Even as nations around the world began one by one to ban experimentation in human cloning, the Iowa septuplets and their parents, who used fertility drugs, became international celebrities. Instant celebrity of a somewhat different kind was bestowed too on the 63-year-old Italian woman who, also with the help of modern medicine, became the world's oldest mother.

And millions tuned into Larry King's death row interview last week with Karla Fae Tucker, the double ax murderer who has, with the assistance of satellite television, put a pretty female face on the national debate over capital punishment.

It seems Americans everywhere, and in every possible context, are being forced by advances in technology to reconsider the extent to which human life should be inviolable.

As today approached, marking the 25th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, The New York Times observed that advances in medical technology, such as ultrasound imaging, have changed the "moral landscape" of the abortion debate.

A Times/CBS News poll conducted this month shows that 60 percent of the public still believes the Roe v. Wade ruling was a good thing, but it also shows considerable uneasiness about allowing abortions to be generally available without strict restriction.

It is clear that technology has made personal decisions about birth control and abortion more complex while at the same time moving the debate from the medical, religious, and legal arenas into the living room. Discussions about the sanctity of life and death are conducted by everyone with a television set while individual opinions are often ill-informed and even contradictory.

The debate between those who believe every fertilized egg is a human entity and those who are guided by the scientific interpretation of fetal viability is clouded. The Times reported that only 15 percent of the public now approves of abortion during the second trimester of pregnancy (between three and six months) even though medical experts now place viability at 23 to 24 weeks.

Human cloning, which could alter the genetic evolution of humankind, and the death penalty, which is murder sanctioned by government, are questions for society at large to answer. A woman's constitutional right to privacy sets the abortion debate apart from the rest.

After a 12-month nationwide search that resulted in over a hundred applications, Guild Hall has found a new curator.

Lisa Panzera, who most recently has been curator of the Levy Gallery at the Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, is already at work at Guild Hall and making plans for the coming season.

"The first thing I have to do is get to know the community," said Ms. Panzera. "I want to make a lot of studio visits so that I can spend time looking at artists' work and get to know what is here."

Silence In East Hampton

She spent her teenage summers in Nantucket with her family and was immediately struck by its similarity to the East End. But after living in New York City, where she was on the staff of the Guggenheim Museum, and then in Philadelphia, the East End is a big change.

Her husband, Antonio, a scholar of Italian literature, is still teaching in Philadelphia, and Ms. Panzera and her dog are finding the silence of East Hampton's woods very different from the constant noise of city life.

"The first night, the silence was so profound that neither of us slept," she said.

Expanding Taste

Ms. Panzera's own specialty, and the focus of her doctoral dissertation for the City University of New York, is Italian Futurism. She's interested in Italian contemporary art in general (the major show she worked on at the Guggenheim was on Italian art from 1943 to 1968), but, as she points out, this is harder to keep on top of as she is here and it is there.

"I guess my tastes have gradually moved forward in time," she said, explaining that she first studied the Italian Renaissance and then, for her graduate studies, 19th-century European painting.

Ms. Panzera has lectured extensively at the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum on contemporary art and has also taught classes and written for art journals, mainly on 20th-century art.

Regional Artists

She will be inheriting a number of shows already planned by the museum's interim curator, Donna Stein, and is reluctant to commit herself to any concrete future plans until she has come to know the territory.

But one similarity she noted with her curatorship at the Levy Gallery is that both it and Guild Hall deal with regional artists, those from the Philadelphia area at the Levy and those from the East End at Guild Hall.

She is fascinated, she said, by the artistic history of the South Fork and its continuing attraction for artists, both those who have been doggedly working away through the decades in relative obscurity and the big New York City names for whom a studio in the Hamptons is just part of the trappings of success.

She did say that she hoped to organize more thematic shows, which would present an opportunity to bring in artists with a variety of styles, those who are established and those who are just emerging, and historic and contemporary work.

"It's a nice way of mixing things up, lending perspective to the work, and opening things up a bit," she said.

She also noted that accessibility in its broadest sense is vital to sustaining a museum program and captivating audiences.

"Presenting a broad range of exhibitions and events is essential to remaining vital."

Want to get nearly every citizen of a small hamlet loaded for bear in the middle of the hibernating season? Tell them they can't use their village green as they see fit. Try to boot the library's biggest fund-raiser from the premises, and the garden club's, and that of the chamber of commerce. Make everyone wonder whether art exhibits, dance performances, Santa sittings, tree-lightings, raffle sales, and concerts, all traditionally held on the green, will be prohibited. Quietly enlist support from a municipal official to get the necessary law in motion.

