There are Hamptoners who only use their houses here one week a year. I know this because two years ago I worked as a sous chef for such a family. Headed by one of the biggest Wall Street whales, they only inhabit their Water Mill House during Thanksgiving week, the rest of the year being spent in the city, Florida, England, France, and probably more places to which I’m not privy.

       With its team of gardeners planting all sorts of autumnal foliage around the vast bay-touched property, its cozy fireplace-lit rooms, and its barn with indoor squash court and bowling alley, the compound is an idyllic spot in which to celebrate bounty. They have much to be thankful for.

       I received a call a few days before Thanksgiving from the estate manager. I had known her when she was the private chef of now-divorced friends, a Wall Street pasha and his wife who had a house on the ocean near the Maidstone Club. She knew that I cheffed on occasion. Could I start Monday? There were three days of prep work before the extended family of roughly 30 would gather on Thursday.

       I had never been a sous chef. I had worked the line at a restaurant once, had been a cook at two top Los Angeles caterers, had a couple of catering companies of my own, and had been a “private chef” for several clients from L.A. to Connecticut.

       I would be working under the clients’ French chef, who followed them to their various residences.

       “How’s your knife work?” she asked. Not great, was the truth. Knife work? This had never been important to me. Then again, I never worked for clients who cared if a carrot was properly julienned or a leaf chiffonaded. It’s not that I don’t know how to properly slice and dice, it’s just — like penmanship — I’d never mastered it. I’m a very fast cook, preferring to rely on the various blades of the food processor. But that, I knew, would not please a classically trained French chef. 

       I consider myself a creative chef. My formal training is limited. In my 20s my neighbor in the city, Peter Kump, founder of the James Beard House, inveigled me to attend the first class of his cooking school. Today it is the widely respected Institute of Culinary Education. I already knew what I was doing, having fooled around in the kitchen since I was 15. My first meal: Chicken Kiev from “The New York Times Cookbook.” Yes, the melted butter spurted. I was hooked.

       I loved Peter’s school, learned a lot, but found I preferred my usual method of immersing myself in cookbooks (always piled high on my nightstand), then using recipes as veering off points from which to experiment with my own versions. Like covering songs. A few years later, while living in London, I took a few classes at the Cordon Bleu, but found its methods dated. In one of the classes a dour woman demonstrated how to prepare a marrow squash, basically a large tasteless zucchini. I reverted to the books of Elizabeth David and Madhur Jaffrey, going through a stage where I cooked only Indian food, seduced by the exotic aroma of toasting spices. 

       As I was buzzed through the security gate, I was anxious about what the chef would think of my skills. Never mind my years of cooking untold dinner parties for friends, not to mention cooking three meals a day for myself. (For today’s lunch, just a regular weekday meal, I stuffed a poussin with dried fruits and threw some vegetables into the roasting pan. It took me the same time as making a sandwich, not including cooking time.) The first day went well. We mostly made menus and lists of ingredients, which we gave to another kitchen helper whose only job was to shop.

       That night the estate manager suggested we go out for dinner, an opportunity to bond. She chose Bobby Van’s. Since we were on Long Island, I suggested fluke. When the chef took a bite I could see it was not up to his standards. Then I tried it. Strangely cardboardish. I sent mine back. He didn’t, but he didn’t eat his either. I later found out this had scored against me. But I’d be damned if I’d pay $35 for an inedible fish.

       The next day the prep work began. Two housekeepers and the Water Mill and New York butlers bustled about on the perimeter. The chef eyed me suspiciously, but didn’t find much to complain about. I kept my eye on three kitchen maids who grabbed my chopping block to clean whenever I wasn’t looking. We endlessly peeled and chopped and, as there was not enough room in the three kitchen refrigerators, it was my job to find space in the pool house refrigerators, and its outside closet that stored cushions, but was cold enough to keep vegetables safely. For the next few days I made the trek between the pool house and kitchen dozens of times, carrying boxes of produce through where dozens of clumps of helenium were being planted, and wondered what it would be like to be so rich. I felt like I’d landed on Planet Billionaire: 10 or so acres of privilege and excess.

