As an arctic blast blows across East Hampton Town heralding the start of winter, swimming enthusiasts can take heart. Wednesday, the Sarah and Maurice Iudicone Aquatic Center, a project years in the making, opened at the Montauk Playhouse Community Center.
Four months after Gov. Kathy Hochul visited the Playhouse for a ceremonial ribbon-cutting for the expansive new facilities — also attended by East Hampton Town and New York State officials past and present — the new, 8,355-square-foot aquatic center has opened for lap swimming, family swimming, and drop-in swimming lessons.
The aquatic center features a 25-yard-long, four-lane lap fitness pool for swimming, instruction, and training; a 32-by-33-foot shallow, warmer temperature pool for rehabilitation, aquatic therapy, and instructional swim; men’s and women’s locker rooms, a family changing room, pool deck showers, restrooms, and large off-deck viewing windows, as well as state-of-the-art water treatment systems.
On a preview basis, the center will be open through Saturday; Friday, Dec. 26, and Dec. 27 and Jan. 2 and 3. During this preview, drop-in rates will apply: admission is $10 for lap swimming for those 14 and above; for family swimming, the cost is $10 for adults and $5 for children. Swim lessons are by request and cost $40 for town residents and $59 for nonresidents.
A soft launch starts on Jan. 7, when the aquatic center will be open weekly from Wednesday through Saturday. Monthly membership rates will be discounted for this period for residents, at $48, and $60 for nonresidents. The cost for a drop-in lap swim will be $28. Monthly rates for students and senior citizens will also be discounted during the soft launch.
Later in the winter — February is the target — the center’s operation will expand to six days per week. The full schedule with pricing and programming is at bit.ly/44yZYWZ.
“We are thrilled to be opening the Sarah and Maurice Iudicone Aquatic Center to the East End community,” Jennifer Carney-Iacono, the Montauk Playhouse Community Center Foundation’s president, told The Star this week.
Imagine Swimming, a New York City learn-to-swim school, is the aquatic center’s operator, and provided input into its design. “I’m so excited and honored to welcome young and old, and everyone, to this facility,” said Lars Merseburg of Imagine Swimming. Mr. Merseburg’s son, Oskar, is a sophomore at East Hampton High School and a member of the boy’s swimming team.
“Summer swimmers are made in winter,” Mr. Merseburg said. “We look forward to working with disadvantaged
Classes on aqua aerobics, breath control, and ocean safety are also planned, said Mr. Merseburg, a resident of Montauk and Manhattan. “I’m very thankful to the Town of East Hampton” for its financial contribution to the aquatic center’s design and construction, he said.
“You couldn’t ask for a better partner than Imagine Swimming, with its local ties and expertise, to bring the joy — and safety — of swimming, and to work with all of our local partners,” Ms. Carney-Iacono said.
Online registration is required to swim, and swimmers can create an account on Imagine Swimming’s online registration portal, which enables access to purchase a membership and sign up for programming. Registration assistance is available by calling 212-253-9650 or sending an email to [email protected].
The center opens a little more than two years after a groundbreaking for the $13.9 million facility, and nearly 100 years after Carl Fisher constructed the Playhouse as a glass-roof, 12-court tennis arena, the largest indoor tennis complex in the country at the time. The aquatic center has transformed the grand 1929 structure. Soon, a second-floor multipurpose cultural center will also be complete and will host programs for youth, families, senior citizens, businesses, and arts and cultural organizations.
Initially, the plan was to construct the aquatic center first while fund-raising for the 11,663-square-foot cultural center continued. But the foundation raised more than $8 million toward the project’s cost, and the town provided $5.5 million as well as a water quality grant of $114,000 for a low-nitrogen septic system. During an October 2023 visit to the South Fork, State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, accompanied by then-Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., announced a $1.75 million state award for the community center. Owing to the sum raised, an expected two-phase project instead happened simultaneously.
“If this is the friendliest place in the entire State of New York, I don’t think I’m ever leaving,” a smiling Governor Hochul said during the August ribbon-cutting event. “And it is truly God’s country here.” She thanked Ms. Carney-Iacono “for leading this incredible place, it’s extraordinary.” Maureen Cahill, also of the foundation’s board, “tells me it’s 23 years in the making to have that swimming pool,” the governor said. “It’s visionaries like those and many of the leaders that we have here today that really are profoundly changing people’s lives.”
“Places like this for families to feel at home, connected, pass on traditions to each other, and for seniors to interact with children and families, it’s just really special to me as New York’s first mom-governor,” she said. “It’s all about the kids and families being able to be connected.”
