The Golden Eagle, an art supply store and East Hampton institution that first opened in 1954, will close next month.
“After many wonderful years of serving our local creative community, the Golden Eagle will be closing our doors at the end of January,” read a message its owners posted on Instagram on Saturday. “We are sad, but also deeply grateful for the loyalty of our customers, staff, instructors and students throughout the years.” Merchandise is discounted by 50 percent “as we work to find new homes for all remaining inventory before our doors close in late January,” the message continues.
It’s a familiar story, as told most recently by Nancy Rowan and Michael Weisman, the Golden Eagle’s owners: The internet has decimated brick-and-mortar retailers across the country. Along with putting a halt to all manner of in-person activity in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms. Rowan said on Tuesday, further conditioned people to shop online, where prices are typically lower due to lower overhead costs. “We just can’t compete,” she said.
The Golden Eagle’s lease, at 144 North Main Street in East Hampton, was to expire in about a year, Ms. Rowan said, but around one year ago, she and Mr. Weisman had told the landlord that “if something should come up, if you know of anybody, we would be interested in maybe moving on.” Last week, Ms. Rowan and Mr. Weisman were alerted that the landlord “found someone and they were going to sign a lease,” Ms. Rowan said, “and were we okay with that? Michael and I discussed it, and because we’re heading into the winter, the hardest time of the year, it was sort of a no-brainer.”
Jessica Fingleton, an owner of the property, said on Tuesday that an existing retail business will move into the first floor, while her Au-Dela real estate brokerage will occupy the second floor.
“Sadly, the internet doesn’t care the effect ‘they’ have on small business,” Mr. Weisman said on Tuesday. “It’s just the direction the world has gone in. It’s a shame because ‘they,’ whoever they are, faceless robots, don’t care about an institution that’s been in a small town in one form or another for over 70 years. It’s also a shame for this town, which has changed a tremendous amount.”
Mr. Weisman owned Inside Out, which sold home furnishings and gifts, in East Hampton from 1993 to 2006. “I caught the tail end of the East Hampton of yore,” he said, while today “it’s quite different.” Inside Out, he said, “was like a version of the Golden Eagle in that people loved it and it was a really nice atmosphere. Merchandise was priced so everyone could shop there.”
What is not found online, he said, “is human interaction. That, to me, is essential. You can buy art supplies online, and they’re much lower priced than we were ever able to sell them for, but you don’t get the experience. An art supply store, a bookstore, whatever, there are people to speak to and ask questions of. You see everything arrayed in front of you, it inspired you to maybe try something new, or buy something extra. I’m glad I lived through a time where you actually had to search for things on foot. You didn’t just go to the internet, you had to go to a library, art store, record store.”
The store has occupied its present location since 2017. It vacated its longtime Gingerbread Lane location in 2013, when the principals abruptly learned that their lease had not been renewed. Just a few months later, it reopened at 79 Newtown Lane in East Hampton Village. At just 800 square feet, however, it could not accommodate the art classes that are a staple of the Golden Eagle’s business.
“When we moved from Gingerbread Lane, we had thriving classes,” Ms. Rowan said. “And the store was thriving. . . . We looked all over and found the place on Newtown Lane and the deal was, we had the front space and there was a gym in the back. We were getting both units so that we could continue the classes. About a week before we were moving in, the tenants that had the back space decided they were not going to leave and it was too late for us, so we moved to Newtown Lane, knowing that that wasn’t our final spot.” The store, she said, “went from a hard-core art supply store to an art supply store with unique gifts and things like that, because we were getting a lot more foot traffic.”
But “we couldn’t do what we needed to do in that space,” she said of classes. “It was too small.” When the North Main Street space became available, she and Mr. Weisman, then a new business partner, resumed art classes there, calling the space Studio 144. The Newtown Lane location remained open for a time, but “it was just too much, and in a tiny little space, carrying two rents.” The relocation to North Main Street complete, “we were doing really, really well here. The classes, again, were thriving. The business was great. The property is gorgeous. We had lots of events, early on,” including the East Hampton Arts Council’s “creative networking night” events.
“And then,” she said, “Covid hit.”
The Golden Eagle was founded in 1954, Ms. Rowan said, by Ken Wessberg Sr., who was mayor of East Hampton Village from 1983 to 1992, in a former Nash Motors dealership. “He was a painting contractor. He bought the building to store all of his paintings, equipment, and everything, and the local guys knew that he had stuff in there and would occasionally stop by: ‘Do you have an extra gallon of this,’ or ‘Do you have that?’ That’s how the business started. His wife, Mary, ran the business for a while.”
Ms. Rowan’s uncle, Bob Anderson, worked with Wessberg, she said, and worked at the store until Ms. Rowan took it over. “He retired at 80 years old,” she said. “I worked there on and off as a kid, as did many of my cousins.”
While artists and hobbyists will have to go farther afield, or online, for art supplies once the Golden Eagle’s inventory is depleted, its thriving class offerings will have to find a new home. “We are hopeful that there is a space out here for the teachers to continue doing what they’re doing,” Ms. Rowan said, “because there’s a lot of students. Some of the students are looking into it, and some of the teachers are looking into it. Maybe they can find some sort of collective so that can continue. There is a year-round community that wants that.”
“I met so many amazing people here,” Edwina Lucas of Sag Harbor, a painter who taught at the Golden Eagle, said on Tuesday. “And friendships that have lasted, going on a decade.”
“This is not a pity party,” Mr. Weisman said, but rather “a gigantic loss for the community, which makes me incredibly sad. . . . I’m old school, so is Nancy. We’re customer service people. We really like and care about the people we serve. You don’t really get a lot of that anymore.”