“They have taken over Amagansett, like they took over Montauk.”

    “They,” according to a speaker at Monday night’s Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee meeting, are the visitors, most of them upscale young professionals, who crowd the hamlet’s share houses and, especially, Indian Wells Beach. They litter, use the dunes as a bathroom, and, to deafeningly loud musical accompaniment, party until dawn.

    “You cannot enjoy your home anymore,” the woman, a resident of the Bell Estate neighborhood, complained, to many nods of agreement. “You cannot go outside. But over all, the whole atmosphere of Amagansett seems to be taken over by outsiders. It’s no longer a place for us.”

    With the four-day holiday weekend behind them, committee members and a capacity crowd of guests shared their experiences and observations. The multiple expressions of frustration underscored the uneasy balance between year-round residents’ quality of life and the town’s dependence on tourist dollars. How much is too much? Those at the meeting appeared to have reached — and surpassed — an undefined but acutely perceived threshold.

    East Hampton Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the committee’s liaison to the town board, reported mixed results of the town’s effort to control crowds and excessive drinking at Indian Wells Beach. She has fielded many complaints about taxis, she said, noting that the attendant in the booth at the entrance to the  parking lot, whose job is to check vehicles for resident parking stickers, was often ignored. And, said Ms. Overby, “There’s been a lot of use of the dunes as bathrooms.”

    Kieran Brew, the committee’s chairman, reported a July 4 count of 1,300 people at the western portion of the beach, outside the lifeguard-protected  area. “When we first started talking about this, we were concerned because it grew from a group of about 100 to 300, 400, or 500. But now we’re talking about over 1,000 people. It was shocking,” Mr. Brew, who lives on Indian Wells Highway, said. Conditions in the parking lot itself, however, were greatly improved, he said, by the addition of an attended booth and enforcement by a Marine Patrol officer. Congestion has eased, and residents are able to find parking space, said Mr. Brew.

    Other members of the committee saw the situation differently. “Fourth of July was the worst weekend I’ve ever seen in 60 years,” said Joan Tulp. She agreed that resident parking has improved, but “everything else just went to pot. After five o’clock, the taxis were where they were not supposed to be. Those kids were walking in groups of 10 or 12, or 40, sometimes. Some were drunk, passed out on the grass.”

    Many residents she spoke with, she said, agreed that alcohol should be banned from guarded beaches. “People even asked me to start a petition. . . . Main Beach does it, Fire Island does it, Southampton does it,” Ms. Tulp said. “I do thank the town and Sylvia, but I think a lot more has to be done.”

    Kathleen Vadasdy, who said she has had a house in Amagansett for almost 20 years, complained about a nearby house, on Acorn Place, that she likened to a nightclub. “The owners rent it on a weekend basis,” she said.

    “What are our enforcement resources?” asked Jeanne Frankl. Citing the hundreds of violations assessed at a popular Montauk establishment last year, she expressed skepticism, along with others, that complaints to code-enforcement officials would have any effect. “Is it going to be something like Surf Lodge? They’ll get a ticket and sometime in the middle of next winter they’ll negotiate a settlement? I’m wondering if there should be some law changes.”

    “Is it that we don’t have the laws, or we don’t have enforcement, or both?” Mr. Brew asked. “This conversation always comes together: those people on the beach are symptomatic of what’s happening in a larger way in Amagansett.”

    “Our fines are too low for almost everything,” Ms. Frankl said. “As essentially a recommending group, we shouldn’t hesitate to recommend what we really would like to see and let some lawyer for the town say it’s excessive. We shouldn’t worry about whether we’re asking for too much. We should ask for what we want and let someone tell us we can’t have it.”

    Someone else then raised the topic of share houses. The town code limits use of single-family houses to residency by the owner’s family or, when the owner or her family is not in residence, “occupancy of the entire residence by one family as guest of owner or as tenant.” “Family” is defined as persons related by blood, marriage, or legal adoption, “or any number of persons not exceeding four . . . where not all are related by blood, marriage or legal adoption.”

    The existence of share houses, said Mr. Brew, is “part and parcel of this whole thing. You have to call code enforcement.”

    What would that do? he was asked.

    “At the moment, it doesn’t do anything,” Mr. Brew said, but “you have to take every little step.”

