The first 95 years of the life of Joan Tulp, known to many East Hampton Town residents as the unofficial mayor of Amagansett, are documented and celebrated in “Life Stories: Joan Tulp,” which will be screened at the Amagansett Library on Sunday at 2 p.m.
“The film is about how I came to Amagansett, and what it means to me and my life,” Ms. Tulp said last week.
The documentary was written and directed by Christiane Arbesu of Terrebonne Productions, who said last week that it was conceived in discussion with Michael Clark, then the executive director of LTV. “We came up with this idea, ‘Life Stories,’ “ she said. “He recommended Joan Tulp, so I gave her a call. We became fast friends.”
According to Terrebonne Productions, “with humor and heart,” Ms. Tulp “reflects on the winding path that led her to the Hamptons and the deep sense of love and belonging she found here.”
One of the hamlet’s more civic-minded citizens, she remains active in the Amagansett Village Improvement Society, and has been a member of its citizens advisory committee. In the warmer months, Ms. Tulp can be found by the shoreline at the Amagansett Beach Association, where a parking space is reserved for Amagansett’s unofficial mayor.
A native of Rockville Centre, she arrived in Amagansett in 1950. “My first husband’s aunt owned a house on Indian Wells Highway,” she told The Star in 2019. “I got off the train and fell madly in love with Amagansett. For me, it was heaven on earth.”
While living in Brooklyn Heights, she and her husband bought a house in the hamlet in the 1960s, spending weekends and summers there. In Brooklyn, she wrote the “Heard on the Heights” column for The Brooklyn Heights Press. “I did one column every week, and got paid $5, which amuses me now,” she said in 2019. “But it was fun.”
As a member of the West Brooklyn Independent Democrats, she once sought the office of female district leader, an elected position charged with an assembly district’s oversight of the Brooklyn County Committee. Eleanor Roosevelt and Senator Herbert H. Lehman endorsed her candidacy, in person, and those of her running mates, the candidates for male district leader and assemblyman, at the Hotel Bossert, which was known as Brooklyn’s Waldorf-Astoria.
She and her husband lived in Paris for three years, where she worked as a model, he for the J. Walter Thompson advertising company. “Then we moved back to the Heights, and then to Antwerp,” near the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation’s European headquarters, she said in 2019. “They looked for American secretaries,” she said, “so I got the job. I wasn’t a very good secretary, but they hired me because I was an American.”
Ms. Tulp has been a year-round resident of Amagansett for about 30 years. In 2021, AVIS honored her with the dedication of a tree and plaque at the society’s tennis courts at the corner of Main Street and Atlantic Avenue. The plaque, at the base of the cherry tree, features the words “Here is my heart’s home” from “Noon: Amagansett Beach” by the poet John Hall Wheelock. “In honor of Joan Warendorff Tulp, who is the heart of Amagansett, AVIS board member for over half a century,” it continues.
The quote is appropriate, Cathy Peacock of AVIS said at the dedication ceremony, “because she is the heart of this hamlet. She loves Amagansett, and she never wanted it to change. . . . She’s been the guiding light and an activist ensuring that any changes were things that benefited the community, that were a positive force. She’s also been the heart and driving force of AVIS for over half a century.”
More recently, her story was highlighted in the July issue of New York magazine.
“I’ve had an interesting life,” Ms. Tulp summarized.
Reservations are required for Sunday’s screening of “Life Stories: Joan Tulp,” and can be made on the Amagansett Library’s website.
