After years of trying to pretend there was no problem, and letting potential solutions drop, Sag Harbor officials under a new mayor have gotten serious about potential health risks at the only bathing beach within village limits. Call it a creek, dreen, or drainage ditch, the short water course that empties onto Havens Beach is at last slated for a long-overdue pollution-cleanup effort — though not until next year at the earliest. 

The Suffolk County Health Department had ordered Havens Beach temporarily closed to swimming more than once over the years, for fear of bacterial contamination. But it was not until tests showed human and animal waste in the water that the powers that be really committed to doing something about it. 

Work on a tentative plan for a series of catch basins, filters, and a restored wetland could begin next winter if money is found. Happily, environmental remediation of this kind can win federal and state funding. The East Hampton Town Board and the town trustees should lend their support to the effort right away, too, as Havens Beach lies within the town limits, and any improvement in water quality there would pay indirect dividends for Northwest Harbor and beyond.

The Sag Harbor Village Trustees are to be commended for taking on this challenge and vowing it see it through.

    Down in Miami a couple of years ago, they banned the use of residential property for commercial purposes. This came as a surprise to a wealthy couple who had rented a house for a 40th-birthday party in February, and then faced the threat of a police blockade. The rental cost them $40,000, and, in the view of the City of Miami, the payment was an illegal transaction. 

The Miami law was put in place to stop short-term rentals for parties and promotional events that annoyed the neighbors, with cars parked every which way, traffic tie-ups, loud music, and the like. Though a judge allowed the party to go on, it touched off a discussion about whether the no-party laws were tough enough. The city has appealed the judge’s decision and is considering further measures to put a stop to the trade in mansions for hire. 

This has echoes on the South Fork, but especially in East Hampton Town, where a two-day rock festival this summer has been planned for residential property in Amagansett. Those who oppose using the site for the festival allege that it would be in violation of not-quite-identical but nevertheless similar regulations. 

Unlike in Miami, where officials have sided with residents in trying to enforce peace and quiet, East Hampton Town was sued late last month in an effort to overturn its approval of the August festival. Among other things, the suit claims that the town’s commercial-gathering permit, which was issued for the festival, is not applicable to events on private property. East Hampton might do well to heed the Miami model.

    In all, nearly a mile of East Hampton’s oceanfront shoreline could become off limits to the public if parallel lawsuits brought by a group of property owners prevail. There is a great risk that stretches of beach in Amagansett and on Napeague would be, in effect, privatized after centuries of being open to all who wished to pass. The property owners are claiming that a 19th-century sale by the East Hampton Town Trustees reserved for them alone the use of the area above the high-tide line. If they win in court, everything from beach driving to birdwatching could be blocked when the tide is up.

So far, the trustees and town board have mounted a lackluster defense of a tradition considered almost sacrosanct. The trustees chose Sag Harbor’s village attorney to handle the case, and the town, also named in the suit, has had an inactive town attorney, who was removed from daily responsibilities in July after a dispute, on the case. Neither has the kind of litigation experience necessary for taking on a matter this important. 

It is to some measure the fault of the trustees and town board that the claim of private ownership reached the point of litigation in the first place. The rules governing beach driving are rarely enforced, especially in the early morning and evening hours, and the so-called “truck beach” on Napeague has become too crowded in summer. During the fall bass runs, pedestrians find the beach almost impassable because of all the tire ruts. This is not to say that the plaintiffs would not have filed the lawsuits had, for example, four-wheeler permit checks been more rigorous. However, a more active role by police and marine patrol officers might have helped avert the current high-stakes legal confrontation.

Faced with the prospect of being reviled as the group that lost the beaches, and perhaps resigning themselves to defeat, officials are said to be privately considering the possibility of condemnation if the town does not prevail in court. But well before the matter advances that far, the town board and trustees should re-evaluate their defense team and its strategy, and take immediate steps to increase their firepower.