    Rona Klopman, who lives in Beach Hampton, showed photos taken by another resident of a bus that dropped off 30 passengers at a house on July 3, a Wednesday, and picked them up on Sunday. “The neighbor called code enforcement, and code enforcement said there was nothing they could do,” Ms. Klopman said. Code enforcement officers, she asserted, “are being told not to do anything. That’s why you have share houses, that’s why you have houses overloaded.”

    Ms. Overby gave voice to many committee members’ frustration. “From my point of view, code enforcement is political will,” she said. “And if the political will does not want to enforce our code, it’s not going to be done. At this point in time, I feel that the political will is not there to enforce our share laws.”

    After the lengthy discussion, the committee voted unanimously to write to the town board demanding better enforcement — “or any enforcement,” Mr. Brew said — of share house regulations and excessive mass gatherings, whether permitted or not.

    “It has become notorious that the law is not being enforced,” Ms. Frankl said. “We in Amagansett are seeing this first-hand.”

    In another illustration of how ever-larger crowds are affecting Amagansett residents, Martin Ligorner of Leeton Road urged the committee to join him in opposing the creation of a new beach on Napeague, which is under consideration by the town board as a way to accommodate the summer crowds. He and other nearby residents, he said, had commissioned a study by a former FEMA official, the results of which would be presented to the town board. Mr. Ligorner cited the flooding that occurred during Hurricane Sandy, and the ecological sensitivity of the area, in his opposition to a new beach and its attendant parking lot and restrooms.

    “You can’t get to the beach without disturbing the dunes,” he said. “Any disturbance of the dune could cause extensive flooding, cutting off Montauk.” Mr. Brew asked Mr. Ligorner if the report could be distributed to the committee, to which Mr. Ligorner agreed. Mr. Brew said the matter would be on the agenda of the committee’s meeting in September.

    Finally, on a night when the late Sheila Okin, the committee’s vice chairwoman, was remembered and mourned, the committee nominated and elected Michael Diesenhaus, a new member, to be vice chairman. Ms. Okin died on June 28.

  ArtHamptons and artMRKT opened on Thursday night to crowds happy to take in the art in the various gallery booths and other related performances and activities. Those walking into ArtHamptons at Nova's Ark in Bridgehampton were greeted by Larry Rivers's leg sculpture. 

  Those entering artMRKT at the Bridgehampton Historical Society from Main Street could witness Adam Stennett executing a trial run of a survivalist performance piece he will do at an undisclosed location in August. Mr. Stennett was already collecting water and had his outdoor shower set up; a cot and an easel where he worked on a new painting. Having slept for only two hours the night before after spending a good portion of it setting up, he was a bit tired but happy to answer questions and point out the things he had on site to get him through the weekend.

Adam Stennett had everything he needed for a 96-hour run through of his "Artist Survival Shack" project, where he will live as a survivalist at an undisclosed South Fork location beginning in August.  Jennifer Landes

Here are some pictures from the parties.

At ArtHamptons, guests entered the fair through a giant sculpture of legs made by Larry Rivers, a Southampton-based artist who died in 2002 and is being honored by the fair.  Morgan McGivern Photos

ArtHamptons is hosting more than 70 galleries in a 50,000-square-foot tented exhibition space. This was the check-in point at Thursday night's opening.

Woodrow Nash stood next to his work at the opening.

Zane Fix from the Stray Kat Gallery in New York City welcomed visitors to his booth with a sign of peace.

Both fairs provided musical entertainment -- these performers were at ArtHamptons.

There was plenty to see and do at the openings. 

At the artMRKT fair, visitors could enter from the parking lot, which spilled out through the entire length of Corwith Avenue, or through a specially made entryway from Main Street.

At the main entrance, Karen Goerl and Frederico Azevedo stopped for a photo.

Guests had several options for drinks at artMRKT, including fruity concoctions in sealed jars and champagne presented in old travel cases.

The bartenders, dressed for their own performance, were perched high above the crowd, as was the band at artMRKT.

Mia Fonssagrives-Solow checked out a sculpture at artMRKT.

Several East End galleries had booths at artMRKT, including Vered, above, as well as Glenn Horowitz, Halsey Mckay, Neoteric, Sara Nightingale, Boltax, Tripoli, and Eric Firestone.

    A complex presentation before the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals on June 28 demonstrated the increased scrutiny applications concerning oceanfront properties will face in a post-Hurricane Sandy world.

