In 1987, the Ladies Village Improvement Society bought the Gardiner Brown House to accommodate their offices and two shops, Bargain Books and the Bargain Box. Before the L.V.I.S. moved in, the group assessed the work needed to rehabilitate the house, which was built in 1740 and had been partially renovated after a fire in 1979. In 1989, it was repaired according to the secretary of the Interior Department’s standards for rehabilitation of historic houses.
With the Gardiner Brown House complete, the L.V.I.S. worked with Robert Hefner, East Hampton Village’s historic district consultant, to apply for a grant from the New York State Historic Preservation Department to preserve the 19th-century picket fence and ice house on the property. The ice house’s shingles and rafters had deteriorated, and it had no north wall, making it unstable. The picket fence surrounding the property had also deteriorated and was compromised by a previous incomplete renovation.
Both the ice house and the picket fence are believed to have been built by David Johnson Gardiner (1840-1924), who ran a cattle farm on the property between 1861 and 1924. The ice house is considered a significant historic structure as it is thought to be one of only two ice houses remaining in East Hampton. Ice houses stored ice cut from lakes, rivers, or ponds during the winter, and Gardiner’s ice house would have preserved dairy and other perishables produced on the farm.
Although the main house was moved back from the street by David’s nephew, Winthrop Gardiner (1887-1970), the ice house remains in its original location, representing the thriving farm that once stood where the L.V.I.S. is today. This photograph, taken in 1996, shows the ice house after its rehabilitation, serving to remind us of the agrarian history of East Hampton.
Megan Bardis is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.