The public trust doctrine, which involves access to waterways and other assets, and the East Hampton Town Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, which carries the force of state law, could perhaps be brought to bear on these suits. Furthermore, a reasonable question might be whether the 1882 land sale cited by the property owners in itself violated the law by giving away something the trustees did not have the right to abandon, namely, free passage along the shore.  

From colonial times onward, the public has had a vested right to use the beach. Those who value the continued freedom of the beaches should demand that town officials spare no effort or expense in taking on this fight. 

   Sag Harbor Village will soon have a new and expensive maintenance responsibility when it takes over ownership of Long Wharf from the county. Given the financial crisis climate, Suffolk officials have been looking for ways to shed costs. So they offered the 1,000-foot-long pier to the village for $1, threatening to sell it to the highest bidder if the village didn’t pony up. It wasn’t surprising that the village trustees voted, albeit with some grumbling, last week to go ahead with the deal. Sag Harbor Mayor Brian Gilbride has proposed putting money into a reserved fund to meet anticipated costs.

    Fees to dock at the wharf bring about $90,000 to the village each year. It has been responsible for its routine upkeep, while the county, as owner, has shouldered major repairs, about $1 million in the last decade. That’s not a very high price tag. But roughly $340,000 of new work will be needed soon, according to the county.

    It is disappointing that the county, which is glad to take a considerable share of sales tax receipts away from the South Fork, would be so parsimonious when it comes to giving some money back. Legislator Jay Schneiderman, whose office is on Washington Street in Sag Harbor, not far from the wharf, said his efforts to win money for its repair were met with resistance from UpIsland lawmakers. Meanwhile, he said, the East End is shortchanged by having to pay about $3 million toward county police spending.

    If Suffolk continues to rid itself of holdings out east, as well as to hold back money that rightfully should come this way, we wonder if renewed calls for a breakaway Peconic County will be far behind.

   Truth be told, we had our doubts about the official fisheries lobbyist for East Hampton Town when Arnold Leo was first appointed some years ago. However, in the time that he held the job and based on reports from people in the industry, our opinion changed.    

    This year, despite a sharp reduction in the town budget line for his position, Mr. Leo had intended to stay on, working with Albany and Washington. That is, until he was precipitously fired by the town board along party lines earlier this month. No one has been named to replace him, leaving the town without representation at upcoming important regional meetings.   

    If there were valid criticisms of Mr. Leo’s performance, as Supervisor Bill Wilkinson has hinted, we have not heard them, nor has Mr. Leo, who was surprised by the Republicans’ sudden disapproval.  With Mr. Leo’s $15,000 stipend for 2011 the only thing at stake and already in the budget, it would make sense for the board to return him to the post — at least until a replacement is settled upon. There are issues and regulatory battles just ahead for the town’s commercial and recreational fishing interests, and it is essential that an experienced hand is at the helm.     

Pergolas and other landscape appurtenances were the objects of contention at a Sagaponack Village Board meeting last week, but the real issue was the size of houses. The village trustees’ idea that these garden follies be counted against the total allowable floor area amounted to fighting words. If a trellis, for example, was included in the square-footage calculations, the main structure would have to be that much smaller.

The board’s pergola proposal was anathema to those who have made an industry out of selling spec houses in the charming village. There seem to be Wall Streeters around still willing to invest in big houses, and the bigger they are the more money there is to be made. One developer went so far as to say the concept was “totalitarian.” Well, maybe.

Having heard from others in the trades who opposed including lawn features in square-footage limits, the village board eased up a bit. To be considered at a Dec. 3 hearing will be a proposal spotting property owners one pergola of up to 300 square feet per lot without their counting against house dimensions. This seems more than fair; one board member said she had a pergola half that size, which was big enough for a dining table for 12.