       On Wednesday, a team of seven tabletop designers spent 12 hours arranging foliage and owl and turkey candles and sculptures spilling a cornucopia of fruit and nuts, as anticipation built. When the head butler, a Brit who spent a lot of time making himself tea and eating jelly sandwiches, rushed through the house calling “Wheels up!” all hell broke loose. Everyone scurried about to ensure all was in order before our lords and masters descended upon the household. If I were rich, I wondered, would I have servants unscrew my Perrier cap as did the lady of the house?

       We made lunch for six. As we lined up platters of sea bass, lobster, and salads (lentil, Caesar, arugula — each one fiddled with by the chef with the precision of a diamond cutter), the missus sent word through her New York butler, Anthony, for us to prepare sandwiches. Back to the pool house with the uneaten food, no one daring to tell the boss that there’d been a communication breakdown. The bill from the Clamman alone was $700. When the chef saw the sandwiches I’d prepared he had a minor freakout. I had to start again and cut the crusts off the bread just so.

       On Thursday a half-dozen freelance butlers arrived (one told me he was paid $1,000). Glorified waiters, it was their job to set the tables and serve the food, but mostly to stand around and look servile. It upset me that we went through miles of plastic wrap and aluminum foil, but there was nothing I could do. It was clear the chef had no respect for Americans’ traditional holiday fare, boiling to death huge pots of vegetables and Frenchifying them with lots of butter and cream. Didn’t that go out in the ’70s with Cuisine Minceur?

       Service went smoothly. The chef had me put beads of Sevruga from a large tin on boring white crackers. Only two were eaten. I didn’t amputate any fingers, didn’t elicit much ire from the chef. But since he never had the opportunity to taste any of my food, I knew he didn’t respect me. I learned many lessons, most notably: Cooking is something I love, so I now I reserve it as a gift for the people I love.

—

       Debra Scott is a real estate columnist at The Star.

“At a certain point you’re going to plan that gathering which you won’t be able to attend. You’re going to make your final arrangements.”  — from the blog The Screaming Pope

       Q. Dear Pope, as you know, I’ve been thinking about this for some time, and recently settled on Oakland Cemetery in Sag Harbor, which I’ve been hoping to show you one day soon. Should I select a plot on higher land, so that drainage is good?

       “Everyone is opting for higher land these days, but remember Venice and Amsterdam have survived below sea level for centuries. Not to be overly phobic, but higher land also puts your plot in danger of terrorists and drones.”

       Q. Should I buy four plots instead of two, to give my wife and me more space?

       “I would opt for four plots so you can offer your mourners some amenities. With your extra two plots, you can build a little workout area equipped with, say, a treadmill and elliptical for those who want to get aerobic while they’re paying their respects. I personally can’t remember anyone unless my heart rate has reached a certain level. A normal heart rate is like death to me.”

       Q. Should I put a little mini wall around the plots to show that we are important and make it easier for those coming to pay their respects to find us? Should I put a nice little bench nearby to encourage people to give a little more time to sitting and remembering all that was good about me?

       “Again, affirmative . . . my rule of thumb is bigger than a gravestone, but less than a full-blown mausoleum. Oh, one little point: Your bench should a have a plaque. People have short memories and by the time they get to the bench, they may not be able to remember who you are.”

       Q. I struggle between the cheaper and environmentally preferable option of cremation versus full-body burial. But in the end, does cremation seem too final?

       “I like cremation since it’s sexier. I always wanted my ashes scattered in the women’s locker room at Equinox so that I would be surrounded by naked women for all eternity.”

       Q. Should I write my obit and the farewell remarks that will be made at my send-off? Or should I just trust that whoever writes them is going to know what they are doing?

