NEWS & PRESS 2025

The East Hampton Star | 

Editorial

December 12, 2024 

...In a plea to help assure the property’s preservation over the long haul, members of the Wainscott Heritage Project, a private group, have asked the town board to designate the entire parcel as an important historical site. Their concern is warranted — East Hampton Town officials have gotten in the shortsighted habit of removing park status from various sites in order for their development for ostensibly public benefits...

As a largely undisturbed site, the area around Wainscott Pond could well contain evidence of the area’s original human occupants, as documented at nearby Georgica Pond and Mecox Bay. The land likely was also farmed by some of the area’s enslaved people of African heritage. As a monument to them and the people who were here before the Europeans, honoring the land, too, would seem essential.

For the time being, the town board intends to designate an old farmhouse and adjacent structure as historic landmarks. We see no reason not to extend this to the entire property.

The East Hampton Star | 

Christopher Gangemi

December 12, 2024 

While an earlier public hearing about preserving the 30-acre lot was full of praise for the board and the acquisition, at last Thursday’s hearing, three members of the Wainscott Heritage Project, while reiterating praise for the large purchase, questioned why the land wouldn’t also be designated as a landmark along with the structures.

“The farm goes with the farmhouse,” said Esperanza Leon, the president of the Wainscott Heritage Project’s board of directors. She noted a 1990 survey of historic and architectural resources prepared by Robert Hefner that highlighted that 66 Main Street was “The only parcel remaining in historic Wainscott where the dwelling is not divided from the farmland. The Wainscott Heritage Project strongly encourages the town board to designate the entirety of the John Osborn Homestead as a historic landmark, inclusive of the three accent structures and surrounding 30 acres. The fields surrounding Wainscott Pond comprise a cultural landscape that is a significant feature of the site and is integral to the historic designation.”

The East Hampton Press | 27east.com | Christopher Walsh

December 10, 2024 

...Last Thursday’s hearing included a presentation by Hilary Osborn Malecki, a 10th generation Osborn, who detailed the history of the property and its structures. She was followed by members of the Wainscott Heritage Project, who asked that a third structure, described as a small accessory farm building, be considered for landmark status as well. They also addressed a late edit to the proposed resolution: While it was initially written to designate the site as well as two of its structures, it was modified to apply historic landmark status only to the two structures...

While acquisition of the parcel “will be a game-changer,” said Carolyn Logan Gluck, “Wainscott Heritage Project was disturbed to hear the town board decide to designate only the two most sizable built structures. … We urge the Town Board to reconsider and designate the entire parcel, the land and all the existing structures, as historic. We have consulted a number of preservationists who recommend the same,” she said.

Newsday | 

Joe Werkmeister

November 14, 2024 

Newsday | 

Liza N. Burby

February 25, 2024 

The East Hampton Star | 

Christine Sampson

August 10, 2023 

The Wainscott Heritage Project, a nonprofit formed in 2021, will undertake a survey of historic structures in that hamlet after receiving a $14,400 grant from the Preserve New York initiative, funded by the Preservation League of New York State, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation.

Historic surveys are often the first step in the establishment of a historic district and the addition of structures to the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The new grant, according to the Wainscott Heritage Project, will help assess the "basic historic and/or architectural contexts associated with the development and physical character of an area."

The Sarah Kautz Consulting Corporation has been selected to perform the survey work, which will include inventories of historic buildings that incorporate maps and photographs as well as recommendations for further studies. Sarah Kautz is an archaeologist, historical anthropologist, and preservation advocate who in June lectured on "best practices and models for historic preservation" at the Wainscott Chapel.

image: photo by Durell Godfrey

The East Hampton Star | 

Christine Sampson

June 22, 2023 

Sarah Kautz, an archaeologist, historical anthropologist, and preservation advocate, will speak on Saturday at 10 a.m. about "best practices and models for historic preservation in the context of Wainscott."

According to the Wainscott Heritage Project, Ms. Kautz believes that "we can achieve growth and prosperity without destroying our shared resources to make way for poorly designed, insensitive redevelopment in our communities."

A question-and-answer session will follow her remarks.

The event is to be held at the Wainscott Chapel on the hamlet's Main Street and is free to attend, though advance sign-up is encouraged. 

image: photo by Durell Godfrey

James Lane Post 

June 22, 2023 

Wainscott Heritage Project will host the first in a series of history talks at Wainscott Chapel (65 Wainscott Main Street) on Saturday, June 24, at 10 AM.

Archaeologist, historical anthropologist, and preservation advocate Sarah Kautz will present Wainscott: Historic Preservation for the 21st Century. She will discuss practices and models for historic preservation in the context of Wainscott, and how these serve to empower communities to preserve and protect cultural and historic resources.

Sarah’s talk will encourage a Q&A and conversation at a municipal and regional level on how, as she states, “we can achieve growth and prosperity without destroying our shared resources to make way for poorly designed, insensitive redevelopment in our communities.”

This event is free and open to the public. Reservations are encouraged.

The East Hampton Star | Christopher Walsh

May 25, 2023 

The East Hampton Historical Society and the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society have planned 20 collaborative events, starting next week and running through September.

“Each hamlet has its own unique history,” said Irwin Levy, the Trails Preservation Society’s president, and the events will focus on that. “Combining a hike with a presentation by a like-minded organization has been a winning formula for E.H.T.P.S. Collaborating with the historical society is a logical next step for us that benefits the entire community.”

...

Other upcoming events include A Walk-Through Art History: Brooks-Park on June 7, the Wainscott Heritage Project on June 14, a hike of the oceanside community of Beach Hampton in Amagansett on June 28, the Seven Nathaniel Dominys on July 15 in East Hampton, Something Is Fishy in Promised Land on July 22, a tour of the Springs Historic District on Aug. 5, the D’Amico Studio and Archives at Lazy Point on Aug. 12, Gerard Drive in Springs on Aug. 26, and the Eastville Historic District in Sag Harbor on Sept. 6.

Known as "the Savior of Central Park, Elizabeth Barlow Rogers is also the author of ten books and is the first person to hold the title of Central Park Administrator. An influential expert in historic landscape preservation, Ms. Barlow Rogers is the founding President of the Foundation for Landscape Studies. She was a Wainscott resident for over five decades. The photo here is of the rustic bridge in the "Glen", the woodland garden she created at her former home on Sayre's Path.

Elizabeth Barlow Rogers Journal Entry | January 16, 2023

In 1965 I bought a small second home resembling a child’s picture of a house (two parallel vertical lines linked by horizontal line at the top). This kind of one-dimensional sketch, defined by the symmetrical features of the façade – two upper-story and two bottom-story windows with a central vertical rectangle representing the front door while the triangle formed by the gable end of the roof implied an attic. Such would have been an approximate portrait of the farmhouse, which together with its elongated lawn and far-back scrub woods constituted the two-and-a-half-acre property that I purchased in 1965 for $29,000.