Also to be reviewed at the hearing will be lifting a restriction on other accessory structures, such as potting sheds and pool houses, which limits their size to no more than 30 percent of the main house. This sounds like a risky give-away, even on large parcels. A better path would be to leave the rule on the books and let exemptions be handled on a case-by-case basis by the village zoning board.

Sagaponack was not put on this earth to serve the interests of those who want to own hyper-crenellated McMansions or those who cover its fertile soil to supply them at maximum profit. The village trustees are right to consider reasonable limits on the excesses of the few who would prefer no fetters at all.

    News of the huge state fine levied on a Montauk marina owner and his contractor for illegal dredging is a serious reminder about wetlands protection. In a recent settlement, Rick Gibbs of Rick’s Crabby Cowboy on the eastern shore of Lake Montauk and Keith and Susan Grimes, who run land-moving businesses, will pay a $75,000 fine, and will have to pay $55,000 more if an agreed-to cleanup is not completed. In all, three businesses received 20 notices of violation from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, including dredging, building a road in a tidal wetland, storing materials without a permit, and conducting the work after a June 1 seasonal cutoff designed to protect the environment.

    All of this raises a question: Where was East Hampton Town?

    The laws on the town’s books in this regard are, if anything, tougher than the state’s, but there was not a single local citation. The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals and Planning Department are supposed to issue dredging permits, and the Ordinance Enforcement Department is responsible for being on the lookout for violations. None were involved in this case, and no town charges resulted. It was only through the insistence of the Group for the East End that these violations of law were brought to the D.E.C.’s attention. In addition, statements at the time from Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson indicated one of three things: Either he had no knowledge of environmental law, spoke too hastily when he said all necessary permits were in place, or his sympathies lay with Mr. Gibbs and the Grimeses.

    At a time when the state is struggling with the deep budget cuts that have hurt the conservation department, among others, it is important that local officials remain on the job. Unfortunately, in this case, and perhaps others that have not come to light — it appears that they have overlooked this responsibility.

So farewell then, multiculturalism. It seems you’ve been dumped, alongside pet rocks and fondue sets, as yet another 1970s fad. 

“Shall we kill it off?” somebody had probably asked. 

“Yes, let’s do that,” the orange-haired man who sits in the Oval Office had probably replied. “Who needs multiculturalism when we can make America more insular, less vibrant, and downright uncongenial.”

We are indeed at an unprecedented juncture in America. If there was ever a time for people to bridge their differences, not just to bond over their similarities, it is now. So, on a recent blustery Saturday evening, in an Amagansett house that is owned by a Thai and Indian couple, and was designed by an Iranian architect, 10 peripatetic East End friends from India, Thailand, Iran, Denmark, Japan, South Africa, Colombia, Staten Island, and Connecticut — came together to taste one another’s foods, tell their stories, and to recognize that diversity is part of the reason America is still a great place to live. In this strange disembodied age, food is a tangible, physical reminder of who we are.

Anne Kothari, the host on this occasion, was born in Bangkok, Thailand. Once the first runner up of the Miss Thailand beauty pageant, which launched her acting career in that country, she met her husband, Afsheen, there in 1995. Mr. Kothari was born in India and raised in Hong Kong. For over 20 years, the couple have lived full time in New York, where Mr. Kothari runs his family’s gemstone business. They have been coming to Amagansett since 1999, when they built a traditional house in the woods. Their sons, one a junior in college and the other a high school senior, grew up spending summers here. 

In 2016, the Kotharis decided to go modern and hired Maziar Behrooz, the Iranian-born architect who owns MB Architecture, with offices in East Hampton and Chelsea, to design their minimalist home on an Amagansett lane.

“I’ll tell you why I chose Maz,” said Mr. Kothari, in charming British English diction with a postcolonial lilt. “He’s simply the best architect out here.”

Mr. Behrooz came to the United States in 1976, when he applied, unbeknownst to his parents, to a boarding school in Massachusetts, and was accepted. 

