Habitat

A 2005 New York Times article credited the architect Norman Jaffe, who lived in Bridgehampton until his death in 1993, with pioneering the “design of rustic Modernist houses in the Hamptons.” Yet his houses, despite their significance in the architectural world, are largely unprotected. Even his own house was demolished after his death. 

Fifty years after opening at Gosman's Dock in Montauk in 1971, the Rumrunner Home furnishings store has remained an East End fixture by capitalizing on the area's population boom, and surviving skyrocketing rents, ever-changing design trends, and competition from national brands.

That the former Morpurgo house, a.k.a. the Captain John Hulbert house, hadn't been sold yet amid the pandemic was serendipitous for its owners, Max and Michelle Breskin, who, with their three children, are its first legal occupants in many years. Once a wreck, now tip-top after a major restoration completed by Breskin Development, it is on the market for just under $6.5 million.

Anita Boyer and Joe Pallister had June marked on their calendar for nearly a year. Both of them mused on an intimate wedding at what they considered the most idyllic venue: Disney World.

"I am so obsessed with Disney," Ms. Boyer, a dance and acting coach, and co-founder of Our Fabulous Variety Show, said in a phone interview. "Both of my grandparents worked there. I grew up visiting all the time. I have Disney in my blood."

What’s a house without a story behind it? Just a structure. So what do you do if you find yourself living in new construction with plenty of character but no history? No story? Make something up.

Making your hurried holiday rounds, as you sprint off Main Street and into the Ladies Village Improvement Society’s Bargain Box thrift shop — recently renamed the Shops at the L.V.I.S. — you cannot fail to notice the octagonal dollhouse in the entryway. It is huge, standing tall at 5-foot-4, with nine rooms, two bathrooms, a basement, and an attic. When you pause to peek inside, you see how intricately it has been decorated, with festive details that change with the seasons.

Lynn King was born on Thanksgiving Day, so, naturally, she likes Thanksgiving. But she flat-out loves Christmas — and her impressive collection of Santa Claus mugs is a testament to her holiday obsession.

Virginia Woolf was likely not talking about scrapbooks when, in her “A Writer’s Diary,” she advised the reader to “arrange whatever pieces come your way.” But this magpie sentiment surely fits the 19th-century notion of collecting the ephemeral bits of one’s life into albums that illustrated the scrapbooker’s personal world.

Local pros agree: The rules of good interior design are universal, even when it comes to decking your halls and swagging your walls with garlands, wreaths, and lights. Think “less is more” and the “rule of threes.” Think themes, like vintage or forest, and complementary color palettes.

Paul Goldberger, who has been called America’s foremost architectural critic, first visited the East End nearly a half-century ago. In the mid-1980s, he became a part-time resident of Amagansett, and he’s kept a keen eye on local “progress” ever since.

Guests, even beloved, dear, wonderful guests, make messes. Here in Amagansett on a holiday weekend in gorgeous eastern Long Island, guests produce not only crumbs on the countertops and hair in the showers, but also sand on the floors. (And often sand in those showers, too.)

Adrian Devenyi and Ramona Albert embarked on a top-down interior renovation of their storied Sag Harbor house in 2018, and in their case, “top-down” included a tower about 40 feet tall, visible above high hedges and between tall, stately oaks on Jermain Avenue.

Britta Steilmann, who had visited the East End for almost half a century before settling here 24 years ago, is adept both as a manager who thinks creatively and a designer of living spaces.

It’s like the opening sequence of a 1930s Hollywood movie. You approach down a long, straight driveway shaded by Japanese Zelcova trees, and the introduction creates moody, cinematic suspense with wildly contrasting patches of light and shadow continuing throughout the grounds and into the house itself, where there are courtyards and pools of light within pools of light.

More than six years after the project was proposed, Hook Mill Estates, a subdivision with 11 house lots on 10.5 acres off Accabonac Road in East Hampton Village, will soon be on the market.

Experts say certain household items should never be put into storage, and Abigail Cane agrees. Her list runs the gamut from antique furniture, white couches, and artwork down to old cellphones, slightly used candles, and clothes that don’t fit.

Pulling up family and profession­al roots in upstate New York to live closer to the ocean in 1999, Richard and Rosanne Barons settled into a three-bedroom house in Springs that had been built as a small summer cottage. Over time they transformed it into a serene oasis filled with carefully chosen treasures, each with a story of its own.

There’s a lot to be learned from the old one-room schoolhouses that are scattered across the East End. Some have become museums or civic meetinghouses, while others simply stand as landmarks of bygone eras, and at least one, in Sagaponack, is still in use as a school. While their sizes and shapes varied, most of the one-room schoolhouses shared a common element: They were in communities that built anew whenever a tragedy such as a fire ravaged a schoolhouse or when the local population of children simply outgrew the existing space. These are some that stand out.

Paul J. Muñoz was trying to relax while recovering from hernia surgery at home in Springs recently when all he could hear was the sound of leaf blowers and mowers. “It was very loud and annoying. I thought there’s got to be a better way.”

A gray and rainy spring did little to uplift the spirits, but it bodes well for the gardens of Landscape Pleasures, the annual horticulture event of the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill. This year, in addition to the usual Saturday symposium and Sunday garden tours, a related workshop and film screening have been added to the offerings.

The Star’s hunter-gatherer, Durell Godfrey, wishes everyone a safe start of the summer season. While you’re at it, she suggests you shop locally and drive carefully. Enjoy yourself, keep calm, and carry on.
 

The Southampton History Museum’s house tour this year will open the doors to eight houses that illustrate Southampton’s architectural history from the 17th century to the present.

Even though New York State says new houses have to measure at least 800 square feet and existing ones being renovated must be at least 600 square feet, Matias Whitmore and his companion, Nikki Seelbach, have one that comes in at only 575 square feet.

‘I have about 7,500 books in this library, and approximately an equal number downstairs,” said Michael Braverman, while seated in the biggest room of his East Hampton house, where wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling shelves are filled. “I don’t buy a lot of books anymore.”

Sheet metal runs in Max Philip Dobler’s blood. His grandfather, who immigrated here from Germany in 1925, was a sheet metal worker, and among his father’s projects was a copper roof for the Montauk Lighthouse.

It’s a hearty pink, vibrant, almost the hue of those Hostess Sno Ball snack cakes, if you’ve ever dared to indulge, or a flamingo fresh from its latest inhalation of shrimp.

A talk, reception, and benefit with Enzo Enea will be held on April 4 in Manhattan.

Caplan Rose, an East End travel company that organizes private tours of gardens and cultural destinations in rural England, has announced its summer 2019 excursions.

As the Montauk Historical Society looks ahead to two big projects at the Montauk Lighthouse — the $24 million rebuilding of the revetment protecting it from the ocean’s ravages and a tower renovation that could start as early as next year — a more modest renovation underway now is offering a glimpse of parts of one lighthouse structure not seen for nearly a century.

Christmas is coming and garden shops and nurseries already have begun selling fir trees. You’ve seen them everywhere. For the most part, when the holidays are over they are allowed to dry out on firewood piles, used by municipalities to shore up dunes, or taken to the dump.