A simple wooden sign hanging from a lamppost proclaims the new home of East Hampton's village office in the 200-year-old Beecher-Hand House on Main Street.

The sweeping picket fence, ample lawn, and curving brick path provide a gentle introduction to the venerable house's newest use, as the offices for Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., Village Administrator Larry Cantwell, Tom Lawrence, building inspector, and the other village staff.

A tiny note on the door suggests turning the old brass knob to the left to gain entry. Thus you cross the threshold into an unexpectedly handsome and peaceful world. Not that he ordinarily expects trouble, but Larry Cantwell has been amazed at the impact of the house on residents and visitors alike.

Father's Old Home

"The old house seems to have a calming effect; everyone's tension levels seem to drop. It is a real pleasure to work here," said Mr. Cantwell.

The history of the house from its first owners, the Hutchinsons, including its famous decade as the home of the Rev. Lyman Beecher, and the ensuing century of ownership by the Hand family, is chronicled in a pamphlet written by Averill D. Geus, the historic site manager of Home, Sweet Home, also owned by the village.

Illustrated with early drawings and photographs, the pamphlet provides amusing anecdotes as well as the many details of the house's colorful career and is available at the reception desk to the left of the entrance. In it you can read an excerpt from a letter written by Catherine Beecher sometime in the 19th century.

"The picture of father's old home at East Hampton is, with slight exceptions, exactly as I remember it in childhood and calls up many pleasant memories. The large room on the left, as you enter, was the sitting room and behind it a bedroom. Father's study was a small room on the right of the front entry. The schoolroom was over the sitting room and in the two chambers opposite were four young ladies who boarded with us. The chambers over the kitchen and bedroom were given to the housekeeper and Zillah and Rachel. We took our meals in the sitting room."

New "Family" Now

The sitting room today is the reception area, and behind the large desk you can see the handsome fireplace that warmed the many Beecher children. Beyond it the bedroom has been turned into a library. The chambers upstairs are offices for the Mayor and Mr. Cantwell.

The kitchen and other rooms at the back of the oldest part of the house now provide offices, while the old back porch, which still looks like a porch from Main Street, is the home of the heavy-duty copier.

When the village purchased the house in 1993, its interior had already undergone a detailed renovation by the Clause Realty firm, the former owners, and only required cosmetic finishing. To provide space for a conference room, fireproof record storage, and access for the handicapped, the village built a two-story extension on an existing rear wing.

Robert Hefner, an architectural historian, oversaw the work and developed the concept of the rear entry and elevator. Douglas Herrlin, the architect, supervised the structural aspects, and the designer Anthony Tyson coordinated the carpeting, paint, and wall covering.

The interior is now fresh and appropriate for contemporary business while still highlighting the old floors, beams, and woodwork. The new section at the rear is cause for some celebration, for it provides access from the hidden parking lot into a high-ceilinged space lined with a row of windows.

Saved For Posterity

The architecture plays on the feeling and window arrangement of the many summer cottages farther down Huntting Lane, and the sunlight pours into a nicely proportioned space that includes a staircase and the elevator.

Conversely but equally successful is the concrete bunker that holds the village records. Behind an unassuming wood-paneled door in the conference room is the heavy metal door to this concrete-lined vault. Safe from fire, flood, and collapse of the rest of the building are the assessment records from 1923 and Building Department records from 1938, after the hurricane.

Surveying the neat stacks of labeled file boxes with obvious pride, Mr. Cantwell added that the office staff had reorganized all the records themselves when they moved in.

Returning to the front of the old part of the house, the ceilings are lower and the atmosphere is cozier. On the mantel behind the reception desk is a clock made by Harold Dominy from pieces of old wood he collected from Home, Sweet Home, the Gardiner Mill, and the Pantigo Mill. He presented it to the village for use in the new office. There is also a handsome oak table carved in the early Puritan style and a bench under the stairs.