“I showed my parents the acceptance letter and told them that I wanted to go because the school had tennis and skiing!” he said with a laugh.

He went on to study at Tulane University and then Cornell. In 1996, he opened his architecture firm in East Hampton, which he jokingly called, at first, a “nonprofit business.” Although trained in modern architecture. Mr. Behrooz said that in the ’90s, there was virtually no demand for modern structures here. 

“Even I was too afraid then to build modern,” he said, describing his first house on Georgica Pond as a hybrid: shingled exterior, Shaker touches, and modern on the inside.

Mr. Behrooz has not returned to Iran since 2001; his parents now live in New York and his sister in Frankfurt, Germany. His last trip back to his birthplace was bittersweet, he said, with smells and tastes reminding him of his childhood and the place he left behind. 

For our multicultural feast, he made a steaming dish of javaher polow, an aromatic treasure of basmati rice, saffron, cranberries, and blanched almonds. It is also aptly known as jeweled rice, as it arrives on a table golden and glistening, dotted with those gem-colored fruits, and laced with butter, which produces a crisp “tah dig,” or crust, at the bottom of the pan.

Ask any international transplant about the “tastes of home‚“ and it is clear that it’s always something physical — to be felt, consumed, and savored — something visceral, which reminds them where they came from.

There was Ms. Kothari’s sticky rice and spicy Larb Moo, one of the most popular Thai street foods. It’s a wonderful combination of minced pork, lime juice, chili flakes, fish sauce, and herbs to give it a refreshing touch. 

Nikki Butler, a South African married to a Chilean, who lives full-time in East Hampton, brought her mother’s “tried and tested” gammon recipe. This is a smoked hind leg of pig, which comes into its own with a sweet, spicy marinade of ginger beer, anise, and cloves, is cooked in a cast- iron pan, and then wrapped in a duvet overnight, where it continues to develop. She also produced a plate of Afrikaner koeksister, a deep-fried dessert, similar to a doughnut 

Gitte Pedersen-Botero is a Danish cancer researcher who lives in Montauk, where she and her husband Jack Botero, of Colombian heritage, have raised three children. She arrived in New York in 1992 and said she doesn’t miss Denmark. “I never miss anything as long as I’m around people I love.”

For the feast, her husband paid tribute to his Latino roots with a Colombian-style Pernil Asado, a big pork leg marinated in onion, garlic, scallions, and spices, then slow roasted for hours. His wife made Aebleskiver - a Danish dessert, like small doughnut holes, cooked in a cast-iron pan and served with powdered sugar.

Japanese home-style food was offered by Shino Moffitt, who has spent a life yo-yo-ing around the globe. Born in Japan, she arrived in America with her family when she was 3 months old, returned to Japan for high school, came back to America for college (she attended the University of Michigan), then headed back to Tokyo to work for Goldman Sachs, where she met her husband, Al, who is from Staten Island. They married in 2003 at the Wolffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack, and although they continued hopscotching around the world, Mr. Moffitt presented his wife with a house in Amagansett as a first anniversary gift. 

“The job can take us anywhere,” Ms. Moffitt said, “but this house is our home. We come here year round, we’re here all summer long, and always celebrate the holidays here.”

Nimono, or eggplant stewed and braised in soy sauce, sake, mirin, dashi, sugar, and salt, was accompanied by Goma ae, green beans in a sesame sauce, and a sweet, stewed pumpkin dish. 

I, like Mr. Kothari, was born in India (but raised in London) and my contribution that night was Lamb Raan, a spiced leg of lamb marinated for two days, then roasted and sprinkled with rose water at the very end. Also, from my childhood kitchen, a spicy cabbage and kale dish, cooked with turmeric, cumin, mustard seeds, and fragrant curry leaves. As if to underscore the point of this dinner, the vegetables came from Three Sons Farms in Amagansett, owned and operated by Steven Marzo, who splits his year between Hong Kong and Amagansett.