       “Remember Ashford and Simpson? I think the obit can be written by you and your eulogist with one of those little EMI doodads next to the credit, in case the eulogy itself makes it to the Top 40.”

       Q. Should I engrave on the tombstone a link to a website that will have a robust offering of my history, speeches, awards, achievements, etc.?

       “A no-brainer.”

       Q. What should my epitaph emphasize — my good-heartedness, my veteran’s status, my love of family, my Honorable Mention All-City Football Team recognition in Omaha, the love of my cat, Reed?

       “I wouldn’t go into any of these items. Everyone knows those things. I will share with you what I think to be an extraordinary aspect of your character. It may seem like a small thing, but the way you comb your hair says so much. First of all, you are the only guy I know who still puts a comb through his hair and certainly one of the only ones in our age group who still has something left to put a comb through. But I’m sure even if you were bald you would still pull the old comb out in polite company. It’s a spiritual act, by Jove, and the world needs to know this. Combing and praying are virtually the same thing for you. So your epitaph could read: ‘He combed with the hand of God,’ or ‘At home with the comb of God,’ or ‘God, where did he get that comb?’ We can work on the details. I don’t think we have it quite yet.”

    Paul Critchlow is writing a memoir tentatively titled “Outrunning the Peter Principle: Tips From an Inveterate Corporate Survivor.” He lives part time on North Haven.

    Francis Levy, a Wainscott resident, is the author of the comic novels “Erotomania: A Romance” and “Seven Days in Rio.” He blogs at TheScreamingPope.com and on The Huffington Post.

       We tried, but, as usual, failed to escape Thanksgiving.

       “Let’s go to Sam’s,” I said to Mary when the subject came up, “and have a large pizza with cranberry topping.”

       It’s not that we are antisocial — we do care for our relatives, but when they’re foregathered all at once it can be overwhelming, especially if you are — as Mary often is — the designated cook. (I, being the designated joyful one, have an equally arduous task.)

       She was let off the hook somewhat this Thanksgiving, having only to make three shepherd pies and turkey soup for 14 for the day after.

       Somewhere she heard that roasted turkey might turn out better if cut up a bit. The butcher advised against it — with reason as it turned out, for the various parts ended up unevenly cooked, some hardly at all. Which got her to worrying so about salmonella that she was ready to chuck everything and start anew with a whole new one.

       “See, I told you I didn’t think I’d be very good company this Thanksgiving,” she imagined herself saying to her siblings as reports of salmonella poisoning began to come in.

       “Salmonella Mary. . . . It has a nice ring to it,” I said. “And you alone will be left to inherit your mother’s estate.”

       Gavin, our son-in-law, a chef, among other things, who, even though he was still in mourning for the Broncos’ recent last-minute loss to the Patriots, rallied to reassure her that everything would be all right.

       “See,” I said to Mary this morning. “I ate a turkey sandwich last night, and I’m still . . . aaargh, aaargh, gasp, gasp, oh, Jesus, oh my God! Still . . . still. . . .”

       I quickly got up from the floor because I didn’t want to overdo it. “Still here!”

       “Okay, you can taste the soup now,” she said a while later. “And tell me if it needs salt.”

       I dipped the spoon in — gingerly, eyeing her carefully, inasmuch as I was reluctant to take leave of my that it was very savory as it was. As was she.

       “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she said brightly.

       I, of course, was happy in the knowledge that she still likes having me around. . . . At least I think she does . . . for most of the time . . . for much of the time, anyway . . . in small cathartic doses then; let’s leave it at that.

    My first job after moving to Springs in 1985 was as a freelance copy editor, which made sense after years of writing. My second job, taken in 1986, was as prep cook at Bruce’s restaurant in Wainscott, which made sense only because I liked to cook. I had never worked in a restaurant or cooked professionally. Even in my home kitchen, performance anxiety was part of every undertaking. But my idea of prep work was what I did before cooking a meal at home — chopping vegetables, washing salad greens, peeling potatoes. How hard could it be?