That's what the Montauk Gazebo Committee did last month, saying its members were worried about "wear and tear" on the green and gazebo, which they guard with zeal. The committee proposes to prohibit two and three-day fairs - like the Chamber of Commerce's fall festival and the library's book fair - ban cars and a lot of other things, and put curbing around the swathe of green.

All of which incited a pretty large protest on the green Monday afternoon - presumably not one of the "passive" uses the committee would endorse.

"The Green-Gazebo," the committee argues, is an "aesthetic center . . . in the heart of the hamlet" just as "the village flagpole green area and windmill green area are in East Hampton." It adds that the latter properties are "rarely, if ever" used for gatherings or events. (They apparently missed the muskets going off at the East Hampton Village flagpole a few weeks ago at the opening of the town's 350th anniversary celebration.)

The situation in Montauk is a no-brainer. The heart of a hamlet - or anything else for that matter - doesn't do much good if it isn't put to use, let alone if it's shut off to the body as a whole.

Representatives of Ronald O. Perelman, chatelain of the Creeks on East Hampton's Georgica Pond, said last week that the billionaire had been unaware of the historic value of the Capt. John Dayton house when he authorized its demolition, and there is no reason not to believe it.

The near loss of the structure, parts of which are almost 300 years old, is an object lesson for a community that prides itself on sense of place and that is celebrating its 350th anniversary this year. It speaks, unfortunately, to a prevailing mood of cockiness that leaves little or no room for reflection, a let-the-good-times-roll attitude with the potential to roll right over what remains of our common heritage.

On Fireplace Road in Springs, an early 19th-century house may join the growing list of "tear-downs" if its new owners are not persuaded to move it or find someone else who will do so. What is at stake here more and more is a loss of sensibility, of an awareness of a world beyond the hedges or the front gate.

Not far from Mr. Perelman's fortified estate, another mogul named Ronald has made his presence felt. Single-handedly, Ronald Lauder has done more to preserve old buildings, farmland, and open space in Wainscott than anyone before, and has safeguarded his work for future generations with uncompromising covenants and restrictions.

That legacy, at least, will endure.

James McCourt, one of the discriminating band of writers who winter in the Hamptons, is back again after a hellish two-year stint in Washington, D.C., where his partner, Vincent Virga, co-authored the acclaimed "Eyes of the Nation: A Visual History of the United States" with curators from the Library of Congress.

Like any Irish-American storyteller worth his salt, Mr. McCourt came home with a new book in his computer. Called "Delancey's Way," it will be brought out by Knopf, probably in the fall.

Parts of Mr. McCourt's earlier novels and stories were either written or edited on the East End - he first came here in 1957 - and most abound in local references.

End Of An Era

There's "Mawrdew Czgowchwz," about a definitively fabulous Czech diva, "Kaye Wayfaring in 'Avenged': Four Stories," set partly in East Hampton, and "Time Remaining," remembrances of eight members of a legendary '50s New York performance group who have died of AIDS, shared at a Sagaponack kitchen table and on the old Cannonball.

In their doting celebration of "all things counter, original, spare, strange," as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins put it, these novels immortalize the unbridled glamour of an era stopped in its tracks by its mounting death toll.

Homesick and lonely amid the Beltway bureaucrats, Mr. McCourt dreamed up plot lines for his new book that would spirit some of his beloved "Time Remaining" gang to Washington, to keep him company, he said, at least in spirit.

It seems that Delancey, the reform school graduate and theatrical artiste with the Sagaponack kitchen, was also a piping plover advocate. In the new book, his creator has The East Hampton Star assign him to the nation's capital to do an investigative report on the 104th Congress's environmental policy.

In Washington, Delancey attends environmental breakfasts given by Al Gore, getting a lot of inside info for The Star while making a bit of a fool of himself over the attractive Vice President.

Odette O'Doyle, the semi-retired transvestite ballerina and World War II veteran who reminisces on the Cannonball, turns up in a subplot based on Henry Adams's novel "Democracy" (which feminists be lieve was actually written by his wife, Clover).

Vana And The King

"I liked the idea of replacing Clover with this drag queen posing as an extremely buttoned-up Republican matron who calls herself a New Whig," remarked the writer.