And so we sat like culinary magpies that evening, our appetites open-minded, and our plates ever happy to receive something new. Each platter was one person’s allegorical attempt to remake and restore, to remind each other of things that make us happy, to feed our frustrations of the current times, to satiate, to soothe, to make it bread-and-butter better.

And for us to remember that, wherever we came from, America was always our Ithaca: a place we all hoped would be our journey’s end.

The search for perfect holiday gifts can test your imagination, shopping stamina, and, above all, patience. But if you live on the East End and are interested in what artisans who live here do for a  living, it is possible to find gifts that are well made, original, not exorbitantly priced, and relevant to the life of the person you’re shopping for. 

As these five suggestions show, when something is made with the right combination of skill and inspiration, the line between what is artisanal and what is art gets blurred.

Build Your Own Surf & Skate Boards

Brian Schopfer, the shop manager of Grain New York Surfboards in Amagansett, had an adventure-filled life before coming to the South Fork. He taught sailing, crewed on a boat in a transatlantic race through the heart of Hurricane Gustav in 2002, and more recently spent 10 years as a property manager and woodworker at a Rhode Island vineyard with his wife and children.

In 2013, Mr. Schopfer’s life changed when he and his brother-in-law, Patrick Fleury, visited Grain’s original Maine location and took part in a surfboard-building workshop, which they began offering on Indian Wells Highway, Amagansett, in 2015.

All of Grain’s boards are made from scratch, using sustainably harvested northern white cedar from Maine. A skateboard session lasts two to three hours, and costs between $140 and $175. The workshops run three or four days, cost $2,200 and include all materials as well as instruction and two meals a day. No prior experience is necessary. Boards can be finished either pristine or decorated, and ready to ride.

Mr. Schopfer, a surfer, says one of the best perks of his job is joining his workshop students for a maiden run on their surfboards. Smiling, he said, “It’s so much fun to see somebody catch a wave on a board they built themselves.”

Grain Surfboards NY, www.grainsurfboards.com, 11 Indian Wells Highway, Amagansett. 631-267-9283.

The MTK Poster Company

Alison Seiffer’s illustrations have appeared in  The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker since she began her career in the mid-1980s. Her idea for the MTK Poster Company started after she volunteered to illustrate the poster for the annual Rell Sun Surf contest at Ditch Plain, Montauk. 

The feedback was so good, Ms. Seiffer expanded, offering three or four drawings each year for sale as prints, most of them beach and fishing scenes drawn from Montauk, where she lived for 25 years. She now makes signed giclée prints of her artwork in limited editions of 500 at her current home studio in Springs. The prints come in four sizes, framed or unframed, and prices range from $75 for an 11-by-17-inch piece to $700 for a 30-by-45-inch framed poster.

“I think what I like about doing images out here is there’s just so much to do between the fauna and the animals, the fish and the wildlife, the water, the sky, and the lifestyle. There’s just a lot of things to think about and reflect upon and use as inspiration,” Ms. Seiffer said. You can view her work and contact her at mtkposter.com.

D.I.Y. Oysters . . . and more 

Kim Gatti was already making all-natural soaps, lotions, and other products for her Montauk Soap Company before she and a friend, Jessie Lavin, opened the Montauk General Store in February. 

They wanted to showcase artisanal wares like the products Ms. Gatti makes, as well as jewelry, food, and unusual items like the $17.95 oyster-shucking block the store features from Two’s Company, a family-owned New York business that’s been around for 40 years. It’s a tool that can help you keep all 10 of your fingers if you open oysters yourself or, like Ms. Gatti, harvest them from local waters. (Asked where she goes in Montauk to gather oysters, Ms. Gatti laughed and said, “I can’t tell you that!”)

In addition to the oyster shucker, the Montauk General Store sells Blake’s Mother’s baked goods and organic free-trade coffee at its in-store coffee bar, jewelry made by an artist in Sag Harbor, local cheeses, charcuterie, and a vast assortment of toys, gifts, and other items. Ms. Gatti estimates half the store’s inventory is locally made.