    Board members, including Frank Newbold, who has been appointed chairman to replace Andrew Goldstein, who is no longer on the panel, listened as Richard Warren of Inter-Science Research Associates explained the technicalities involved in an application from Katharine J. Rayner to build a storage area under her house at 85 West End Road.  At issue was the potential environmental impact.

    The applicant, Mr. Warren told the board, seeks to lower the floor of a 19-by-28-foot room at the western end of the house. This would be accomplished, he said, by a process in which the building would be supported from below with cribbing as excavation occurred around the perimeter and four-by-four-foot holes drilled for concrete and steel rebar. The process is standard, he said, and would be carried out by her contractor, Ben Krupinski.

    Eight to 12 workers would do the work by hand, with no heavy equipment that could potentially disturb the nearby dune, Mr. Warren said. The concrete would be pumped via a hose from the driveway. Working in sections, there would be no danger of the house settling. Once the house was supported, the existing floor would be removed and a new concrete floor poured. The plan, he said, would have no impact on the surroundings.

    Mr. Warren said the construction method was devised with the help of Lee Weishar, a coastal engineer from the Woods Hole Group in Falmouth, Mass. “Lee inspected the site after Hurricane Sandy,” he said. Dr. Weishar, he said, also inspected an existing revetment that had been exposed after the hurricane and found that it was stable.

    The top of the revetment, which had been put in on the condition that it be covered with sand, lost that sand in the storm, Mr. Warren said. But, he said, “It did not move the dune crest back at all. . . . That has all been restored and is back to the condition that it was pre-Sandy. . . . The revetment did exactly what it’s supposed to do.”

    Previous reviews by two other specialists, Mr. Warren said, indicated that “this is not an area of serious erosion on this property,” a conclusion he said Dr. Weishar had also reached.

    Questioning by board members focused on the revetment, which was raised by two feet in 2008. “I think it’s a little misleading to say this is not an area of strong erosion,” Mr. Newbold said. “If you look back in the records, they applied for permits to reconstruct the dune and revetment in 2001, 2003, 2011, and 2013.”

    Mr. Warren, however, said that “this would be an area of erosion” without the revetment. Because of it, he said, “it’s stable, it’s protected.”

    Given the complexity of testimony, as well as the house’s location on a primary dune and within a coastal erosion hazard area, the board is calling on an independent expert, Rob Herrmann of En-Consultants, to review the findings. Mr. Newbold said the hearing would be left open pending Mr. Herrmann’s report, as well as review by Ken Collum, a village code enforcement officer.

    Christopher Minardi, a member of the board, pressed Mr. Warren on the environmental sensitivity of the location. “What happens if we get a slightly bigger storm?” he asked. “The ocean looks like it very well could come up over that dune.” Mr. Warren said that was unlikely, but Mr. Minardi pressed on. “What if it does?” he asked.

    “If it does,” Mr. Warren said, “we’ve got an awful lot of other fish to fry.”

    Mr. Warren asked the board to keep the application in proper perspective. “We’re asking for the lowering of a floor underneath an existing house. . . . If the mother of all storms comes, that goes over the top of the dune, this basement is probably not going to make a difference.”

    “I agree,” said Mr. Minardi, “but I don’t think we need that much of a bigger storm. The dunes are a lot different than they were a year ago.”-

    Though historic houses are a huge factor in what creates the aura of the Hamptons, buyers for such houses are few and far between. People like to look at the charming old houses as they pass by on their way to newer ones. They’re quaint from afar.

     “It’s tragic,” said Cliffeton Green, a broker at Corcoran in Bridgehampton. “Many people no longer appreciate 18-inch wide, 250-year-old pine floorboards.” Or the old beams, many of which were made from decommissioned sailing ships. Or the “massive brick walk-in fireplaces.”

    Old houses appeal to those who relish their intimate rooms, authentic lines, original details, and the potential surprise of finding that the insulation is made of old newspapers, or even seaweed. But the problems for today’s buyer are many: Rooms are small, ceilings are low (often under eight feet), light is limited, windows are single pane. Also, said Ms. Green, some have termites, though she stresses that is “almost always a solvable problem.”

    And, of course, they often take a lot of work to bring up to modern standards, not to mention code. Ms. Green recalls a 1730s preacher’s house in Sagaponack she sold where the basement was “literally on dirt,” and had to be carefully excavated by hand. “Most buyers will not want to undertake such a project.” It takes a certain kind of buyer to “appreciate and understand the significance of a much older house.”