Pieces Of History

Many residents have generously donated antiques and other decorative furnishings, such as the andirons and fire screens given by Wendy van Deusen when emptying the Poor Cottage on the other side of Main Street.

Still to come are the old photographs collected by C. Frank Dayton. The village is hoping an interested resident with professional picture-hanging experience would be willing to help with this project.

On a busy weekday the office work goes on with quiet efficiency while nearby the office mascot looks on. In a tiny niche, the mortise in an old beam, sitting on a nest of fluff, is one of those gray-fur toy mice - so little you don't really notice, but so realistic that you do.

The historic J. Harper Poor Cottage on Main Street, East Hampton, owned by Rita and Gary Reiswig, and the rarely exhibited LTV dollhouse, a miniature estate created by East End artists and artisans, can be visited from Friday, Dec. 6, through Dec. 9, from 1 to 5 p.m.

The J. Harper Poor Cottage, once an early American saltbox, was transformed into an elegant manor house in 1885. In 1910, J. Harper Poor commissioned the English architect Joseph Greenleaf Thorp to redo the house in the style of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Unchanged since then, but recently restored by its owners, it is one of East Hampton's most intriguing architectural treasures.

Morris In Miniature

The interiors of both the Poor house and the doll house are inspired by William Morris, whose decorative artistry of 100 years ago is currently the subject of centennial exhibits in New York and London.

The privately owned LTV doll house, a 14-room recreation of a manor house of the same period and style as the Poor Cottage, has been exhibited only twice before. This will be its last public appearance.

The miniature house contains over 50 original works of art by local artists, who created them in the style of the day.

New additions created for this last public showing are a flamboyant family of dolls made by Priscilla Bowden, an East Hampton artist, and dressed, in the 1920s style, by Alexandra Leigh-Hunt.

Preview Benefit

The doll house can be seen at the J. Harper Poor Cottage, where the open house and exhibit will be launched with a festive preview benefit for LTV next Thursday, from 5 to 8 p.m. The reception will feature food, song, wassail, good cheer, and Daphne Hellman playing jazz on the harp. During the benefit evening, Mr. Reiswig will lead tours of the house and talk about its history.

Tickets to the party are $35. Handmade wreaths, ornaments, and copies of "The Doll House: Little Tiny Visions," a book of photographs by Rameshwar Das, accompanied by fiction and nonfiction by 15 local authors, will be on sale.

On Dec. 8 at 1 p.m., there will be a special children's story hour, during which Lou Ann Walker will read her story from "The Doll House."

Manny Quin, he of the wooden expression, the only East Hampton Town Police officer who is allowed to come to work without his pants on, can be thankful today for a relatively quiet year. It's been a long time since the blue-uniformed dummy was kidnapped from his post behind the wheel of a police car, taken joy-riding, and left at the town dump, looking as if he'd been pole-axed. The scars have been sanded over, so to speak.

For a couple of Manny's kin, the year has been more eventful. In Oshkosh, Wis., for example, an unseasonable cold snap this month did in an inflatable rubber relation, which partially deflated right in the front seat of its cruiser and prompted a rash of phone calls reporting an officer slumped over, mouth agape, the victim of apparent foul play.

Then there's Ms. Happy, who belongs not to a police department but to a group of Canadian firefighters. Ms. Happy, a canvas mannequin who doubles as a victim in fire drills, was abducted during a Labor Day fire-fighting competition and hasn't been seen since, though she's been heard from plenty.

A letter to her chief postmarked Flint, Mich., enclosed a photo of the missing volunteer sitting on a bench. A few weeks later she turned up in Anaheim, Calif., dressed in black leather and perched on a motorcycle, looking somewhat the worse for wear.

Most recently, the Canadians got a letter from Long Island enclosing a photo of Ms. Happy taking her ease in a garden, unmistakably dressed to resemble Martha Stewart.

In "Living" color. Ms. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.