Then there's Vana Sprezza, a formerly lushed-out Venetian diva married to the Italian condom king, who makes a stunning comeback spearheading an AIDS awareness drive that features Christo wrapping the Washington Monument to look like a giant condom.

With these three soulmates back in starring roles in his imagination, Mr. McCourt was able to make hay of his difficult cocktail-party conversations with the actual natives.

"The D.C. way of putting things only occurs within the Beltway," he said. "It's not pretty, but I hope I achieved a working verisimilitude with what I think of as these big comic-book balloons of dialogue."

"I've never done anything like it before, stitching together quotes gleaned from newspapers and remarks overheard at parties, but in Washington you have to be subversive."

"I call the book a debriefing, and I'm just happy my characters got out alive."

The Far Skyline

Settled with Mr. Virga in a cottage hidden behind privet hedges, Mr. McCourt talked about the childhood and adolescence that led him to write these books, as well as the many similarly far-out stories he has published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Grand Street, Yale Review, and other literary magazines.

He was born in Flushing Hospital on July 4, 1941, and grew up in Jackson Heights, a place he came to view as a mistake.

As a boy, he remembers, he would look longingly at the city skyline from the platform of the 90th Street station of the elevated Flushing line, always riding in the front car to watch it come closer, knowing that Manhattan was where it was at.

A '50s Growing-Up

In the '50s, he attended parochial schools and Catholic churches, dated girls, acted in school plays, devoured the columns of seven daily newspapers, went to Broadway shows, the ballet, concerts, art museums, Birdland and Village jazz dives, and was a permanent fixture on the standing-room line at the Metropolitan Opera.

Summers, he worked at menial jobs, spent weekends in Fire Island and East Hampton, and resolved his sexual identity. "Not a very happy life," he said, "except that it was led in New York in a time which was even then recognized as epochal."

As a senior at Manhattan College in 1962, Mr. McCourt experienced a moment of instant celebrity on the CBS quiz show "The G. E. College Bowl," winning money for his alma mater as captain of a whiz-kid team of "New York chin-up micks and wops who flashed a lot of attitude."

Information Please

Even early on, he was dauntingly erudite - a walking encyclopedia who was recognized and cheered on the streets of New York for a few heady days.

"Darling, when you die . . . it really will be as if a library has been burned down," says one of his characters, a remark that might well be addressed to its polymath author.

"I'm a sort of garbage can of information," Mr. McCourt acknowledged. "My mother was like that, too, a repository of little details."

"I think it's an Irish thing, an aural thing. It's like being a tape recorder. You hear things and remember them; who can say why?"

Alternate Universes

The future writer learned to be far-out as a kid, too. When he wanted to imagine an alternative universe, he'd go into a certain closet, close the door, and sit for a short while.

"When I opened the door, everything would look the same, but whatever I'd decided to have happen would happen. All my stuff had to be there, the family furniture all in place, but the story could go anywhere. A Martian could sit down at the table, or a movie star."

"I didn't discard the autobiographical details, just transmogrified them."

"When I'd talk to the late writer Harold Brodkey, he'd say, 'My mother really had cancer, but I made all the rest up.' And I'd say back, 'We all make the rest up, Harold, but what do you make it up out of? You make it up out of the furniture. You transform it. ' "

From The Outside In

After taking his M.A. at New York University, Mr. McCourt studied acting at the Yale School of Drama. There he developed a lasting admiration for the methods of Stella Adler, who, unwittingly reinforcing his theory, stressed the importance of being "in your circumstances."

"What do you think about the candlesticks? Those chairs?" she'd ask her students, admonishing them to start with the furniture - to, as she put it, reach the inside from the outside.

Like many '50s writers, Mr. McCourt approached his early work with a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and a Dexamyl (a form of speed) coursing through his bloodstream.

"A perfect combination," he said, "except that people were getting very paranoid and dropping like flies."

That Drag-Queen Look

"'Mawrdew Czgowchwz' had a longing in it for an idealized past in which time stands absolutely still. When you write like that, you're desperately afraid of getting old and dying."

After the novelist kicked his triple habit, time began to move forward in his fiction: people grew up, had babies, and died.

Mr. McCourt's infatuation with drag queens dates back, he said, to his childhood, when he would see his mother dressed up in her party clothes to go out dancing.

"I was fascinated by her '40s makeup and high heels, and, in the late '50s, delighted by the imitation, or caricature, of this look as camp."