    They also take money. Cornelia Dodge, an agent with Halstead Property in East Hampton, recently sold the timber-frame saltbox, Congress Hall, a village house dating to 1680 with views of Mulford Farm and a village green. “They have a special set of challenges,” she said of the family who bought it. “I would guess they’re spending as much [on renovation] as they purchased the house for.” It went for just under a million. “But they look forward to treating it with care. The rewards are amazing.”

     Strangely, some of the top architects on the South Fork who spend their days designing ultramodern houses spend their nights sleeping in antiques. Richard Meier lives in a traditional Shingle Style cottage on Georgica Road. Rob Barnes of Barnes Coy Architects lives in an 1899-vintage house in East Hampton Village. Nick Martin of Martin Architects lives in a Sagaponack house built in 1776. And Fred Stelle of Stelle Lomont Rouhani Architects lives in a 1920s house overlooking the Shelter Island Sound. The truth is that architects appreciate good lines whether old or new.

    “My kids keep asking when we’re going to move into a house I designed,” said Mr. Stelle. With an appreciation for the bones of the house, he renovated it rather than tear it down.

    “It’s rare to find a [pre-existing] modern house that you’d want to live in,” said Mr. Barnes. Early modern houses, he explained, were shabbily built and many are not worth restoring. While he claims that modern houses today are better built than traditional houses, in previous decades cost-cutters “used cheap sliding doors, plywood siding,” and the like.

    More recent modern houses were custom-built for owners who likely still reside in them. Why not build a modern house for himself? “One day I will,” he said. Mr. Barnes, who is single, prefers village life, where vacant land is scarce — except in the cases where a builder knocks down an old house to put up a new one and charges twice as much as he paid. Meanwhile, he enjoys living in a house that is “nicely proportioned, comfortable, and warm.”

    Of course architects are often called in to renovate or restore an old house, in which case they will mostly redo the bathrooms and kitchens while keeping the other rooms as true to their origins as possible. Or, they might add on a modern wing “that follows the same lines” of the original house, according to Mr. Barnes. “A little glass piece on the back of a house makes it more interesting,” he said. But it must be executed “sensitively” and not mar the street-side facade.

    Which leads to another potential downside to owning a historic house: the fact that exterior changes must be vetted by historical committees and architectural review boards if the house is a landmark or in a designated historic district. In Sag Harbor’s historic district, for example, owners must get approval for paint colors. As one owner put it, “It’s a matter of opinion what’s historical and what’s hysterical.”

    A truly historic house with details including elephant pine floors, tin ceilings, and original fireplaces sells quickly in that burgh, according to Jane Holden, an agent with Brown Harris Stevens.

    She recently sold such a house on Jermain Avenue that was neglected for many years, even having an incarnation as a restaurant, the House on Otter Pond, but was “replicated exactly” to its original state in the early ’90s. It just sold for $1.25 million, which “was a steal,” she said.

    The new owners, like other owners of historic properties, are in for heavy upkeep. “There’s always something that needs to be repaired,” she said. “Something as simple as putting in A.C. is complicated. You’ve got to have a love for it.” And you need to have an architect or contractor who “knows what they’re doing, and has respect for the history. I’ve seen too many say ‘Rip this out.’ ”

    During a showing, when a prospect complains that the floors are leaning, she tells them, “You pay extra for that — it took a long time to get that way.” Like others who adore old houses, Ms. Holden enjoys sharing anecdotes about them. “There was a house that sold years ago on Madison [Street in Sag Harbor]. When they renovated it, they found English doubloons behind the fireplace. It’s an adventure.”

    Jose Enrique Arandia, an agent at Corcoran in Bridgehampton, lives in a house dating from 1929. It has an interesting history that Mr. Arandia likes to repeat. It was a spec house built by a developer who “had a whole plan in place” for the area north of the highway in Wainscott. “It was going to be called Midhampton,” Mr. Arandia said. But the project was abandoned after the Crash.

    “When people come by they say, ‘This is a happy house,’ ” he said. “That is one thing we lose. . . . Contemporary spaces don’t flow into one another.” He is also enamored of the walls’ lathing, which he described as layers of sand, stone, and concrete poured over “metal mesh” resulting in a textured effect. “It provides a solidity.”