On this Thanksgiving holiday, we at The Star are thankful: That Thanksgiving has the grace always to be on a Thursday, giving many a four-day weekend, while Christmas and New Year's uncharitably fall on a Wednesday this year.

That someone invented elastic waist bands.

That we're not New York Jets fans.

That the Pilgrims didn't need to get a large-gathering permit for their feast.

That our families are traditionalists and will not be serving tofu turkeys, which are being promoted this year.

That the O.J. Simpson trial will be over sometime in the year ahead.

That we won't have to lament the loss of another old-line store on East Hampton's Main Street - alas, they're all gone.

That we don't have to eat samp.

That Star employees no longer receive turkeys as bonuses.

Have a happy day!

To get inside the film editor and director Anthony Harvey's Water Mill house, one must first undergo a four-star welcome from his golden retriever, Rufus. Safely past this wild embrace, one is free to greet the dog's fond master.

"Rufus simply can't get enough love," Mr. Harvey said in an amused British accent, settling a visitor at the dining table in his colorful, bookish, grandly commodious living room.

The editor of "Dr. Strangelove" and "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold," and director of "The Lion in Winter" and "The Glass Menagerie," among many other films, the London-born Mr. Harvey launched his protean career at age 14.

The Young Ptolemy

"My stepfather, Morris Harvey, was a rather good actor who raised me on Lawrence Olivier and Ralph Richardson at the Old Vic," he said.

"Through the designer Oliver Messel, who was doing the sets for a production of 'Caesar and Cleopatra' starring Vivian Leigh and Claude Raines, he got me an audition to play Ptolemy, Cleopatra's younger brother."

Beating out 100 child actors, Mr. Harvey snagged the part, only to come up against the disapproving headmaster of his boarding school.

"Since it was Bernard Shaw, he finally let me go, but only for two weeks. Of course the shooting dragged on forever. The London Blitz was on, the studio was bombed and caught fire, and Vivian Leigh had a miscarriage. But it was a wonderful start, working with these great performers."

Scholarship To RADA

Mr. Harvey said he "got the part because the casting director thought I had eyes like Vivian Leigh's." (In a Rank Film Classic reissue of the original, one can still see him: a mischievous young king in a lot of oddly alluring Egyptian eyeliner.)

Came time to audition for a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art: "I interrupted my prepared delivery of the Agincourt speech to tell the judges - Kenneth Barnes and Sybil Thorndyke - to stop talking about the previous candidate, or else I couldn't continue. They quieted down."

"I took it from the top, and got in."

But, realizing early on that he was not going to be "the next Albert Finney," he abandoned acting. "When I got behind the footlights, I just knew I didn't have the command," he said.

First Job

Deciding to get into the "technical side" instead, he hung around the gates of Charter Films, founded by the famous twin-brother director-producer team of John and Roy Boulting ("Brighton Rock," "Seven Days to Noon"), and bombarded them with letters. Finally Roy Boulting hired him as an assistant editor.

After Mr. Harvey had toiled in the cutting room for a year, joining film strips with cement, Mr. Boulting made him chief editor, first of "Private's Progress," then of "I'm All Right, Jack," which starred Peter Sellers and Richard Attenborough.

"We had wonderful teamwork," Mr. Harvey said. "The Boultings made even the script girl feel important, and took us all out to a pub every night. It was great fun. We were part of a family, which means a lot; we would have worked for nothing."

Goodby Hollywood

In contrast, directing "The Patricia Neal Story" in 1982 in Hollywood was "absolute agony."

"It hit me right between the eyes. It was a made-for-TV film starring Glenda Jackson and Dirk Bogarde, and it should have been a joy. But the studio moguls kept interfering, handing us reams of nitpicking notes, and utterly undermining my confidence and the cast's. They were only interested in making money."

"I never went back."

American technicians are another story, he said. "A Hollywood crew I worked with in Denver shooting 'The Disappearance of Aimee,' with Faye Dunaway and Bette Davis, had enormous vitality and enthusiasm. And making films in New York is always thrilling on every level of the production."

