Monday marks the federal holiday originally established in 1885 in recognition of President George Washington’s birthday on the 22nd of February. It wasn’t until 1971 that it officially became known as Presidents Day, when it was included in the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, and moved to the third Monday in February, as an attempt to create more three-day weekends for the nation’s workers.
Today, Presidents Day is intended to be a day to celebrate all United States presidents, past and present. It’s not a day for barbecues or celebratory fireworks, but the holiday offers the usual retail blitzes, and, as The New York Times reported in 2011, confusion as to where to put that apostrophe — is it President’s Day? Or, Presidents’ Day? Or, even Presidents Day? That issue remains unresolved.
So, perhaps it’s time to take a historical jaunt and commemorate the South Fork’s ties with many sitting POTUSes over the years. After all, for the 100th anniversary of Washington’s birth, the famed orator Daniel Webster declared that, “A hundred years hence, other disciples of Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration than we now commemorate it.”
President Washington never actually made it to the East End — the farthest he got was Patchogue — but the nation’s first commander in chief was instrumental in building the Montauk Lighthouse, the oldest in New York State. In 1796, after many ships had been lost on the reefs at the land’s end, President Washington authorized the construction of the Lighthouse, offering John McComb Jr., the architect, a budget of $22,300. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed legislation transferring the Lighthouse property to the Montauk Historical Society.
It’s unclear whether the 10th U.S. President, John Tyler, ever visited eastern Long Island, but he did marry Julia Gardiner, who was born on Gardiner’s Island. She was only 24 years old when she married the 54-year-old president and became first lady from 1844 to 1845.
It wasn’t until around 1881, when President Chester A. Arthur actually traveled to the East End. While serving as the 21st president of the United States, from 1881 until 1885, he summered in Sag Harbor in the “Summer White House,” a circa 1776 Victorian mansion at 20 Union Street, which hit the market in 2018 for $13.5 million.
Theodore Roosevelt will be forevermore linked with Montauk after he set up Camp Wikoff in 1898, as a temporary residence for more than 20,000 soldiers who were quarantined after fighting the Spanish in Cuba. During this time, the 25th president, William McKinley, visited Roosevelt at the Montauk camp, which consisted of tents and a few wooden buildings that extended from Second House (the second house built in Montauk), on the western edge, to Third House (the third house built there) in what is now Montauk County Park, and south from Block Island Sound to Ditch Plain.
In 1968, Richard Nixon, the 37th president, is said to have written his acceptance speech while staying in the Jolly Rogers cottage at Gurney’s Inn. Although he requested privacy and kept a low profile, he was spotted (not difficult since he was always surrounded by Secret Service men) by Edward Albee and Dick Cavett, as well as by Irene Silverman, then a reporter with The Star, and today an editor at this paper.
Ms. Silverman wrote in the July 18 issue of The Star: “Saturday night, after a day of meetings and some ocean swimming, Mr. Nixon and his party dined at Gurney’s. He was seated at a corner table and surrounded in a semicircle by staff members and Secret Service men. He ate a hearty dinner of cannelloni, shrimp scampi, and Bavarian cream pie, and must have liked the cannelloni in particular as he ordered it again on Sunday night, this time as a main course.”
Another POTUS with a penchant for East End eateries is the 42nd president, Bill Clinton, who has been a regular visitor here, together with his wife, Hillary Clinton, who almost became president number 45. They first arrived on the South Fork in 1999, as guests of megadonors and deep-pocketed friends like Steven Spielberg, Jane Rosenthal, and Courtney Ross, who helped finance their respective presidential races. But, whenever in the Hamptons, President Clinton always made time for a meal at Babette’s on Newtown Lane. In 2010, after he had lost 15 pounds for his daughter’s wedding, The New York Post reported that President Clinton was spotted sitting in Babette’s in a corner banquette, eating a veggie burger and a mountain of vegetables.
The fund-raising goldmine that is the South Fork also attracted George W. Bush, the 43rd president, who made several appearances here during his presidency from 2001 to 2008. He returned in 2013, this time to Southampton, where he hit the links at the National Golf Links of America for the Walker Cup.
Then in 2018, Donald Trump arrived for a round table with high-dollar donors at the Southampton home of his close friend Howard Lorber, a New York real estate executive who chairs Nathan’s Famous, the hot dog fast-food chain. Hot dogs were definitely not being served during his $250,000-a head fund-raising lunch that year. The meal ticket also included a photograph with the president. Mr. Trump returned for a whirlwind day of fund-raisers in August 2020.