    There were modernizations made to his house before he moved in, including large-paned windows that allow in “a beautiful northern light.” Only one other house was built, which remains “almost entirely in its original state,” thanks to third-generation owners who only come out in summers, so apparently are not driven to update it.

    One of the oldest houses on the East End went on the market a couple of months ago. According to the owner, Neil Heiskell, Hedge Court Cottage, located in Water Mill across from the Parrish Art Museum, was built in 1699. A true historic gem, the price of just under $1 million reflects the fact that it’s on the highway, though its magical gardens with specimen trees and giant hedges, for which it was named, seem to transport you to a bygone era. Its listing agent, Ellen Lauinger of Corcoran in Southampton, admits that it will take a “very special audience” to appreciate it. There have been several “quite knowledgeable” lookers so far who have “reveled in the history” and nooks and crannies of the house. No takers yet, but with its all-important “room for a pool” status, it probably won’t take long.

    Back in the old days of the Ross School, when the school enrolled only a handful of girls, students routinely toured the world in grand style, staying at the Ritz in Paris and the Hotel Seiyo Ginza in Tokyo. 

    But rather than Ross students traveling the globe, the world is increasingly coming to them.

    Since establishing itself as a boarding school in 2008, when Ross first enrolled 11 boarding students, the boarding program has rapidly expanded. Of the approximately 500 students enrolled at the school this year, around 40 percent were boarding students, a number that school officials say will hold steady come September.

    The school’s global reach is most evident when flipping through its family directory, which Ross publishes annually. Perusing through the spiral bound notebook, one is as likely to come upon an address in China or South Korea as one in Sagaponack or Wainscott.

    According to the directory, there are 90 students whose families live in East Hampton and 82 whose families live in China. Boarding students from South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Taiwan, and Vietnam number 30, or about the population of day students from Amagansett and Montauk combined. Though students from Asian countries comprise significantly more than half of the boarding student population, students from Germany, Brazil, Russia, and nearly 20 other countries, are also represented.

    The trend of enrolling increasing numbers of international students is hardly unique to the Ross School. All across the country, it is a direction that a number of boarding schools are similarly headed in — a strategic move that provides financial stability, particularly during times of economic uncertainty.

    “The boarding program probably started the day the school started,” Donald Smith, the director of enrollment management and external affairs at Ross, said during a recent conversation. 

    Mr. Smith, who arrived at the Ross School a little more than a year ago, previously worked at the Blue Ridge School in Virginia and the Cate School in California, among a handful of others. “Of every boarding school I’ve worked at, there’s never been one more mission-appropriate than Ross,” he said. “How could we not eventually grow into a boarding program?”

    Since its earliest days, the Ross curriculum, which runs from pre-nursery to 12th grade, has emphasized the creation of global citizens by exposing its students to a wide array of cultures, languages, and philosophies. Ross students take part in annual trips abroad during midwinter term, or M-term. For three weeks this past March, students ventured to Thailand, Italy, Ethiopia, Brazil, and Indonesia, among other exotic destinations, while some spent their M-terms involved in projects nearer to home.

    “It’s not just a catch phrase,” said Mr. Smith, referring to the school’s global mission. “These kids are as likely to work in London or Cairo as they are in New York or Topeka.”

    Founded in 1991, the Ross School was started by Courtney Sale Ross in memory of Steven J. Ross, her late husband and former head of Time Warner. The school got its start as a sort of home-school experiment for the couple’s only daughter, Nicole. In the more than 20 years since, it has grown to include two campuses, the Lower School in Bridgehampton, once the Hampton Day School, and the Upper School in East Hampton.

    Tasked with overseeing both admissions and marketing, Mr. Smith conceded that part of his responsibility is ensuring the school assumes more sound financial footing. Rather than relying on Mrs. Ross, the school’s primary benefactor, for its stability, the aim of the school going forward is to create an endowment to ensure its growth and expansion in the years to come.

    “It has added students in our school that wouldn’t be here otherwise. Without boarders, we would be a school of 400, and now we have 530,” said Mr. Smith. He said that while the school does not necessarily make money from its boarding student population, their families, most of whom are quite wealthy, often give annual donations.

