SOUTHAMPTON - Parrish Museum Is Moving : College is to gain what village is losing

The Parrish Art Museum has finally reached an agreement about its plans for the future. And they are radical. The museum will move almost all of its collection from the center of Southampton Village to a nearly 10-acre site on the campus of Southampton College.

This will be the "Parrish Modern," a new, 80,000-square-foot, climate-controlled building overlooking Shinnecock Bay with plenty of office and storage space, 5,000 square feet of studio space, one floor for the display of its permanent collection of American art, and one floor for special shows, including traveling exhibits from other museums. The museum will have a 161-year lease on the property.

Construction of the new museum is expected to cost between $35 million and $40 million, which will be privately raised, Trudy Kramer, the museum's director, said. The cost will be consistent with the initial projected cost of the Parrish's plan for expansion in Southampton Village, according to a release.

The opening date is 2007. Dorothy Lichtenstein, the board's secretary, and Klaus Kertess, an independent curator, will work with a committee to select a short list of architects. Although it will be on the college campus, the museum will be a completely separate entity.

The building on Job's Lane, which belongs to Southampton Village, will be the "Historical Parrish," restored to the way it was when Samuel L. Parrish opened the museum in 1898. It will house his collection of copies of classical statuary and Renaissance panel paintings, also owned by the village.

The Historical Parrish will be, said Ms. Kramer, a rare example of a Victorian gentleman's museum, decor and all, of the type originally created to bring a taste of the classics to those who would not otherwise have had an opportunity to see them.

The move was announced at a press conference on Saturday, attended by all the officers of the Parrish's board of trustees and the president of Long Island University, David Steinberg.

Southampton Village Mayor Joseph P. Romanosky did not attend, but was represented by Ed Britt, a village trustee. Ms. Kramer introduced the museum's trustees, stressing their connections to "old Southampton" and also stressing the unanimity of their decision.

The only person on the dais not to present a happy, all-in-agreement, press conference face was Mr. Britt, who looked ill at ease but spoke plainly.

"I'm saddened to see the museum move," he said. "But I realize we didn't do anything to help you stay."

Only Mr. Britt's words gave any indication of the years-long struggle to reach resolution on the matter. The rosy glow engendered by the vision of a bright new art gallery, operated in close interaction with the college's faculty and fine arts students, was dampened a little as Mr. Britt continued.

"I wish you well. We might have muffed it, but I hope you will still be part of the community."

The Parrish Art Museum has always been a linchpin of Southampton Village, but the trustees felt that for it to be a viable, competitive 21st-century art museum there had to be changes. For one thing, the museum's permanent collection, which includes a wealth of work by William Merritt Chase, Fairfield Porter, and Roy Lichtenstein, lives in the basement and rarely sees the light of day.

The museum had originally planned to expand on its original site - to which end it bought the former Rogers Memorial Library next door. To move to a new place would have been far easier than adapting these two buildings, which, although rightfully beloved, would have been very difficult to convert.

Nonetheless, a plan was devised that would have nearly doubled the museum's size, funds were raised, and all seemed to be moving ahead.

Then the Parrish ran into a brick wall of critics who insisted that the grounds not be touched, and that the old brick wall and railings remain in place. They disapproved of the construction of a glass pavilion visible from Job's Lane. The Parrish trustees made concessions, and more concessions, but in the end found too many impediments in the way of expansion.

Reluctantly, they began to look at alternatives.

This was seen by some as a bluff. "They are simply using a scare tactic," said Ceal Havemeyer, the president of the Southampton Preservation Society, in a story reported by John Rather of The New York Times in June 2002.

"It's a way of frightening the village board," Ms. Havemeyer said. "They can go out and look all they want, but they are not going to find anything suitable. It will be a lot less chic being next to the Hess station on Montauk Highway."

"This was a collective decision on the board's part to rethink the museum in several ways," Ms. Kramer said on Monday. With the Parrish Modern the museum will be able to "show the sweep of art on the East End beginning with William Merritt Chase and going forward," and the Historical Parrish will preserve a different aspect of art history.

The move, which, she said, is "really an expansion," will make the Parrish a "must-visit destination. And it's beneficial to us and to the college. Students will be able to work in our studio space, and to draw in our galleries, as art students do. The timing is quite wonderful for both of us."

Southampton Village has been brightened recently with innovative and lively programs at the Southampton Historical Society and the Rogers Memorial Library, which was rejuvenated by its move to a new building.

But it was the Parrish that kept the blood flowing through the village's veins with a whole range of snappy shows, from Barbara Kruger's bright red adages written across the museum's front steps to Donald Lipsky's riotous tree-rescue installation with its tubs of floating lemons and veins of green liquid pumped through tubing around the gallery walls.

The Parrish Modern, with over 2,000 pieces of American art and new galleries, also will be able to mount a considerably wider range of traveling exhibits.

The village will have gotten what it wanted, no changes to Samuel Parrish's building and no changes to the gardens. The museum will look pretty much as it did at the beginning of the last century, with a mere 100 works, and those copies or works by minor artists. A variety of programs will be offered in the auditorium, but whether the crowds will flock to the Historical Parrish remains to be seen.

What will happen to the old library building, which is owned by the Parrish and not the village, has not yet been decided.