"Lolita," "Strangelove"

The demanding and controversial director of "Paths of Glory," Stanley Kubrick, interviewed Mr. Harvey for his next film-editing job, not once but "ten times, to make sure I would have no private life, and be entirely at his disposal."

After the celebrated "Lolita" in 1962 came the super-hit "Dr. Strangelove," shot in London a year later.

"At first, American critics reviled it for being in execrable taste," Mr. Harvey said. "Then they did anabout-face and called it a masterpiece. I must say, I was honored to have edited it."

"I believe the writer is the most important element in film-making," he went on. " 'Strangelove' was written by Kubrick and the brilliant Terry Southern. I remember going to a blue movie with them, and Ken Tynan, and Dwight McDonald. Terry, usually on speed to cover up his shyness, was terrified of being arrested. He was extremely insecure, as I think the most talented people always are."

"Dutchman": A Leap Up

John Le Carre's thriller "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold," starring Richard Burton, was another huge success. After that, it seemed time for Mr. Harvey to make another leap upward, into directing.

"You're becoming impossibly difficult as an editor, the Peter Sellers of the cutting room," Mr. Kubrick told him, asking him to cut "2001" for him anyway. But Mr. Harvey had seen a play he longed to direct: "Dutchman," Leroi Jones's story of bigotry and murder on a New York subway.

Despite U.S. criticism for its violence, the film, starring Shirley Knight and Al Freeman, Jr., was a wild success at Cannes, and Ms. Knight won the Golden Lion Award for her performance at the Venice Film Festival.

O'Toole And Hepburn

Peter O'Toole, who was planning to star opposite Katharine Hepburn in a lavish film version of James Goldman's "The Lion in Winter," wanted the hot Mr. Harvey to direct it.

"To convince Kate I would be right, he dragged her to see 'Dutchman' at some little movie house in Hollywood at 2 a.m.- way past her bedtime."

"While she failed to see how a New York murder related to a historical drama about Henry II and Eleanor of Acquitaine set in 12th-century France, she agreed to trust me."

Shot in Ireland and the south of France, "The Lion" was the best time he ever had, he said. "Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton were also in the cast, and Kate was our mother figure, arriving with bottles of champagne at the end of the day."

Hepburn Gives In

Ms. Hepburn was not easy, at first, Mr. Harvey said. He gave her a big bunch of "rather beautiful" roses, which she disdained because they had wires in them, telling him, point-blank: "Don't try to be friends with me."

After an argument about a scene she refused to do his way, she finally gave in, and the scene worked, he said. "She shoved a note under my door later that night. 'I hope the sun, the moon, and the stars are always with you,' she'd scrawled. We've been fast friends ever since."

The film was a spectacular success, amassing Oscar nominations in all major categories including best director, and earning Ms. Hepburn her second Oscar (tied with Barbra Streisand). Mr. Harvey won the Directors' Guild Award, usually a prelude to an Oscar, but it was Carol Reed's year to get it, for "Oliver."

Mutilation

After turning down offers to direct "Cabaret," "Love Story," and other films "out of sheer fright" - he was paralyzed, he said, by success - he shot another Goldman script, "They Might Be Giants."

A quixotic story about a distinguished New York lawyer who thinks he's Sherlock Holmes (George C. Scott), and his psychiatrist-Dr. Watson (Joanne Woodward), it seemed dangerously unconventional to Universal Pictures, which "mutilated" the last 30 minutes.

"My things often end up in a turmoil because the studios are worried about profits," Mr. Harvey remarked.

But "They Might Be Giants" had a critical success, after which "they more or less put the right ending back for the video version."

Made For TV

"Some people are snooty about working for television, but sometimes you can do more extraordinary things on it than in film," said Mr. Harvey. His next production was a made-for-ABC-TV version of Tennessee Williams's "The Glass Menagerie."