    Bruce Weed seemed a straight-shooter. As he handed me an apron, he said previous experience was no guarantee of success in the kitchen. The fundamental tools of the job were the prep list and a loose-leaf notebook of recipes. The daily routine began around 7 a.m., when I would open the building and consult the prep list to see which tasks had to be completed before dinner service.

    When Christa would drop me off, she would wait in the parking lot for a declaration of how the day was shaping up. From the open kitchen door she was likely to hear, “Brunch potatoes again! Kill me!” or “Arrrgh! Another batch of clam chowder! I’ll be here till midnight!” As the day wore on and I crossed off item after item, my mood would lighten — unless I found myself sitting outside in the dark on an upturned five-gallon container, hoping to finish debearding 30 pounds of mussels before service was to begin.

    One Sunday morning the door was ajar and a pane of glass had been shattered. I stepped cautiously into the kitchen. Since I wasn’t cursing about cheesecake or garlic sausages, Christa drove away. I selected a 12-inch chef’s knife and began to creep through the kitchen and into the restaurant proper. Then I pictured getting hoisted on my own petard, and wisely reconsidered.

    There was nobody else in the building, so I returned with relief to the kitchen, where a man was reaching through the window pane. I picked up the phone, dialed 911, and told the intruder I was calling the police. He didn’t seem to care, but slowly, reluctantly almost, shuffled off. The police picked him up a few minutes later staggering down Town Line Road. He was drunk, having consumed a considerable amount of alcohol while inside but taken nothing.

     The thing about Bruce is that he was a locavore before the term existed. He grew his own tomatoes, lettuces, zucchini, eggplant, and herbs, and what he didn’t grow came, during the appropriate season, from Kenny Schwenk’s farm next door. I remember picking green beans, tomatoes, and lettuces during the summer, broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts in the fall. During the winter, the eggs served at brunch came from Bruce’s chickens. His menu, hand-written each week, listed his suppliers. Moreover, almost everything was made from scratch — sausage, pasta, ice cream, chicken stock, sourdough rolls — the list went on and on. Bruce even made his own mozzarella.

    The restaurant was a big success. On weekend evenings and for Sunday brunch, the cars were lined up on Town Line Road halfway to the beach.

    In 1988, Nick and Toni’s opened on North Main in East Hampton where Ma Bergmann’s had been, and Pino Luongo’s Sapore di Mare appeared in Wainscott, and the East End restaurant scene began to evolve into something with a higher profile.

    I had to leave Bruce’s in 1989 in search of a 9-to-5 job with paid benefits. I would never again have to fill in for the missing dishwasher after a nine-hour day shift, or struggle with recalcitrant sausage casings, or work New Year’s Eve, or arrive home fragrant of chicken stock and cooking oil, perhaps garnished with a few wayward fish scales.

    But I learned enough about cooking that I became relaxed in my own kitchen, and enough about running a restaurant to know you have to be a little bit crazy and have a wicked sense of humor — which Bruce did — to do it. Bruce eventually sold the restaurant, which today, after several iterations, houses Town Line Barbecue, and today he owns Bruce Weed Computers. 

    Mark Segal is a writer at The East Hampton Star.

   Some of the most enduring images of the days following Hurricane Sandy have been of citizen volunteers helping victims in the Rockaways, along the Jersey Shore, and elsewhere. On the other hand, the picture has been one of failure by the institutions in which many trusted. The Long Island Power Authority, for example, and nearly every level of authority were unprepared for the scale of devastation and disruption of normal, day-to-day life.

    Neither government nor the Red Cross nor any semi-official group was ready for this disaster. Perhaps none could be, given a crimped economy and too much of the nation’s wealth spent on the military rather than on the welfare of its people. Perhaps in Sandy we have seen the outer, frayed edges of a free-market system, where, when it gets down to it, it is everyone for him or herself — except for the kindness of strangers.