Ineffable Opera

His passion for opera singers was rather more serious. "I grew up listening to the radio, and would suddenly hear a voice so beautiful I couldn't sleep. In the beginning it could be Ethel Merman or Helen Traubel - I made no distinction between show biz and classical music."

The first opera singer who made him "absolutely nuts," he said, in terms of an ineffable "other" quality was Victoria de los Angeles.

"That had to do with the ecstatic," said Mr. McCourt.

"Normally the human voice is an instrument of self-seeking, but the singing voice is not asking for anything, not even for applause. It is entirely giving, which, for me, is the initial attraction of the lullaby."

Joining The Party

Mr. McCourt, who has taught creative writing at Princeton and Yale, has given some thought to what impels people to write.

"For me, it's like this kid wakes up in the dark and there's this party going on in his house. He's really unsure whether he can get away with joining it, but he feels he has to try."

"The grown-ups are all smoking and drinking and laughing and having a wonderful time, and he's about 4, standing there in his pajamas. It occurs to him that he can't just stand there - not that he's not loved, but that he has to have a routine of some kind. He has to say or do something, so he won't be sent back to bed."

"That's what my writing starts to be about," Mr. McCourt concluded. "Being allowed to join the party. What it becomes, of course, is an extended postmortem. Remember how important they used to be? Often more important than the parties themselves."

"The Glass Menagerie," Tennessee Williams's second play and first masterpiece, has probably had more productions than all his other works combined.

Its small cast of five, three of them young, makes it attractive to schools and other groups on tight budgets, while its language and emotions are so accessible no special effects are needed to convey them.

This rare and beautiful simplicity does not insure success, however. The play has also probably had more god-awful productions than all his other works combined.

A New Approach

Mounting yet another "Glass Menagerie" requires not only a discerning sensibility, but also the fortitude to follow in the footsteps of such great stars as Laurette Taylor, Helen Hayes, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Lawrence, to name but a few unforgettable Amandas.

So CTC Theater Live had its work cut out for it: most of us have a cherished version of the play enshrined in our hearts, to which we cling with fanatical devotion. Could it be approximated? Could we be won over?

The answer is a resounding yes, and for a fascinating reason. The production running at Guild Hall for the next two weekends (8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2:30 on Sundays) has been approached from what seems to be a completely new viewpoint.

A "memory play" set in the Wingfield apartment in St. Louis in 1944, when it was written, "The Glass Menagerie" is introduced and commented on by Tom Wingfield, the Narrator (Steve Ford).

Young Tom (Robert Meehan) is holding down a dead-end job in a shoe warehouse and trying to steer clear of his demanding, critical, mother, Amanda (Vaughan Allentuck). He writes poetry and practically lives at the movies.

Amanda, whose husband abandoned his family to join the merchant marine some years before, scrambles to keep food on the table by selling magazine subscriptions over the phone.

"Gentleman Callers"

To compensate for her humiliating circumstances she reimagines scenes of the "gentleman callers" of her girlhood, and focuses on her daughter, Laura (Randy Lee Hendler), a partial cripple who has withdrawn from a real world she cannot cope with into the safer universe of her glass-animal collection.

Tom must bring home a gentleman caller for Laura, Amanda insists, fearing her daughter will wind up a "barely tolerated spinster, one of those little bird-like women without any nest."

Even though her own marriage brought her nothing but poverty and humiliation, a husband, she believes, offers the only salvation possible for the excruciatingly shy girl.

No Happy Ending

When Tom finally comes through with his fellow-worker Jim O'Connor (Ken Wiesinger), a charming Irish jock Laura idolized in high school, for a radiant moment she breaks out of her isolation.

But a happy ending is not in these calamitous Southern cards.

The success of any "Glass Menagerie" hinges on the performance of the actress playing Amanda. Traditionally she has been portrayed as a genteel, slightly balmy former belle who lives in a past crowded with gentlemen callers, one of whom she will marry and be "well-provided-for."

A Different Amanda

Ms. Allentuck, the current president of CTC Live, puts a different spin on the role. Her Amanda is a scold who hounds her children to "masticate" their food and mind their posture, and yells at Tom to "rise and shine."

There's nothing delicate about this wife who's been dumped by her husband. Driven by the hellish fury of "a woman scorned," she exaggerates or perhaps even invents the gentlemen callers - "17 at one time!" - in a desperate attempt to salvage her shattered ego.

