Louis John Arceri, whose adult years were filled with fishing, clamming, setting traps, and working on offshore boats, died at home on Bow Oarsman’s Road in East Hampton on Nov. 30. The cause was undetermined, though Mr. Arceri, who was known as LJ, had been ill for the last year. He was 69.
Mr. Arceri’s family discovered Amagansett when he was young, and he would later move there from his native Babylon, where he was born on Aug. 9, 1956, to Louis Arceri and the former Patricia A. Bjornstadt. The family spent Mr. Arceri’s early years at Ocean Beach on Fire Island. When his grandmother sold the bungalow there, the family moved to Amagansett, acquiring a house in its Beach Hampton neighborhood by 1960. They spent many years there, and LJ would surf and skateboard. He moved to the hamlet permanently after graduating from North Babylon High School.
Around 1975, he met Patty Horton. For a decade, they lived near Fresh Pond with Ms. Horton’s daughter, Tina Ivery. Ms. Horton described that time as the best years of Mr. Arceri’s life, living near Gardiner’s Bay, living off the water, and being a family.
Mr. Arceri enjoyed cooking and was skilled at making jewelry. In his later years, he patched nets for baymen.
He is survived by Ms. Horton, of East Hampton, with whom he lived for 45 years; two sisters, Mary Jane Arceri and Nancy Arceri, both of East Hampton; a brother, Kenneth Arceri, and his wife, Virginia, of Mastic; two nieces, Rose Arceri of Mastic and June Arceri of St. Johnsbury, Vt.; a nephew, Nicholas Arceri of Riverhead, and two grandnephews, Tucker and Sawyer Weiss of St. Johnsbury, and a grandniece, Phoebe Schellinger of Mastic. A brother, James Arceri, died before him, as did Ms. Ivery.
His family plans a memorial gathering at a date to be determined.
