Villages

Abigail Balnis and Gabriel DeWalk were married on April 29 at the Randall House in Greer, S.C. The groom’s uncle Jonathan Powell officiated.

The East Hampton War Memorial seen here, installed for Veterans Day in 1924 adjoining the North End Cemetery, is traditionally decorated as part of the village’s Memorial Day observances.

Montauk’s Westlake Marina, a family-owned and operated business for nearly 60 years, has been sold to Hildreth Real Estate Advisors, which according to the Traded NY platform paid $14 million. In Amagansett, Hildreth Real Estate Advisors previously acquired the 136 Main Street and contiguous 11 Indian Wells Highway parcels in Amagansett’s commercial district.

Tapping into meditation techniques and other practices, the Center for Compassionate Leadership, founded by Laura Berland and Evan Harrel of Montauk, trains change-makers in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. People in the workplace, Mr. Harrel said, “want clarity, equity, purpose, and direction, and they want to be treated with respect, listened to, and treated as a fellow human being. All of those are elements of a compassionate leader.

On a “Big Day,” birding is just about numbers. It is spent, dawn to dusk, in search of birds; the goal to see as many different species as possible. May 13 was Global Big Day. The goal is always to find 100 species: We’ve never gotten there.

Jacqui Leader, who has spent 30 years as the creative director of the East End Special Players, was honored by State Senator Anthony Palumbo in Albany last week as his district’s Woman of Distinction.

The new owners of the Springs General Store had hoped to be open in time for this summer, but “I realized this was a much bigger project than I originally thought,” one said this week. Now they are targeting a June 2024 reopening.

“Cordial greetings” from The Star of yesteryear.

The East Hampton Historical Society and the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society have planned 20 collaborative events, starting next week and running through September, to highlight the area's history, with destinations including the Brooks-Park property in Springs, the Leisurama houses in Montauk, and the D’Amico Studio and Archives at Lazy Point.

“I truly love moving to a new place, discovering the history, people, what makes them special. I’m excited to do that here,” the Rev. Ben Shambaugh said from his office at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. After a six-month search, he was selected to replace the interim rector, Joseph L. Cundiff IV, who had served since the departure of the Very Rev. Denis C. Brunelle.

This cross-section elevation drawing from 1856 shows the lighthouse that illuminated Gardiner’s Island. It stood just over two stories tall on a sandy beach of little Gardiner’s Point Island from December of 1854 until early 1894.

It’s a truncated week in “The Way It Was,” but still, some things never change: mysterious movie production here, the scourge of Lyme disease, and the Montauk Lighthouse needing work.

ChangeHampton, a group of East Hampton Town residents concerned about climate change, biodiversity loss, and the sharp decline in insect and bird species, launched its 1000 Healthy Yards campaign on Saturday, aimed at stopping the use of pesticides and fertilizers and creating landscapes beneficial to pollinators and other native species.

Onshore cable installation for South Fork Wind has been completed, the developer announced this week, and the affected roadways have been restored. The offshore wind farm’s turbines are to be installed during the summer.

This student-made guide to the native plants of the East Hampton Nature Trail from 1976 feels particularly relevant this spring.

One hundred years ago, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the village’s most famous “lowly thatched cottage” — John Howard Payne’s Home, Sweet Home.

With a major renovation now substantially complete, Temple Adas Israel's rabbi and members joyfully returned holy books and artifacts to the synagogue in a Torah procession on Friday. “This being our first Shabbat in the new building, we felt we needed to do something to celebrate,” said Rabbi Dan Geffen.

Concerned Citizens of Montauk has announced that Laura Tooman, the group’s president for the last six years, has stepped down from that position.

John Lyon Gardiner (1770-1816), the seventh proprietor of Gardiner’s Island, wrote to his brother in Queens on this day 233 years ago with updates on people here and complaints about the mail.

The 46th annual meeting of the League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork happens on Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Westhampton Free Library. The Peconic Land Trust will be the guest speaker’s subject.

From 1998, a less-than-enthusiastic assessment of the state of downtown East Hampton. And more from The Star of yore.

Concerned Citizens of Montauk announced this week that it has retained Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences to assess Montauk’s wastewater issues.

Sanborn Fire Insurance maps are some of the best sources for historical property ownership and residency information from the mid-19th and 20th centuries. This one shows Southampton Village.

It’s hard to mistake the great egret: lengthy yellow bill, long black legs, large white body in between. They have sinewy necks, sometimes stretched straight, other times tucked into a squat S, as when they’re flying.

It happened here, readers.

A steel boat built by the late Stuart Vorpahl, a fisherman, historian, town trustee, secretary of the East Hampton Baymen’s Association, and descendant of one of East Hampton’s oldest families, landed at the East Hampton Historical Farm Museum and is now on view there.

This handwritten cookbook was owned and compiled by members of the Hedges family, a prominent, active group living on Main Street in East Hampton Village.

Those coming of age in the 1960s and ‘70s have either arrived at retirement or are about to enter that stage of life soon, comprising a demographic that studies show is both returning to marijuana and trying it for the first time. “It’s the legalization that is piquing people’s curiosity once again,” said David Falkowski, a cannabis expert, grower of industrial hemp, and producer and seller of CBD products. “Old people love weed.”

Hamptons Whodunit, the first-ever crime festival in East Hampton Village, was a big success, according to Carrie Doyle, the village board member who, along with Jackie Dunphy, Mayor Jerry Larsen, and his wife, Lisa Larsen, co-founded the celebration of  mystery and thriller writers and fans.

Twenty-five years ago, as the Energy Department announced “significant progress” in forming a community advisory council at Brookhaven National Laboratory, an East Hampton activist group demanded closer attention to the radioactive contamination leaking from the lab into the groundwater. And more ripped from The Star of yore.