Hewitt Vents His Ire

The three-year-old dispute be tween the "60 Minutes" producer Don Hewitt and Telemark Construction, one of the area's oldest and most recognized building firms, made its way to the Southampton Town Home Improvement Licensing Review Board last week.

At stake at the well-attended two-hour hearing on July 9 was Telemark's reputation as well as the company's license to operate in Southampton. Mr. Hewitt is seeking to have the license suspended or revoked for what he alleged was questionable work and billing on a $650,000 renovation of his Bridgehampton house, dating back to 1993.

Settlement Talks

The dispute between the television producer and the 43-year-old building company had been fought out in State Supreme Court before last week's hearing, with Telemark seeking $29,000 it claims Mr. Hewitt still owes on the renovation, and Mr. Hewitt seeking $1.4 million in a countersuit.

A Supreme Court judge dismissed Mr. Hewitt's countersuit last year, but did not block his ability to bring the matter before the Licensing Review Board. Telemark had argued vehemently that the Review Board was not the proper forum for the dispute. The board called the hearing and entertained Mr. Hewitt's complaint, nonetheless.

There was an 11th-hour effort to settle the dispute and eliminate the need for the hearing. Lawyers for both sides spent well over an hour before the morning hearing attempting to reach an accord, but emerged empty-handed.

Hewitt's Charges

When the hearing did begin, Christopher Kelley, a lawyer representing Mr. Hewitt, told the Review Board that Telemark had failed to complete the job on deadline, had left work unfinished, and had added $38,000 onto the original bill for extras Mr. Hewitt argued he had never ordered.

Among those extras, said Mr. Hewitt, was nearly $3,000 for tree protection, "which I never, ever ordered," and an extra $7,500 for a dumping fee, a charge that was set at a fixed rate of $10,000 in the contract. There was no change-work order for the latter, he argued.

Aside from those contentions, Mr. Hewitt's complaint also centers on a kitchen exhaust system installed during the renovation. Though it was not discovered until after a certificate of compliance had been issued by the Southampton Town Building Department on the house, town officials have said the system could become a fire hazard, since it vented the stove into a basement crawl space, rather than outside the house. Mr. Hewitt was left to correct the situation at his own expense, he contends.

Job "Abandoned"

"They abandoned the job without doing what they told me they were going to do and left me with a condition Paul Houlihan [chief building inspector] said was a violation," Mr. Hewitt said when he finally took the stand.

Who had installed the exhaust system became an issue in the Supreme Court case. Mr. Kelley told the board that Frank Dalene, Telemark's president, had first denied putting the system in, then changed his testimony, saying Telemark had installed it.

John Bennett of Southampton, the lawyer for Telemark, charged that Mr. Hewitt and his wife, Marilyn Berger, as well as the architect on the renovation had been "advised of the situation."

Mr. Bennett argued again that the case should not be before the Review Board.

Homeowner With Clout

"At the very best there's a dispute over how the kitchen fan came to be installed and how it was installed," he said, calling the issue "the tail wagging this unnecessarily large dog." He asserted that the real dispute was over money, not Telemark's reputation or workmanship.

"The difference here," said Mr. Bennett, "is you have a homeowner with considerable media clout who lost in Supreme Court, and because of that is bringing his campaign of harassment to this board. . . . It's merely Don Hewitt's intent not to pay his contractor. It's outrageous he is here besmirching this reputable company's name because he doesn't want to pay his bills."

Though Telemark took out a $29,000 lien on the house last year for money it claims it is owed, Mr. Hewitt said the outstanding balance amounts to only $4,500, which he kept in escrow because of some minor problems with the renovation.

Previous Disputes

"If I spend $650,000 on a renovation, I should be able to lock my back door," he said at the hearing. Disputing the extra charges, he pointed specifically to the $7,500 extra for dumping. "That one item alone is testament that the $29,000 lien is a fraud."

Mr. Bennett put Mr. Hewitt to the test in a lengthy cross-examination, which brought up two previous renovations on the house that he said involved monetary disputes with contractors. Mr. Hewitt acknowledged he had gone to arbitration to settle matters with his last contractor, but that he had no problem with the first.

Mr. Bennett also pressed Mr. Hewitt on whether he found Telemark's renovation overall to be satisfactory, despite the ventilation issue and billing discrepancies.

"I would have difficulty in saying the workmanship didn't turn out satisfactorily," Mr. Hewitt responded.

Arrows On Door

During the Supreme Court case, another homeowner's experiences with Telemark were brought into the proceedings. Caroline Hirsch, owner of a popular Manhattan comedy club, had hired Telemark for a $2 million renovation to her Water Mill house, also in 1993. The project also wound up in a dispute over money - Telemark secured a $215,000 lien on the house.

One day, Ms. Hirsch told police, she discovered three arrows stuck into her front door and a note on the property reading "Pay your bills, the natives are restless."

There was never any evidence linking the arrows to Telemark, and the company denied having any involvement in the incident.

Though Mr. Kelley and Mr. Hewitt tried to bring Ms. Hirsch's experiences with Telemark into their testimony, they were cut off by the Review Board's counsel, David Gilmartin, who said without a formal complaint to the board from Ms. Hirsch, the hearing should focus only on Mr. Hewitt's house.

Mr. Bennett said it would be "scandalous, prejudicial, and outrageous" to allow discussion of the Hirsch case, especially the arrow incident and its unfounded link to Telemark, at the board's hearing.

After more than two hours of testimony, the board opted to adjourn and resume the proceeding on Wednesday at 9 a.m. at Town Hall.