"It was the first play I ever saw in London, in 1948, directed by John Gielgud and starring Helen Hayes. I wanted Hepburn for Amanda, but she'd been awed by Laurette Taylor's performance in Chicago; she went with Spencer Tracy every night for a week."

One night when Hepburn and Tracy visited backstage, the soles of Ms. Taylor's feet were bleeding from the intensity of her performance. "I could never do it," Ms. Hepburn told Mr. Harvey.

But she did. The film was shot in five weeks in London on a tiny budget, with Sam Waterston playing Tom and Michael Moriarty in an Emmy Award-winning role as the gentleman caller. "It was the first TV film to be shown with only two commercials," Mr. Harvey said.

Tennessee Laughed

"I showed it to Tennessee years later in London," he went on. "He sat in the back of the theater roaring with laughter. I was devastated."

"On the way to Claire Bloom's house afterward - he was preparing 'Streetcar' with her - I asked rather nervously what he'd thought. 'Absolutely brilliant, especially Moriarty's gorgeous performance. Best gentleman caller I ever saw,' he said."

" 'But you were laughing!' I said. 'That's my protection,' he ans wered."

"Marion Seldes later told me that he roared with laughter all through the night of Kennedy's assassination, and would burst out at odd moments during rehearsals: Ha! Ha! He was very shy, and laughed when he was moved."

Sunset Comedy

A TV production of "Svengali" with Peter O'Toole, Jodie Foster, and Elizabeth Ashley, and a dark comedy about euthanasia, "The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley," with Ms. Hepburn and Nick Nolte, came later.

Mr. Harvey's most recent work is "This Can't Be Love," a sunset-years romance starring Anthony Quinn and Ms. Hepburn, who, even at 86, was the first one to appear on the set every day.

"Now in her 90s, she's settled into this huge peace. She doesn't want reincarnation; she's rather looking forward to the rest."

New Directions

At the moment, while waiting for the possibility of a film in London and Greece to develop, Mr. Harvey is writing a book about the agonies of the industry - the horrors of the Hollywood package, the millions at stake. It's called "Incident-Prone."

Looking back over his often turbulent career, Mr. Harvey said working with actors had been the best part. Also being funny and breaking all the rules.

"I believe films should be uplifting," he said. "These are desperate times, and it's too easy to make money with violence and ugliness."

He is preparing to appear in the Elaine Benson Gallery's "Emerging Artists" show next spring. "Kurt Vonnegut will be emerging as a painter," he said, "and I as a photographer. Emerging, thank heavens, is much more restful than directing films."

The Thanksgiving holiday, already steeped in early American history and domestic life, will throw open several windows on how East Hampton's residents lived and continue to live.

As noted elsewhere in this section, the historic J. Harper Poor Cottage will be open to the public for the benefit of LTV, and the East Hampton Historical Society has arranged tours of contemporary and older mansions down Georgica Road, around the Maidstone Club, and through the dunes of Amagansett, from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday.

In the meantime, East Hampton Village, whose officials are now happily ensconced in the historic Beecher-Hand House (also described separately today), has issued a newsletter with a wealth of interesting historical tidbits illustrated with a good number of photographs.

Hook District Houses

The lead story is about the recent creation of the Hook Historic District, the second of two historic districts in the village. It covers 50 properties around Hook Mill and part of North Main Street and Pantigo Road, including the 1715 Dayton-Stratton House, one of only four houses in East Hampton with the exposed carved framing typical of its period.

This story segues into a piece about the William Hedges house on North Main Street, one of the last remaining farmhouses from the agrarian East Hampton of the 1800s.

Barns, Outbuildings

Having been in the hands of the same family from 1828 until earlier this year, the house and attached farm buildings were like a living museum, with the original primitive washroom with old laundry tubs and a kitchen with a cooking fireplace. The 19th-century workshop was intact, with its workbench, pine flooring, and batten door with wrought iron hardware.