    Even here, so far from the hurricane’s highest surges and fiercest gusts, town officials appeared to falter. Not so with the Amagansett, East Hampton, and Montauk Libraries, which served as essential community centers for many, many residents left in the dark or without heat. That the humble libraries — and ordinary people with huge hearts — filled needs that were not to be provided by government is eye-opening. The libraries are for the most part taxpayer-funded, and their administrators are glad to do what is helpful. But it is surprising that there were no other places for people, at least in the Town of East Hampton, to pursue their everyday lives, to find working toilets, to connect to the Internet, or get a jug of water.

    It is wonderful that these institutions were able to provide this service. Thank goodness they could keep the lights on, so to speak. But by itself that is not reassuring. The post-storm needs of residents must be more fully addressed by those we elect to lead us, not simply fobbed off to citizen heroes or libraries willing to fill the gaps left by officials who have been painfully bereft of foresight.

    The restaurant economies of Bridgehampton, and to a lesser extent Water Mill, have benefited, albeit ever so slightly, from our eldest daughter’s taking to ballet and other forms of dance in a big way. The greenhouse effect, on the other hand, gives me room for pause.

    Lisa and I decided to lease a fuel-efficient vehicle a few months ago, but the way things worked out, it became my wife’s daily drive, and I was left with the Tundra. It’s old and generally filled with fishing gear or surfboards or things destined for the dump. I worry that it may mortify Adelia when I pick her up at school, but it is what I have for now.

    Due to the way my wife’s and my schedules work, I have become the designated driver for Adelia’s practices. Three evenings a week, I am killing time in Bridgehampton, and one night a week, in Water Mill. I have so far been able to evade a Saturday Bridgehampton run to practices in advance of a December performance of “The Nutcracker.”

    With little else to do during these times, I am eating my way around both hamlets’ restaurants and scoping out the best wireless Internet hot spots. There’s a sweet taco deal on Tuesdays at one place, I learned, and a really odd and lonely bar crowd at another.

    Between Adelia’s after-school pick-me-ups at Starbucks and my dinners out, the food budget has taken a turn toward the extravagant. It’s a good thing I started bringing my lunch to work after Bucket’s closed last year, I suppose.

    At the same time, I try not to think about the hole in the ozone or global warming my Toyota pickup is contributing to, but every time I fill up the tank, the sharp, stabbing pain in the wallet reminds me. That is, if I forget about how much the dance classes themselves are running us.

    All the money and idle hours are well worth it, however. Adelia loves dance, and I like the time to do nothing much at all other than eat around.   

    I’m in the eighth ditch of the eighth circle of Hell now, with the falsifiers. Today it would probably not be so populous a place, for relatively few of us moderns can claim to know the truth (thus how could we falsify it) enveloped as we are in cosmic molasses.

    Speaking of cosmic molasses, I was glad to see the Nobel Prize winner Dr. Peter W. Higgs, after whom the Higgs boson is named, does not use a cellphone or a computer — a laudable but perhaps inevitably doomed attempt by the so-called God particle’s discoverer to remain disconnected from the madding crowd.

    If eschewing a cellphone and computer is a sign of genius, which I think it is, I — a computer user but still cellphone celibate — can only lay claim to sub-genius status, which is proper, I suppose, for one who, despite today’s concern for concussions, remains a fan of pro football and of boxing (until the first real punch lands, then I’m for stopping the fight).

    The violent in the Inferno are sunk in a river (the Phlegethon) of their own blood. (I would argue that the vicariously violent, rather than full immersion, ought to be allowed to merely slog along in Phlegethon’s estuaries.)

    Dante, like Aristotle, “affirmed that the particular goal of mankind as a whole [was] to realize to the fullest all the potentialities of intellect.”

    When you read stories about scientists like Dr. Higgs and his fellow Nobelist, Dr. Francois Englert, you think we are doing just that.