This Amanda is not a frail little daffy thing, she's mad as hell and quite delusional in Ms. Allentuck's moving and deeply original performance.

Don't Miss It

The rest of the cast mostly keeps up. Mr. Wiesinger is marvelous as Jim, the long-awaited gentleman caller, absolutely charming and guyish and, well, perfect.

Ms. Hendler seemed a little tentative as Laura on opening night, but her scene with Jim and the candelabrum was breathtaking. Under Barbara Bolton's sensitive direction, the two find the fragile joy in the brief contact their characters have.

Mr. Ford makes a charming, rueful Narrator, while Mr. Meehan is affecting as the moody, restless Tom, the tormented young Tennessee Williams of this beautifully remembered play.

Steven Espach's compellingly sepulchral set and lighting design evoke the dark mood of this early work, as do Chas W. Roeder's costumes and Paul Bowes's original music.

This "Glass Menagerie" will add new dimensions to your image of Mr. Williams's haunting elegy for the death of his family; be sure to see it.

From a distance, the cover of The Lone Sharks' new CD, "Fire, Theft & Casualty" looks like a scene out of Dante's Inferno - bodies writhing and fire roaring. Closer inspection reveals no gnashing of teeth at all, just a group of scantily clad cowboys and honky-tonk women whooping it up at a Lone Sharks show.

Even at their best, the Sharks couldn't inspire such bacchanalia, but Jim Gingerich's painting captures what The Lone Sharks are all about: dancing, revelry, and rock-and-roll. To an extent, the CD evokes that spirit as well, although, like its cover, the CD also promises a bit more than it delivers.

That's not to say "Fire, Theft & Casualty" isn't a quality CD; it just lacks a few critical elements, namely smoke, the flow of booze, and a dance floor full of twisting couples. The Lone Sharks are a band meant to be seen live, and anyone who hasn't seen the vintage-rock-and-roll and rockabilly unit perform live probably doesn't get out much.

Spotlighting Originals

The Sharks have reigned comfortably as the area's best and busiest dance band for the past several years, churning it out everywhere from wine tastings and weddings to their favorite haunt, Bridgehampton's Wild Rose Cafe.

The Sharks' Thursday night gigs at the Wild Rose have become a tradition for those who like to dance and are a safe bet for a good night out, even in the dead of winter.

So, after nearly seven years of rocking out Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Gene Vincent covers, the Sharks were ripe for a CD. Wisely, the foursome chose to spotlight its original music, which sometimes gets lost in the mix onstage. All but one of the CD's 10 songs - a funked-up version of Willie Dixon's "Pretty Thing" - are originals.

Other Realms

Having spent time in New York and Nashville, the Sharks' frontman and guitarist, Gene Casey, is well-schooled in vintage rock-and-roll, and his songwriting is true to the old styles - almost to a fault. Some of the CD's straightforward rockers sound fairly standard-issue.

There's the "two-lane troubadour" in the title track beckoning "Push the pedal to the metal and let the engine roar," and the honky-tonk queen, who's "One-half drop-dead beautiful and the other half insane."

It's hard to fault the Sharks for sticking true to their bread and butter, but the band is at its best on the CD when it departs from rock and rockabilly altogether and delves into other realms, riskier territory.

There are some exceptions: the CD's piano-pounding second track, "I Ain't Dead Yet," is beautifully gritty and comes as close as the CD gets to representing the Sharks live. The opening number, "Swing, Baby Swing" has a perfect rockabilly premise of getting in one last fling before the old playhouse comes down: "Swing, baby swing/That's what I heard 'em sing/One last call before we fall/One step ahead of the wrecking ball."

The musicianship throughout "Fire, Theft & Casualty" is flawless, although the studio seems to have filtered away some of the Sharks' on-stage energy. The drummer Chris Ripley and the bassist Mike Saccoliti lay down a clean, driving, but essentially risk-free rhythm.

Meanwhile, the Stetson-sporting Mr. Casey leaves himself only a few small openings for guitar solos, too slim to demonstrate his normally show-grabbing guitar work.

"The Snizz"

The only Shark who seems to have free rein the whole way through is the keyboardist Andy Burton, who takes full advantage of it with some masterful organ and piano. Perhaps a live recording or two could have helped recreate The Lone Sharks' live appeal.

The band does get to shine collaboratively on two solid instrumentals on the CD, "Love Theme From 'Chalker,' " and the brilliantly funky "The Snizz, Part 2." Free from style constraints, the group's individuality rises to the surface.

