The west end of Amagansett, once dead as a desert with only a few oases of here-today-gone-tomorrow storefronts, has come to life this summer. Like a fever breaking after a long illness, new businesses have sprung up in and around 136 Main Street, a 1920s-era building neighboring the Mobil station at the entrance to the hamlet’s business district.
And the people thronging the new shops are not all tourists, either. Among the mostly under-40s at Sett Coffee Saturday morning were more than a few with babies in arms, toddlers in strollers, and dogs on leashes, talking about the Little League’s new town ball field on Stephen Hand’s Path and the price of peanut butter at the I.G.A. To a longtime Amagansett resident, the scene was nothing if not surreal, happening on a stage so long empty.
Four years ago, a group of investors acquired 136 Main along with the venerable red barn behind it, off Indian Wells Highway. Their proposal to demolish both the barn, originally a Lester livery stable completely rebuilt, and the old Main Street building (both part of Amagansett’s touch-me-not historic district) and replace them with a suite of offices, 12 retail stores, four affordable housing units and more, would have changed the approach to the hamlet beyond recognition. It was received with incredulity by the East Hampton Town Planning Board, which shot it down in short order, and the parcel is now for sale.
Following what had to have been majorly expensive interior alterations, Jamagansett, in a passage opposite the complex’s spacious parking lot; Sett Coffee and its neighbor Sea Dragon Books, on Main Street, and LaParlour, a beauty salon on the ground floor of the barn building, have been individually modernized and transformed into inviting little shops. The current asking price for the entire property, according to mansionglobal.com, is $19 million.
One other unit, One Stop Pet Shop, has not changed. Its presence clearly benefits the newcomers, judging by a dog owner at Sett who said she was curious, after picking up her pet, to see what all the hubbub around the corner was about.
Jamagansett, which in March took over the space formerly occupied by the beauty salon, is a small jewel box selling handmade jams, jammy pies, jam pop tarts, and Jamagansett-branded hats, hoodies, mugs, dish towels, and more. It was — yes — jammed all weekend.
Open for less than two months, the shop is already a beacon. Its fruit pies in particular, even at a mind-bending $80 per, have been levitating off the shelves. “You have to get here early, before they sell out,” a woman was overheard telling her companion.
The fillings change week by week. Last week’s was Salty Blueberry, “one of our three most popular,” said the store manager, Gino Solano. Vanilla Raspberry and Summer Strawberry are the other two.
“We bake all our pastries ourselves,” said Mr. Solano, who oversees the baking, “and make our jams by hand in small batches, not using machines. We use whole seasonal fruits, sourced from farms here and on the North Fork. If we can’t find fruits locally, we source them in the tristate area.”
The rhubarb jam, for example, which began life in a North Fork field, is nearing the end of its run. “That’s more of a springtime vegetable,” he said.
Asked if the shop sells jellies as well as jams, Mr. Solano visibly winced. “No jellies, only jam, which is made with the entire fruit, two pounds of fruit per pie. Whereas jellies, they only squeeze the fruit and use the juices, and add artificial dyes and sweeteners. We use only organic cane sugar, the highest grade.”
“Spring Close Farm, Amber Waves, they all carry our jams,” he said. “Rosie’s restaurant [in Amagansett] uses our jam for its scones.”
Jamagansett’s owner, Lena Kristy, was celebrated in New York Magazine’s “Hamptons” issue recently as having created “the only $80 pie only a former McKinsey consultant could dream up.” Ms. Kristy, who goes back and forth to the city, wasn’t on hand Saturday, but Mr. Solano spoke for her, noting that she used to work at local farm stands as a teenager. “She realized Amagansett has a deep-rooted sense of community.”
Sett Coffee, which has doughnuts, croissants, cinnamon rolls, and other sweet dunks to go with your cuppa, plus a few tables inside and out, is a sight for a visitor’s sore — feet, if they’re worn out from exploring the East Hampton boutiques.
Founded by a married couple, Joan and Kelly Piccinnini of Springs, entrepreneurs who seem well on their way to real estate lord-and-ladyships (they already own the Clam Bar on Napeague and bought Sag Harbor’s Corner Bar last year), Sett will also carry “grab-and-go for busy moms,” said Mr. Piccinnini, and ice cream too.
“We’re creating things that we know people are looking for,” he said. “There’s no ice cream in town, and now the guy from A La Mode” — which has a shop in East Hampton — “is selling ice cream here.”
Sett has launched a series of events on summer weekends. On Saturday the attraction was Nathaniel Butler, the official photographer of the N.B.A., who was signing his book “Courtside: 40 Years of N.B.A. Photography” for some young Knicks fans. “We’re trying to do different things and not just be a lifestyle,” said Mr. Piccinnini, “and we’re having a lot of fun.”
Just next door to Sett is Sea Dragon Books, a welcome addition to a hamlet full of eager readers young and old (in between maybe not so much, what with Instagram and its ilk). A sister and brother, Kristen and Charles Billings, own the store in company with their mother, Kristen Billings, all of whom live in Sagaponack.
Sea Dragon was closed over the weekend, but its window display gives a good idea of the eclectic assortment inside: “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump” by two New York Times journalists; “Whistler,” Ann Patchett’s latest novel, number one this week on The Times’s best-seller list; “John of John,” a father-son conflict on an island in the Scottish Hebrides, and, for ages 8 to 12, “The Shrew Detective: The Case of the Pilfered Pearls.”
The store, which is getting spillovers from Sett and vice versa, has been open less than a month and is still filling shelves. The family has a two-year lease on the space.
The final component in the reawakened area is the rebuilt livery stable, which has housed a long series of disparate tenants in recent years. The three-story building is enormous at roughly 9,700 square feet. Parts of it are still waiting for the interior designer, but the investors, happily, have kept some of the original 19th-century appointments that were part of the reconstruction.
Ignore the old “Main Entrance” sign and walk around to the building’s only occupied space, LaParlour, the beauty salon. Its owner, Jenny Carmona, lost her space next to the pet store last winter, and was losing hope for another when a broker told her, “ ‘Hey, there’s a bigger space right here that could work for you.’ “
Some of her old clients have found her in the new digs, “thanks to the pet shop,” though not all. “Some of the older locals don’t have pets or social media,” she said, “and they may think we’ve closed. But we’re still here, and we have more services. Mega services!”
Ms. Carmona, who came here from Colombia at the age of 9 and graduated from East Hampton High School, has become an enthusiastic local history buff in her new surroundings. “The horses came through our double doors!” she marveled. “The building was like a taxi. The New Yorkers would leave their horses here and be taken to the train station!”
She’s eager to find and display photographs of the period. “I would put them right on the wall in the entrance,” she said. “I want the history to stay here.”