    But the question remains: Will we achieve the concord toward which full knowledge aims before we blow ourselves up?

    Meanwhile, I want to e-mail Dr. Higgs and ask him if we should worship the Higgs boson as the Primum Mobile.

    Ah, but he doesn’t have a computer!

    I’ll ask Mary then.

    The letters to the editor in The East Hampton Star, to me, are the icing on the cake. I was about to say they are the spice in the stew, but stewing is not only a method of getting a batch of foods together and cooking them, but also means fretting or fussing . . . and maybe making a fuss isn’t quite what some letter writers need to be further encouraged to do.

    Be that as it may, I try to read everything in every issue of The Star and leave the icing on the cake for last. Even though I usually have a bit of a head start, by reading the editorials and a number of the news stories before they see print, I don’t always attain that goal. Aside from the obvious fact that there’s always a lot in the paper, I am a slow reader. To be honest, I sort of pride myself on being a slow reader, because I decided some years ago that slow readers make good proofreaders. I like to think I’m good at it.

    A long time ago, in the 1970s to be exact, we had a brilliant young man on the editorial staff who was a terrible proofreader. At first, I thought it was an anomaly, but eventually I decided that the words on a page went from his eye to his brain so fast that he couldn’t register anything but the meaning. He wrote very, very slowly, every word chosen carefully and spelled correctly, but he wasn’t much use when the time came to check letters to the editor for typos and such.

    The late Everett Rattray, who more than 50 years ago established The Star’s policy of printing every letter received (unless obscene or libelous), used to call our letters pages Freedom Hall. The idea of Freedom Hall referred, in part, to his decision to run letters that expressed opinions that some would consider hateful: This country doesn’t need the First Amendment to protect speech that everyone likes; it is the opinions that are out of the mainstream that need protection. (If you think back on the history of the 20th century, and the ways in which nationalism and group-think can run amok, you will understand that this principle is true.) He also agreed that we should print letters that seemed flat-out crazy. Who were we, he asked, to judge?

    Of course, I have to admit that I enjoy it when the print gossip columns and electronic celebrity Web sites pick up something from our letters, as they have since we ran a letter from Alec Baldwin on Oct. 3. But, honestly, it wasn’t Mr. Baldwin who got me thinking about the letters pages but Paul Thorton, the editor of The Los Angeles Times.

    Mr. Thorton has announced that he will no longer publish letters to the editor from climate-change deniers  because their statements are factually inaccurate. This gave me pause. In my opinion, an informed society requires access to what people are thinking, whether right or wrong. If I had Mr. Thorton’s ear, I would suggest that, instead of a ban, an editor’s note pointing to a legitimate scientific source would serve his readers better.

    By the way, Alec Baldwin is in The Star again this week, responding to a letter last week from an East Hampton photographer he had lambasted. There’s no doubt that our letters pages are a continuing and lively community bulletin board, and I am happy to say the digital revolution hasn’t put a damper on it one bit.

    At first blush, it was hard to understand why Southampton Town officials would fight a lawsuit brought by a group of churchgoers who claimed their civil rights were violated when they went to Southampton Town Hall on July 26, 2011, to protest against same-sex marriages on the first day such marriages became legal in New York State.

    It has been widely reported that police refused to allow them to remain on the steps of Town Hall because the building had been declared a “Bias Free Zone” in 2008, with a sign posted to that effect.

    The group, which the Web-based Religion News Service called the Southampton Six, was comprised of the Rev. Donald Havrilla of the Southampton First Gospel Church and five congregants of his and other churches. They alleged their freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, equal access, equal protection, and right of due process had been violated.

    The town, of course, had no choice but to respond to the suit, brought in Federal Court for the Eastern District of New York, and an attorney for the town said it had moved “as expeditiously as necessary” to settle the case after Judge Joseph Bianco refused to dismiss it,  finding a potential civil rights issue. As might be expected, settlement took a long time.