    Nevertheless, the boarding program helps buttress the Ross School’s bottom line. While the school grants $3 million each year in need-based financial aid, international boarding students generally pay full freight. For the 2013-14 academic year, day students in grades 9 to 12 will pay $36,200 in annual tuition. Boarding students in 7th through 12th grades will pay $54,200 by comparison — with an additional $8,000 in other fees.

    Mr. Smith said that a host of factors have influenced the increasing numbers of international boarding students — everything from economic uncertainty to exchange rates. In recent years, particularly as visa restrictions have eased, the numbers of Chinese students have swelled. 

    Peter Upham, the executive director of the Association of Boarding Schools, which represents 285 schools in the United States and Canada, and whose membership includes the Ross School, sees a similar trend occurring across the country.

    Since 2005, Mr. Upham has seen the proportion of international boarding students grow from 25 to 30 percent among his organization’s member schools, which range in size from 25 to 1,000 students. And of the 30 percent, half are natives of either China or South Korea.

    “Schools are definitely becoming more international, although they’ve been more international than most folks would imagine for quite some time,” said Mr. Upham. He has witnessed what he described as a “huge surge in demand for American-style education,” particularly during a time when slots in U.S. colleges have grown increasingly competitive.

    Though enrolling foreign-born students was a direction that many boarding schools were already pursuing, he believes the recent economic collapse accelerated it. 

    “At about the same time the international demand was surging, our economy was going through our troubles, with demand from traditional domestic markets softening,” said Mr. Upham, who said that domestic demand has started bouncing back in certain regions of the country.

    For many schools, a decline in the domestic population has proven a very real worry. “There are schools where filling beds and meeting enrollment is a very real pressure,” said Mr. Upham, who explained that some schools struggle with how many international students to admit, with many searching to perfect the balance between day and boarding students. “If the demand is coming from Mexico or Spain and not from Rochester or Minneapolis, they’re going to go where the students are.”

    But whether at Ross or elsewhere, the influx of international students is not without its challenges. While all students at Ross must take two foreign languages (with Mandarin required across all grades), some of its foreign-born population struggles with English. Toward that end, later this summer, approximately 50 students will enroll in a six-week program specifically targeted toward improving their English skills.

    According to Carey London, Ross’s communications coordinator, for students enrolled at the Upper School campus on Goodfriend Drive who already speak Mandarin, once they reach either an intermediate or advanced level of proficiency in English, they also take Spanish.

    Requests to speak with both Gregg Maloberti, the interim head of school, and Patti Silver, who chairs Ross’s board of overseers and serves on its board of trustees, were both denied. 

    Lacking dormitories, boarding students at Ross live in nearby houses, many scattered throughout Northwest Woods, where faculty members work as live-in supervisors, or house parents. Each house accommodates between 4 and 12 students, with many relying on local cab companies to transport them, whether they are meeting up for coffee at Starbucks, shopping excursions, or fancy dinners in town. This fall, Mr. Smith will run one of the houses.

    In terms of its international enrollment, Mr. Smith sees Ross holding steady, though he said the campus still has room to expand, albeit ever so slightly. “We simply don’t have the room to change a lot,” he said. “But I can see it getting more diverse as we enter other markets.”

The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research, with the help of Coast Guard personnel from Station Montauk, freed a rope-entangled leatherback turtle that had been spotted by a boater in Gardiner's Bay late in the day Thursday.

The sea turtle, estimated to weigh approximately 600 pounds, was first noticed by someone aboard the Madeline, a power boat from Quonset, R.I., who alerted United States Coast Guard Station Montauk, according to a statement released on Friday by the Riverhead Foundation.

Kimberly Durham, the foundation's rescue director, and Julika Wocial, its rescue program supervisor, were taken aboard a Coast Guard vessel and whisked to where the animal was still struggling. By about 8:10 p.m. Thursday the team managed to untangle the rope from around its flippers, and it swam free, apparently none the worse for the experience. The rescue took place about 1.8 miles west of Gardiner's Island.

Ms. Durham said in the statement that July was just the start of the sea turtle season in Long Island waters and asked that the public report any sightings to the foundation's 24-hour hotline, 631-369-9829.

Three people were hospitalized, one a 6-year-old child who remained in serious condition, after a drunk driver struck a BMW on Route 114 in East Hampton on Saturday, police said.