Another essay is devoted to the village's historic barns and outbuildings, including the early 18th-century Mulford Barn on James Lane and the icehouse at the Gardiner-Brown House, both of which have recently been restored.

A remarkable complex of buildings survives on the grounds of the James Madison Strong and John Young Strong houses in the Hook Historic District: a 19th-century barn, a granary, a milk house for storing and cooling milk, and a poultry house.

Dominy House

Now undergoing restoration in the program is the 1804 Gardiner Windmill on James Lane, an outstanding example of the millwrighting skills of Nathaniel Dominy 5th, of the famous Dominy woodworking family.

A historical footnote is the photograph of the original 1715 Dominy House, demolished in 1946. It stood on the present site of the North Main Street IGA parking lot.

Robert Hefner, who produced the newsletter, spoke of the village's preservation goals as being "an ongoing concern for preserving the whole fabric of the village."

The booklet, produced by the Design Review Board in connection with the Village Historic Preservation Program, will be mailed to all village householders and can also be found at Village Hall.

Anyone who thinks that American art of the past 40 years lacks political relevance and social commitment should by all means proceed directly to the Parrish Art Museum, where "In the Eye of the Storm: An Art of Conscience, 1930-1970" is now on display, perhaps to the puzzled amusement of conservative, well-heeled, apolitical locals.

This traveling show of 62 works from the collection of Phillip J. and Suzanne Schiller, which originated at Chicago's Terra Museum of American Art, provides an eye-opening survey of work created since 1930 to address the great civic and social issues of the past half-century: poverty, fascism, imperialist war, McCarthyism, and (particularly) American racism.

Challenges

The show proves quite forcefully that while an abstract, apolitical, and inward-looking art may be the most widely celebrated of our time, a significant number of highly talented artists have labored in the shadows to create a different sort of art, one which seeks to address social issues (usually from a leftist point of view) through the medium of visual art.

This challenging and paradoxical show (made particularly so by its current venue in one of the least liberal villages on the East End) raises a challenging question about the role of art in contemporary society:

Is art, after all, merely a luxury item, created for the amusement of the privileged upper classes, or else, alternately, a way of criticizing (and thus promoting change in) the current social order?

Apparently it is both, since the works serve not only as historical documents of past social issues but visual challenges to current art viewers - that is, if anyone not of the privileged intellectual classes is actually looking at art these days.

Limited Audience

The Schillers themselves state in their catalogue that they are wealthy and conservative, have a limited sympathy for the ideologies of the artists they collect, but collect the work anyway, and hang it in their home. In that way they probably reflect the potential audience for the show at the Parrish.

Unless the village of Southampton decides to bus in people from Flanders and Riverhead, the audience for this work may well be limited to people just like the Schillers: privileged, intellectual, libertarians who value art for its historical importance, its social cachet, and (presumably to a lesser extent) its ability to promote (in the words of Leon Trotsky) "permanent revolution."

For those who do attend the exhibit, however, the rewards are many, and surely as exciting and thought-provoking to the privileged as to the underclass.

Gwathmey's "Custodian"

Two extraordinary works by Jacob Lawrence begin the show, one describing life in a bordello, the other showing prostitutes out on the street.

A brilliant series of lithographs and woodcuts give black-and-white accounts of American racism. Robert Gwathmey takes on the same subject in a bold painting called "Custodian" (1963, oil on canvas), in which a discontented black man sits before piles of refuse and a poster of a headless man holding a watermelon.

The sky overhead is a searing yellow-ocher, a color art viewers may identify more readily with Van Gogh than the Deep South.

The artist, a Southerner, lived much of his life in Amagansett.

Strong Graphics

Others featured in the show are about as well-known as artists concerned with social issues can be - Ben Shahn, Rockwell Kent, Romare Bearden, George Grosz, and George Tooker - making this exhibit an excellent opportunity for the public to acquaint itself further with some of the best socially inspired artists of the past half-century.