    The irony is that signs designating public places Bias-Free Zones were initiated by the town’s Anti-Bias Task Force, whose intent was to promote civility rather than to “impede upon anyone’s first amendment rights,” as Town Councilwoman Bridget Fleming said last week after some of the terms agreed to were reported.

    In a press release last week, the town said it would pay the plaintiffs’ attorney $40,000; that it had rescinded the 2008 resolution, and authorized that new, more carefully worded, signs go up soon “to reinforce the town’s commitment to ensuring that all citizens that the town interacts with will be treated in a bias-free manner.”

    In the court of public opinion, it seemed the protesters had won, but the suit never went to trial and the facts about exactly what happened that day in July are in dispute. “We gave some, and they gave some,” Ms. Fleming said, adding that she could not elaborate.

    The plaintiffs alleged that they were forced to move from the steps to an area flanked by seven-foot-tall bushes, and that this effectively kept them from interacting with others.  Attorneys for the town, however, indicated more was involved, only hinting — because the agreement had not yet been filed with the court and therefore was not official — that protesters may have headed inside the building to the town clerk’s office, where they may have intended to interrupt things. 

    “Local public officials do not have the constitutional authority to relegate people to the back of the bus in the public forum because of their religious views,”  the protesters’ attorney told the Religious News Service. I don’t know whether this is a fair or exaggerated reflection about what happened, but the essence of it is a principle on which all sides are likely to agree.

    With Halloween upon us, a ghost story would seem appropriate, and, as it happens, there is a tale of Congress Hall to be told.

    The house, which stands on Main Street overlooking the East Hampton Village Green, is ancient and storied. It was in the Mulford family from when it was built, sometime after 1680, until 1976.

    Congress Hall got its name somewhat cynically during the mid-19th century to note that it was where many of the men of the village would gather to talk, welcomed by their bachelor host, David Mulford.

    A descendant, David E. Mulford, sent me an excerpt from a family history he wrote that described the place, from which I learned much about the house and its inhabitants. The story was told, he wrote, that around 1805, the family added an extra room for their “slave girls.”

    Mr. Mulford related that the house was rented to summer tenants beginning in the 1870s and that the painter Thomas Moran, who later built a house and studio just up the street, was the first tenant. Another was Gen. Nelson A. Miles, a one-time commanding general of the United States Army.

    Round about 1885, the town trustees ordered that Buell Lane be widened, and over the protest of the then owner, David G. Mulford, the work required that a triangular section of the house be removed. It was.

    Mr. Mulford described his earliest memories of Congress Hall, which date to the early 1930s — how warm the massive central fireplace kept it and the sound of a Dominy tall clock ticking in the front hall. In summers until 1975, the house was rented to others, but that year, the family realized they could no longer maintain it.

    Still, ties were strong, and they and friends decided to spend one last summer there. It was a glorious time, Mr. Mulford recalled, sprucing up the place and inviting friends for visits. Hurricane Belle struck in August, scattering tree limbs, but doing no particular damage to Congress Hall.

    Several experiences that summer, however, Mr. Mulford wrote, suggested that the ancestors might not have approved of the decision to sell. He described a chill wind passing through the dining room on an otherwise close and sultry night. A fruit bowl set on a table cascaded into several pieces on its own. Another time, a glass hurricane lamp cracked, its fragments falling suspiciously neatly. A clock that had not run for years was discovered wound and running one morning; no one of this world claimed responsibility.

    “I couldn’t help but think that perhaps some earlier generations of Mulfords were trying to discourage us from having the house leave the family, or at least get our attention,” he wrote.

    Congress Hall today has new owners once again, who have set about restoring it. Bill Hugo, their contractor, took me around the place the other day, showing me the corner where the building was sliced away to make room for the road.

    We saw no ghosts. But there is no saying whether or not they were there watching  . . . us.