"The Snizz, Part 2" is particularly engaging, with an infectious melody and beat reminiscent of The Meters and Booker T. Band members cheer their way through the song in the background and each progression ends with a group shout of the title.

A Solid 40 Minutes

The other highlights of the CD come in the form of two pretty ballads, the Motown-influenced "I Thought You Were Somebody Else," and an atmospheric country-western lament called "Cowboy Grave." The latter, with its low-toned Johnny Cash-style guitar line and echoing reverb, is real can-o-beans stuff, without being hokey, even when Mr. Casey begins whistling the melody. The lyrics equate dying with "end of the trail":

"Montana mamma/Forever passing through/Take the trail you know so well/I'll be waiting there for you . . .High and lonesome/Home of the brave/Throw your roses on the stone/Down at the cowboy grave."

All in all, "Fire, Theft, & Casualty" provides a solid, if not impassioned 40 minutes of music and a good sampling of the group's versatility. It may be Lone Sharks-lite, but it's a fine introduction for anyone who hasn't heard much of the band. For those who have, it's an ample Shark-substitute for those times when you can't get out to see them live, or, as another reviewer put it, in case of a "Lone Shark attack."

The CD is for sale at Long Island Sound in East Hampton and Southampton and at The Lone Sharks' shows.

Setback For Macklowe

For Harry Macklowe, the early weeks of 1998 are running about the same as the latter part of 1997, with a strikeout at his first legal proceeding of the new year.

On Friday, the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals unanimously reaffirmed its earlier decision allowing Mr. Macklowe's Georgica Close Road neighbor, Martha Stewart, to renovate a studio and construct a gym, a library, and an office on her land, the former Gordon Bunshaft property.

Ms. Stewart holds two building permits for the work and a certificate of occupancy for the studio, all of which Mr. Macklowe had challenged.

"Unprecedented"?

"We think the relief is unprecedented," Mr. Macklowe's attorney complained afterward, not only in East Hampton, he said, but "on the East End in general."

The lawyer, Michael Walsh, predicted that, as a result, "We can expect a spate of applications asking for multiple buildings in a residential zone."

"Obviously Travertine's position was correct," said John R. Cuti, Ms. Stewart's son-in-law and her Manhattan attorney. "We are pleased with the outcome and Travertine is eager to get on with the restoration." Travertine is the corporate name in which the property is held.

Neither Mr. Walsh nor Mr. Cuti attended Friday's meeting.

Decision Affirmed

Mr. Macklowe, who brought his appeal under the name KAM Hampton I Realty Corporation, had charged that Ms. Stewart would use the accessory buildings (identified as "huts" on the plans) for guest accommodations or separate rental units, an illegal use.

The Z.B.A. ruled, however, that "there is no substantive evidence . . . that these particular structures will be so used, and the law does not permit the board to speculate that an applicant will use a structure for unpermitted purposes."

The board also noted that the studio "was in compliance with the building plans and the certificate of occupancy."

KAM Hampton has also filed an Article 78 lawsuit in State Supreme Court alleging the certificate of occupancy is invalid. The litigation is pending.

The Yardley and Pino Funeral Home of Sag Harbor won a victory at the East Hampton Zoning Board of Appeals Friday - a special permit to convert the East Hampton Medical Group building, which it owns, to a branch of its funeral home business.

But the success may be "bittersweet," Kenneth W. Yardley, one of the owners of the four-generation family business, said later Friday.

"It's not over yet," he said. "We're expecting to be sued" by the group of Pantigo Road neighbors who hired two attorneys to represent them at four of the five public hearings held on the matter since August 1997.

Possible Action

As of press time, William J. Fleming, one of the neighbors' lawyers, said he did not know if his clients would take further action. "We think there's a reasonable case here," he said, but "the neighbors will have to evaluate the decision."

"It would be nice if an accommodation could be reached," Mr. Fleming added. He noted that the board, and the Suffolk County Planning Commission, approved the funeral home, provided that there is sufficient parking to preclude using Pantigo Road, that plantings screen the premises from adjacent properties, subject to the review of the Village Design Review Board, that outdoor lighting be limited, that there be only two chapels inside, and that any changes to the exterior be consistent with the requirements of the Pantigo Road Historic District.

A Cliffhanger

Mr. Yardley said his family would not alter the building for at least 30 days after Jan. 30, when the resolution will be filed - the period during which the neighbors could bring an Article 78 lawsuit challenging the decision in New York State Supreme Court.