East Hampton Town police said that the driver of a 2003 Toyota pickup truck, William Hurley, 60, of Sag Harbor, was drunk when he crashed into the sedan being driven by Elizabeth Krimendahl, 53, a New York City resident, at about 6:15 p.m. A police source said that the accident happened near Route 114's intersection with Deer Haven Court.

Ms. Krimendahl, along with her child, who police did not name, were removed from the crushed BMW by the East Hampton Fire Department's heavy rescue team. She was flown by helicopter to Stony Brook University Hospital; her child was taken first to Southampton Hospital, then to Stony Brook. Both suffered serious injuries, police said.

Police arrested Mr. Hurley on at least one drunken driving charge before he was taken by ambulance to Southampton Hospital. He, too was transferred to Stony Brook University Hospital with what police also said were serious injuries.

The accident came less than two hours before an anti-drunken driving sweep, organized by the Suffolk County District Attorney's office and involving police departments from across the county in a sweep of East Hampton roads, was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Saturday.

Saturday's crash was within a half-mile of the location on Route 114 of a July, 2012, accident in which a visitor from Virginia was killed by a pickup truck driver who police initially suspected of drunken driving.

When I saw the tip recently left by a man who paid his dinner bill with an AmEx black card, I was furious.

“Are you kidding me?” I thought. “To get one of those cards you need to spend at least $250,000 annually and the most you leave me is 14 percent? What happened to Reaganomics and the trickle-down effect — aren’t all you rich, old white guys Republicans?”

A common refrain in my restaurant is, “Tipping isn’t required. They don’t have to leave you anything.” The implication being that I should shut up and be grateful for what I do get. Uh-uh, nope. Not me. I work so hard for so many hours.

When I receive a tip of less than 18 percent I do not think, “Oh what did I do wrong?!” Instead, I mentally curse the profession I have chosen and the system that allows strangers to determine my weekly income.

I, like many other servers, get a paycheck of zero nearly every week. This is because, in America, the federal minimum wage for a server making tips is $2.13. All the taxes from my declared tips come out of that paycheck, and I still have to pay a sizable chunk in April despite the mean annual wage for waiters and waitresses in the state of New York being $20,710, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Hypothetically, if you and everyone else decide not to tip me, the restaurant is required to cover the difference and pay me minimum wage, a whopping $7.25 an hour. That comes out to $290 before taxes for a 40-hour week. If no one tipped me for an entire month there’s no way I could make rent, pay for gas, groceries, medical expenses (since my job does not come with benefits), or other necessities.

Len Penzo, writing in The New York Times in June, saw the tipper-server relationship as an educational opportunity: “When properly administered, tips provide accurate performance feedback to the server, which is why restaurants that implement a mandatory-gratuity or no-tipping policy — regardless of the level of service — end up doing everyone a big disservice.”

He went on: “Think about it. Why would any server go out of his way to give excellent service when he knows he’ll be getting the same pay regardless of whether he busts his hump or takes it relatively easy by doing just enough to meet the minimum standards?”

Excuse me, what? Why would I even attempt to perform my job duties in a professional manner if I have the security of knowing I’m going to be paid no matter what? Does no one realize how messed up this is, let alone insulting? Were I to be paid a salary plus benefits by my restaurant the only people who would be at risk of having “an unsavory dining experience” would be the ones who are rude, condescending, and treat me poorly.

The only “performance feedback” I glean from the amount of the tip is whether or not the customer is cheap.

In “Dishing It Out: Power and Resistance among Waitresses in a New Jersey Restaurant,” Greta Foff Paules wrote, “It may already be apparent that the waitress views the customer not as a master to pamper and appease but as a substance to be processed as quickly and in as large a quantity as possible. . . . If the customer is perceived as material that is processed, the goal of this processing is the production or extraction of a finished product: the tip . . . low tips and stiffs are not interpreted as a negative reflection on the waitress’s personal qualities or social status. Rather, they are felt to reveal the refractory nature or poor quality of the raw material from which the tip is extracted, produced, or fashioned.”

Here’s what I am thinking as I present someone with the bill: “Long ago, before you sat at a table in my section, the stars aligned and your capacity to be generous was formed. There is very little I can do to change how giving you decide to be.”

I receive far more poor-to-mediocre tips than my excellent service should elicit, according to Mr. Penzo. If people are really tipping based on performance, then I just don’t know. Maybe I should not refill those empty water glasses, maybe I should ignore guests when they yell at me across the dining room, maybe I shouldn’t make suggestions when they ask what’s good to order, maybe I should not care about doing my job well and then my tip percentage would improve?