Other works, by artists like Joseph Hirsch, Joseph Leboit, Peter Saul, Lucienne Bloch, and Henry Koerner, while perhaps well-known to artists, have yet to receive wide appreciation by the general public. Their work is particularly worth seeing because the opportunity for seeing it is so rare.

Collector To Speak

While the graphic works in the show are perhaps the strongest and most appealing, a number of paintings (including works by Bloch, Hirsch, and Joe Jones) should not be missed.

"In the Eye of the Storm" is without a doubt one of the best exhibits to come to the East End this year. Those interested in the mind that shaped the collection should plan on attending the lecture, currently slated for Dec. 7, by its owner, Phillip J. Schiller.

A statement by Mr. Schiller can also be found in the catalogue for the show, which (along with other good literature) is available at a reading table in the gallery.

On Wednesday, for the second time in as many years, East Hampton School District's taxpayers will decide whether to raise taxes for a multimillion-dollar construction project at one of its three schools. The vote is on a bond issue of $4.8 million to expand and renovate East Hampton High School and whether to transfer $500,000 available in a reserved capital fund to the project.

Approval on Wednesday could mean an increase of about $52 a year in taxes for an East Hampton homeowner whose property is assessed at $7,000. With the $50 increase from the John Marshall Elementary School expansion, approved in March 1995, and the $73.50 increase for the current operating budget tax hikes would total about $185 for the two-year period, according to the East Hampton District's business office.

School officials say the high school needs eight classrooms, mostly for science, plus new bathrooms. Enrollment, which is at 765 this year, is expected to top 930 by 2001. The district also says that its science equipment, now more than 25 years old, is badly in need of updating . The science equipment and other furnishings carry a hefty price tag - $938,000.

East Hampton High School was built in 1970 to accommodate roughly 1,000 students. New programs in intervening years, including special education, English as a second language, vocational offerings, and a computer laboratory, have placed unanticipated demands on the facility. Academic programs mandated by the state, such as additional math and science required since 1984, also require more classroom space.

It is unfortunate that public discussion of the $5.3-million plan has been limited to a series of presentations this month to school and civic groups - and a single informational forum on Monday. Noel McStay, the East Hampton District Superintendent, has admitted concern about the outcome of the vote, noting that the referendum on the John Marshall expansion passed by a mere 11 votes. "The less controversy, the better," he commented recently, however.

Controversy, such as exists, has centered not so much on the pro ject's need, but on its cost, the lion's share of which, according to Thomas and Associates, the same architects who designed the John Marshall School project, will go for construction ($2 million), renovation ($900,000), and furnishings and equipment. And, some are finding the $938,000 allotted for the sciences and furnishings hard to understand.

But East Hampton foresees before too long the possibility of having to rent portable classroms, consider split sessions, or raise class sizes, already at about 25 in some cases. These are not desirable solutions to overcrowding.

At a public forum for East Hampton Town's young people last week, the high school project came up among a myriad of topics. Several characterized the high school as "very crowded," saying it already was hard to fight your way through the freshman hallway.

"We also need the science rooms to keep East Hampton kids competitive," said one.

Demonstrated need for more space calls for a "yes" vote. The only caveat is that the district must keep a much closer watch over the design, inside and out, and over contracting and subcontracting than at the elementary school, where construction was somewhat delayed and driveway and access problems have yet to be corrected.

Even before an early cold snap descended on the East End last week, homeowners who called for a heating oil delivery were in for an unpleasant surprise.

Posted prices around the area early this week averaged about $1.29 a gallon, sharply higher than the $1.08-a-gallon average a year ago at this time, and at or close to the highest prices charged during last year's cold winter.

East Enders can find warmth in the fact that prices here are substantially below the average $1.38 a gallon charged UpIsland, according to the Oil Heat Institute of Long Island, a trade group.

Shortages

"As far as the price goes, it looks like it's going to be on the high side" this winter, said Marshall Prado, an owner of Marshall and Sons in Montauk. "But it can turn at any point."