“We basically just wanted to be a place where nice, handcrafted products by artists could be promoted — and it’s affordable,” she said.

Montauk General Store, mtkgeneralstore.com, 699 Main Street, Montauk. 631-688-0900.

Sylvester & Co. 

Lynda Sylvester has run her eponymous, constantly evolving “modern general store” on Main Street in Sag Harbor for over 30 years. But what fewer people may know is in addition to the curated product lines she sells, Ms. Sylvester is an artist with a deep background in product design. One of her latest creations is a line of four digitally printed scarves made with a touch of Merino wool for a superior feel.

Two of the scarves – “What a Difference” and “Paris at Night” — are collages of photographs Ms. Sylvester took. “Midcentury” is  made from a pastel and graphite drawing she did. “The Last Empress” is a reproduction of an antique Chinese document. “The original print has got reds and greens and gold and a very traditional palette, but I took all the color out of it to make it more modern – and it’s stunning,” Ms. Sylvester said.

The scarves sell for $60 each at Sylvester & Co., www.sylvesterandco.com, 103 Main Street, Sag Harbor.

One-of-a-Kind Children’s Sweaters

Susan Seitz-Kulick deconstructs used sweaters and “upcycles” them into whimsical, originally conceived garments for newborns to 10-year-olds. She starts by taking used cashmere or wool sweaters, boiling them, and then placing them in the dryer until the fabric is matted — a process called felting. 

She then cuts the fabric into the components of a sweater — two fronts and a back panel, two sleeves, a neck band — and begins mixing and matching the pieces into one-of-a-kind combinations that she augments with hand-stitched embroidery, distinctive buttons, scraps of trim, and bits of ephemera. Ms. Seitz-Kulick finishes each sweater with a finger puppet tucked into a front pocket, and tags it with a name taken from movies. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is a girl’s black sweater with a delicate pearl collar. “Caddyshack” is a boy’s argyle sweater.

Recently, Ms. Seitz-Kulick began receiving commissions for children’s sweaters for special occasions such as christenings and birthdays, sometimes using clothing that belonged to a  grandmother or parents. “Once the children outgrow these sweaters, a lot of people will put them in shadowboxes and save them,” Ms. Seitz-Kulick said, adding that they become instant family heirlooms.

Susan Seitz-Kulick’s sweaters are on sale for $125 each at Nellie’s of Amagansett, 230 Main Street, or by contacting her on Facebook. Custom sweaters are $175.

“(De)Constructing Paradise,” a talk by Enzo Enea on April 4 at 6:30 p.m. at the Cosmopolitan Club in Manhattan, will be this year’s Madoo in Manhattan Robert Dash Garden Design Lecture. A reception will follow the talk.

An acclaimed Swiss landscape architect as well as one of the world’s most prominent tree collectors, Mr. Enea will introduce his company’s philosophy and present different projects that engage with the notion of paradise and how it has been expressed through his work of the last 25 years. 

Mr. Enea is the founder and principal of Enea Landscape Architecture, which has created more than 500 projects worldwide. One of these, the Tree Museum, opened to the public in 2010. Situated near Upper Lake Zurich in Switzerland, the museum exhibits individual trees from his collection as well as contemporary sculpture in a combination of landscape, botany, art, architecture, and design.

After training as an industrial designer, Mr. Enea studied landscape architecture in London and then traveled to Brazil and Hawaii, where he designed his first major landscape project. He has received numerous gold and silver awards at the Giardina show in Basel and Zurich and in 1998 was awarded a certificate of merit at the Chelsea Flower Show in London. A hallmark of his projects is the fusion of outdoor and indoor spaces. 

Tickets, which are available at madoo.org, are $150, $125 for members. Advance reservations are required, as are jackets and ties for men.