In a nutshell: 18 percent minimum please, and that is on the total bill, including tax, thank you very much.

    A fire Sunday in a Springs house filled with fine art, antiques, and one dog took several hours and four fire companies to quell. It started around 4:12 p.m.

    According to Tom Baker, East Hampton’s fire marshal, the owners of the house, which is at 162 Old Stone Highway, Barry and Lynn Weinberg, were not in it when the blaze erupted. “They went to the beach,” Mr. Baker said. However, Cooper, their golden retriever, was still inside.

    Though in the Springs School District, the house is covered by the Amagansett Fire Department, whose volunteers were the first on the scene. According to Mr. Baker, the Springs Fire Department then joined the battle, as did the East Hampton Fire Department’s rapid intervention team, which was brought in in case of any trapped or injured firefighters. The Sag Harbor Fire Department’s rapid intervention team was on hand as backup.

    Once inside, firefighters discovered the dog and took him to safety. They also spread tarps over fine furnishings and artwork to protect them from the water being poured into the structure through the incinerating roof.

    “I spent all day yesterday there,” Mr. Baker said on Tuesday, adding that the fire started on and remained throughout the third floor, which he said contained an artist’s studio and storage spaces.

    The source of the fire remains a mystery, Mr. Baker said. There was no gas or obvious source for the combustion. The East Hampton fire marshal’s office will continue to investigate.

    Two firefighters were taken to Southampton Hospital with heat exhaustion. They were later released. Although the fire was largely extinguished after about 40 minutes, water continued to be applied to the smoldering third floor.

    Amagansett volunteers returned to the scene the next morning to extinguish a smoldering bookshelf, Mr. Baker said.   

The appearance this week of numerous Portuguese man-of-war on ocean beaches from Montauk to East Hampton Village has created a sort of "Jaws" moment for local officials. They have not added up to a call to close beaches, as in the 1975 film about a killer great white shark, but officials have urged beachgoers to be cautious.

According to John Ryan Jr., the chief lifeguard for East Hampton Town, more than 30 have washed ashore. "A dozen were found in Montauk today," Mr. Ryan said on Tuesday, adding, "The majority of the man-of-war that we've found have been in Montauk. We've been checking the beaches every morning on the high-tide line."

The invertebrate, which is often mischaracterized as a jellyfish, is actually a colony of different organisms, called polyps. They become so specialized that they need each other to survive.

Portuguese man-of-war are generally found around the world in the ocean close to the equator, but strong currents sometimes pull them out of their range. "The recent southwest swell that has caused all of this surf has pushed them up the Gulf Stream. The water is five degrees warmer now," Mr. Ryan said.

"They have a tendency to stay in warmer waters, so the ongoing change in water climates is probably causing this problem," East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said. However, seeing these faux-jellies off Long Island is not so uncommon, according to Mr. Ryan. They were last spotted here after a storm in 2006.

Man-of-war are typically 12 inches long, 5 inches wide, and their tentacles can be up to 165 feet long. Their bodies and tentacles are covered in venom-filled nematocysts, which paralyze and kill prey such as small fish, and can pack a powerful sting. However, they are not as dangerous as one might think.

"People misunderstand them. There are cases where people have been severely affected, but it only will happen if you are allergic. If you get stung, you're not going to die," Mr. Ryan said.

Regardless of whether one is allergic to them, the sting is extremely uncomfortable. The tentacles can stick to the victim's skin and leave large, painful welts. Even after washing ashore, when they look dead, they can sting when touched.

There are ways to reduce the pain and swelling when stung. "Man-of-war stings are treated differently from a normal jellyfish sting. Remove the tentacle and rinse with cold fresh or salt water. But make sure you don't apply vinegar. That will make the pain worse," Mr. Ryan said. "But this is definitely one of the reasons why people should swim in protected areas."

Sounding relieved that no one had been stung, at least by Tuesday, Mr. Ryan confirmed that there was no plan to close the beaches. "We are looking for them. If we see a lot floating in a certain area, we would call people out of the water," he said.

"The village government and the local business owners want everybody to enjoy everything the town has to offer, including the beaches, on this very busy weekend of the summer," Mayor Rickenbach said.

Additional photograph: Jack Graves