The Zoning Board's vote, with only Joan Denny, the board's vice chairwoman, dissenting, was a cliffhanger. While there had been speculation that whoever lost would challenge the decision, Mr. Yardley said his family had decided that Friday's action, either way, "would have ended it. It has dragged on long enough."

"We were surprised," though, said Mr. Yardley, to whom it seemed "it could have gone either way."

"Threshold Question"

"I was hopeful all along," said Daniel Voorhees, the East Hampton attorney representing the Yardley family. "And I'm pleased with the result."

In explaining its decision, the board wrote that applying for a special permit for a use not permitted by the code, and calling it "more conforming," presented a "threshold question."

The board cited a section of the code that authorizes the board to "grant a special permit for a use not specifically permitted in a particular district, regardless of the classification of the . . . district, but only when the subject premises is already used for a nonconforming use and . . . if the board determines that the proposed use is more conforming than the existing nonconforming use" - in this case a medical arts building in a residential zone.

Not Detrimental

The board went on to explain its opinion that a funeral home would be detrimental neither to neighboring property values, nor to the character of the neighborhood.

Because the property is within the Pantigo Historic District, the Village Board prepared an environmental assessment form, in conjunction with the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act, that showed that converting the medical building into a funeral home as "more conforming" would not result in "any large and important impacts, and therefore will not have a significant impact on the environment."

Four tenants now occupy the East Hampton Medical Group building, Mr. Yardley said this week, all of whose leases had expired as of Dec. 31, 1997.

A Month's Wait

They include a pediatric group headed by Dr. Gail Schonfield, Peconic Health Corporation, a subsidiary of Southampton Hospital comprised of several internists and family physicians, Lab Corporation, a laboratory, and Radiological Services, an X-ray facility.

Mr. Yardley said that if the decision is not challenged in the next month, the Yardleys and their tenants will reach an agreement as to when they will relocate.

Southampton Hospital has plans to construct a medical arts building at 300 Pantigo Place, but it has not yet received final East Hampton Town Planning Board approval, and it will take at least a year from groundbreaking to complete its construction, Dr. John J. Ferry, the hospital president, has estimated.

The fact that Paul and Mildred Bianco's property on Three Mile Harbor is ripe with Native American artifacts may not rule out building two houses there, but it isn't going to be easy.

The East Hampton Town Planning Board last week said more archeological work needed to be done on the property before it could approve "work envelopes" for the new houses.

Extensive archeological work has already been done on the property, which lies off Springwood Way on the west side of the harbor. Surveys by two different archeologists found evidence that Native Americans had occupied the site as far back as 8,000 B.C. and found what looked to be the foundation of a colonial-era house.

How To Find Artifacts?

The problem now for the Planning Board is deciding whether the Biancos can proceed with their application for a lot-line shift to allow two new houses on the site. Because of the sensitivity of the site, a "stage three" dig would likely have to occur before any construction began.

A stage three, or "data recovery" project makes sure any important archeological resources are recovered and studied before the property is developed.

Although two different archeologists have recommended a stage three dig, the Town Planning Department advised the Planning Board last week that their studies were conflicting as to the exact locations of artifacts. Nor did the studies offer a strategy for recovering them.

On Cranberry Hole

The Planning Board agreed at its meeting Jan. 7 that such information was needed before it could proceed with the application.

The board has asked for a number of archeological studies in recent months, covering projects in Montauk and Amagansett. At last week's meeting, members agreed a preliminary study should be done on the Norman Edwards subdivision on Cranberry Hole Road. The family of the late Mr. Edwards is continuing his plan to create two new house lots next to the Multi-Aquaculture fish farm.

Though the application has been in existence for roughly six years, the Planning Board last week ruled that the waterfront location deserved at least a "stage one" survey to determine the likelihood of archeological resources.

A Likely Candidate

The board also brought itself up to date on the archeological report requested for the Tuthill Pond Estates subdivision proposed on the high ground overlooking Tuthill Pond in Montauk.

Though the site has been disturbed over the years, planners ruled its topography and proximity to known archeological sites made it a candidate for possible significance.

The board recently ordered another study on Russell Drumm's property on Greenwich Street in Montauk. Mr. Drumm, a senior writer for The Star, is seeking a lot-line modification to create a new lot. The board ruled the property was close enough to other archeological sites to warrant a study.