"It's a commodity. It's going to have its ups and downs, although this year it never had its downs," agreed Richard Herrlin, president of Schenck Fuels in East Hampton.

Mr. Herrlin would not predict where prices will head. "I wish I could guess that," he said. "Then I would buy my futures, and I'd be set."

Citing supply shortages in the Northeast, Dick de Frietas, the service manager at W.C. Esp Inc. in Bridgehampton, said, "If we have a cold winter, it could go even higher."

Not Much Spread

He added that the price "spread of local companies is all within a penny or so of $1.29," so customers who want to shop at home for their heating oil will probably not find any great bargains by changing dealers.

"When the price goes down, we drop ours, too," said Mr. Frietas. "We don't like to keep it high."

Most local firms give discounts for volume purchases, prompt payments, and to senior citizens, he said.

"We're still in much better shape than we were years ago," said Mr. Prado.

Indeed, unlike in the 1970s, when the Organization of Petroleum Ex porting Countries caused oil prices to skyrocket with a series of embargoes, world supply is not the culprit today.

"There are enough reserves of crude to last 100 years. There is no shortage of anything," said Mr. Herrlin.

The Middle East, the source of most of the world's crude and a perennial trouble spot, continues to play a role, though.

Iraq Oil Embargo

Earlier this year, hoping for a drop in prices if the United Nations embargo against oil exports from Iraq was lifted as expected, wholesalers were reluctant to buy and hold large inventories. But the embargo remains in place and the expected glut of new stocks has not appeared.

Although Mr. Prado said he had had "no trouble with supplies," Mr. Herrlin said dealers have experienced difficulties obtaining long-term commitments from wholesalers, in part because of the Iraqi situation and a shortage of storage space.

"This year has been difficult. No one's been selling any contracts," he said.

Domestic stocks of crude oil are also being diverted to meet higher demand for gasoline and diesel fuel, according to the Oil Heat Institute.

Waive Diesel Tax?

Last week, the institute called on the Federal Government to allow dealers to substitute diesel fuel when heating-oil supplies are tight.

Diesel fuel and heating oil are virtually the same thing, except that diesel contains less sulfur to meet Federal air-quality standards, is dyed red so that truckers cannot substitute heating oil for it, and carries with it a 24-cent per gallon Federal tax.

The institute wants that tax waived temporarily to allow dealers to tap into diesel stocks.

"One of the biggest problems is that Europeans are paying more for crude oil than what we are paying, so suppliers are shipping more to Europe for the higher prices," added Mr. Herrlin.

"Don't panic," said Mr. Prado. "The best thing to do as a homeowner is to keep your tank full, keep your furnace serviced, and make sure your home is well insulated."

The Nature Conservancy has scheduled a walk on Saturday in its Wolf Swamp Preserve in Southampton, beginning at 9 a.m. Hikers will see late fall-migrating birds and late-season botany in the red maple and tupelo swamp on the shores of Big Fresh Pond.

The East Hampton Trails Preservation Society's Richard Lupoletti will lead a hike through Northwest Woods on Sunday, beginning at 10 a.m. Mr. Lupoletti's group will trek through what is perhaps the most majestic white pine forest on Long Island, passing Jason's Rock, Chatfield's Hole, and the Two Holes of Water on the way before finishing at the grave of young Benjamin Hubbard.

Hikers have been asked to meet at the corner of Swamp Road and Bull Path in East Hampton.

A moonlight stroll is planned by the Group for the South Fork for Saturday, in the Sagg Swamp Preserve in Sagaponack. As the sun sets and the moon rises, hikers should be able to hear the territorial calls of screech owls, and perhaps, with luck, the mating calls of great-horned owls. Vikki Hilles will lead the listeners.

Reservations for the Nature Conservancy hike and the Sagg Swamp stroll are required. The Conservancy's office is in East Hampton; the Group is headquartered in Bridgehampton.