“It’s time to finish this up,” Susan Mead, co-president of the Sag Harbor Partnership, said about raising money for a potential writers retreat at the John Steinbeck property on Bluff Point Lane in Sag Harbor Village.
Efforts to preserve the house have been underway since February 2021, when the 1.8-acre parcel hit the market for the first time in six decades. It is currently listed for $15.4 million. Kathryn Szoka, a co-owner of Canio’s Books, not far from Steinbeck’s house, has worked with the partnership and other concerned citizens to push for funding and to develop a plan for the writing center.
“In two years, it’s gone from a fervent dream to a near reality,” said Ms. Szoka.
“A year ago, we hadn’t raised anything,” said Ms. Mead.
But people who pledged money in the first half of 2022 did so with hope that there would be a signed contract with the sellers, a consortium of Steinbeck heirs.
“It’s really a make-or-break moment,” said April Gornik, an artist and Sag Harbor Partnership board member.
“We have a gap in funding that’s just over a half million dollars,” said Ms. Mead. “We need help. . . . You rarely get this far without it happening. We’re not going to find another writer’s retreat in Sag Harbor.”
Apart from individuals who donated to the partnership, Assemblyman Fred. W. Thiele Jr. nominated the parcel to receive a state grant of $500,000 toward its purchase, and Southampton Town through its community preservation fund has “dedicated a large amount of money to the project” according to Tommy John Schiavoni, a Southampton Town Board member.
Over 33,000 people signed an online petition supporting its preservation.
After attempts to gain a regional educational partner were unsuccessful, the University of Texas at Austin offered a $10 million endowment for the project and agreed to manage the retreats. The tentative idea has two writers in residence who would cycle over the course of the year, depending on the “season” of their career. Four weekends a year, the house would be open for public tours. A local advisory board would be created to communicate with the retreat.
Looking around at some of the houses that have been built on much smaller lots recently, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to wonder what would happen if Steinbeck’s house and writing studio, which he called Joyous Garde, were razed.
“It’s zoned for a 9,000-square-foot home,” said Ms. Gornik.
“Instead of celebrating our creative capital, a new house would just be celebrating capital,” said Ms. Szoka. “It would be forever lost.”
A large donor could also have their name tied to the man who wrote some of the indelible works in American fiction, like “Grapes of Wrath,” “Of Mice and Men,” and “East of Eden.” In 1962 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in part for his work in another book, “The Winter of Our Discontent,” which was set in Sag Harbor.
“We’d be open to dedicating the writing gazebo to someone who gives a substantial sum and gets us over the finish line,” said Ms. Gornik.
“Steinbeck called his writing studio Joyous Garde and in the literary community it’s a chapel,” said Ms. Szoka.
“Preserving this home will be a jewel in the crown for the village, town, and state,” said Ms. Szoka. “Sometimes we don’t recognize what we have because we’re so used to it. We need in our midst a tangible example of Sag Harbor’s literary history. There’s no other place that encapsulates that like Steinbeck’s homestead,” she said.
This story has been updated to correct Ms. Szoka's first name.
