guilty

"The only things I miss from the old place are the trees," said Mr. Bialkin, an avid gardener. In 1966, he purchased 18 acres on Hand's Creek Road, much of which he subsequently sold to his neighbor Jack Lenor Larsen. "I trimmed and moved all the trees, pulled all the vines. I did everything." He brought all his tools to the new house, as well as his beloved tractor, which sits in one of the two garages outside the entry courtyard. A 1950s-vintage red Mercedes convertible sits in the other.

Mr. Bialkin still owns the East Hampton house and five acres of land. "Kenny would have brought the house here if he could have," Mrs. Bialkin said.

"I literally turned psychotic when I had to leave," Mrs. Bialkin confessed. "When I tried to get Lisa to take her horse things to the stable, she said, 'If I can't bring my horse things with me I'm not going to come.' It was very emotional."

Mrs. Bialkin said her husband was almost guilty about leaving the old place. "You know," she explained, "it helped you, it took care of you for so many years. He said this place is like a beautiful new trophy wife!"

AMAGANSETT

Bankers Trust Co. to Betsy and William Ellis Jr., Cranberry Hole Road, $585,000.

BRIDGEHAMPTON

Wright to Ingrid Wright, Hayground Cove Road, $395,000.

Butter Lane of Bridgehampton Assoc. to Geri Bauer, Mitchell Lane, $580,000.

EAST HAMPTON

Weinberg estate to Joseph Lanzillotta, Richard Delaney, and Michael LaCalamita, Abraham's Path, $315,000.

Mohr to Juan and Ileana Fernandez, Whooping Hollow Road, $180,000.

Citicorp to Wilshire Funding Corp., Route 114, $207,500.

Hedgerow Assoc. to Barnett Brown, Sarah's Way, $550,000.

Virga to Michael Behan and Phitsamay Philahandeth, Montauk Boulevard, $219,500.

Edwards to James and Kimberly Brierly, Boxwood Street, $175,000.

Homes By Arabia to Eliot Nisenbaum, River Road, $270,000.

MONTAUK

Murphy to Gordon Farkouh and Christina Hulett, South Fairview Avenue, $290,000.

Milone to Lawrence and Elizabeth Brown, Brisbane Road, $159,000.

Pisciotto estate to Janet Catanese, Maple Street, $445,000.

Passarelli (referee) to Rado and Rafter Ltd., Fairview Avenue, $200,000.

Wood to Carol McCabe, Harbor Ridge Drive, $150,000.

NORTHWEST

New Sunshine Realty to Mark and Karen Segal, Musket Lane, $244,000.

SAG HARBOR

Maguire to Peter Creegan, Roger Street, $150,000.

Grgic to Jane Johnson, Oakland Avenue, $173,000.

SAGAPONACK

Kamahda International Investment Co. to Parsonage Pond Dev. Corp. I, Parsonage Pond Road, $440,000.

WAINSCOTT

Rauscher to Ana Daniel, Main Street, $525,000.

WATER MILL

Source One Group Ltd. to Wendy Kalif, Grace Court, $575,000.

Humphrey to Judith Hirsch, Oliver's Cove Lane, $1,240,000.

Edwards to Christopher Peluso, Cobb Hill Lane, $330,000.