Unveiling New Scoville Hall
Five years after it was destroyed by fire, Scoville Hall, the parish house of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church, will reopen on Dec. 3, when it hosts a holiday fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The building on Meeting House Lane, dedicated as the church’s parish house in 1925 and later named for the Rev. Clarence Beecher Scoville, who led the congregation from 1919 to 1943, was engulfed in flames in the early morning hours of Oct. 15, 2011. More than 100 firefighters from five districts fought the blaze. Its pastor, the Rev. Steven Howarth, who serves in the Amagansett Fire Department as chaplain and firefighter, was in Connecticut with his wife, on their way to a vacation in Massachusetts, when the building was destroyed.
A three-year dispute with Peerless Insurance, a subsidiary of Liberty Mutual Insurance, followed. The disagreement drew the intervention of Barry Slotnick, an attorney who owns a house on Meeting House Lane in Amagansett. A settlement was finally reached in October 2014.
The new structure sits on the same footprint as the original. While the exterior recalls the original, the building’s interior reflects the church and the community’s current and future needs. The building, including its elevator, is wired so that a generator can power it. It will serve as a safe structure during extreme weather.
The first floor houses meeting rooms, the minister’s study, and a reception room that opens to a terrace. It also includes the Kitchen for Liam, a commercial kitchen named for Liam Silhan, who died in 2014 at age 2.
Also new at the rebuilt Scoville Hall are J and Courtney Silhan, Liam’s parents, who live in East Hampton. Along with Carolyn Stec, they will manage the property. “We are all hospitality-hotel professionals,” Mr. Silhan said on Friday. “We raised money to have the kitchen named after Liam, and become involved to manage the property. We wanted to make sure it was more than a building, that it was a living, breathing place that brought everybody together.”
The Kitchen for Liam will serve farmers and artisans in the community, Mr. Silhan said. Among its features is a 122-by-100-inch stainless steel island, and a pizza oven will soon be installed. “We are getting licensed commercially,” he said. “We are going to have a couple of different farms and a lot of other producers making things that they will then be able to sell. A lot of the local farms and chefs are really excited to be able to have a commercial kitchen.”
The property’s managers, who are also licensed food managers, will assist people renting the kitchen who are not licensed themselves, Mr. Silhan said. They will also offer classes for those interested in starting a food-related business, he said.
Upstairs, the Mary and Pete Bistrian Great Room, featuring a cathedral ceiling, wooden beams, and chandeliers, will host weddings and other functions. Twelve-step groups and fraternal organizations have just begun using Scoville Hall again, Mr. Silhan said.
Vendor spaces have sold out for the holiday fair, but those interested in being on the waiting list have been asked to call 631-318-0285.