We tend to think of development as an inexorable, irreversible force. The bulldozer, like an unstoppable Pac-Man (to use an antiquated metaphor), is set on gobbling up all the woods, farmlands, and dunes. A few parcels will escape that fate, thanks to public and private preservation efforts, and from time to time nature will reclaim land with houses built by folly too close to the sea. But basically development is a road of no return.

Or is it?

Consider a recent case on Chappaquiddick Island, off Martha's Vineyard. According to a story last week in The New York Times, the owners of a waterfront house agreed to sell the property to a land trust at a discounted price rather than on the open market. The trust then proceeded to raze or relocate the buildings on the land and to restore an unimpeded water view that the island's residents had previously enjoyed.

Perhaps we are being too fatalistic when we mourn the loss to private development of choice features of the natural landscape that once seemed public assets. Let's keep alive the hope that someday similarly enlightened owners of land we cherish here may see its value to the community as a whole and act selflessly.

Mother Nature isn't the only force that can reclaim our vistas and waterfronts. The better side of human nature can achieve the same end.

Visitors hardly ever use the front door on Old Stone Highway in Springs. Following a flagstone path that leads past the 18th-century farmhouse through a bed of lily of the valley, they come in the back door, under a cedar tree.

The original coal stove dominates the spacious kitchen, where a red rocking chair draped with a fuchsia shawl accents the wide floorboards, painted a glowing yellow. Orange casseroles and a turquoise coffeepot rest on the stove, along with a big black wok.

Ruth Nivola, in a purple dress, completes the color spectrum - almost. On the dining table sit little dishes of green olives, dried cranberries, cherries, and a pale-ocher pƒt‚, of curried chicken wings that seems emblematic of the spirit of the place: mundane objects exalted by vivid color.

Even a vase of blossoms from the common snowball bush outside looks glamorous in this heightened setting.

Golden Filigrees

The widow of the sculptor and muralist Costantino Nivola, who died nine years ago, Mrs. Nivola is known for her extraordinary jewelry design. Not surprisingly, she uses humble materials to create exotic pieces.

"It would have been too difficult to go back to painting when my children went off to school," said the former art student. "So while my father was on his deathbed, for something to do as I kept him company, I started making jewelry, deriving my inspiration from nature and ethnic costumes and from drawings of musical instruments."

She had noticed silver and gold yarns in knitting shops, usually doomed to become "rather ugly evening sweaters," and decided to try turning them into something beautiful.

Experimenting during her bedside vigil, she discovered the yarns could be crocheted, knitted, whipped, and frayed into mesh-like filigrees - unique new methods of making jewelry.

Silks And Brocades

Her works, which have been displayed in museums and galleries here and abroad, are noted also for such techniques as curling, embroidering, appliqu‚ing, knotting, hammering, stuffing, shaping with tweezers, braiding, and tasseling.

"At first I tried to get real gold thread, and bought a spool from a supplier to the Pope in Rome," said Mrs. Nivola. "When I had it tested, it turned out to be fake."

"Then I discovered that by hammering I could stiffen the metallic yarns so they could be worked like real gold and silver into quite large pins and necklaces that were light but not fragile, and never tarnished."

Instead of setting them with gems, she used richly colored silks and brocades from around the world, particularly the Orient, as well as antique beads and buttons. The colors include "light green, different shades of pink, orange, red, two blues, and dark lilac."

"The Angel's Broom"

"Each piece took at least two months to make, often much longer. Now one would take me a year, with my bad eyesight and the arthritis in my fingers."

Her imposing jewels, some as wide as collarbones, others covering the chest like breastplates, evoke ancient ceremonial adornments perhaps excavated from a temple or a royal tomb.

"Tino loved naming them," she said. As she catalogues them for a show in Italy at the end of the year, the names live on: "Achilles' Harp," "The Angel's Broom," "The Offering," "The Lovers' Rope."

Mrs. Nivola began life as Ruth Guggenheim in Munich, Germany, and grew up in comparative luxury. Part of her father's family came from Baden-Baden which, according to genealogists, may make her a relative of Peggy Guggenheim et al., albeit a distant one.

Father Blacklisted

Her father, a physician and amateur religious scholar, met her mother, an art history student, at the University of Zurich.

Dr. Guggenheim belonged to a group of physicians who had agreed to charge wealthy patients enough to be able to treat poor ones for free. He was blacklisted by the Nazis for his "Communist" tendencies.

"Actually, he was a royalist who wanted the King back," his daughter said with a laugh.

With other Jews, the family fled Germany to Italy in 1933. There, like her mother, Mrs. Nivola met her future husband, who came from the island of Sardinia, at art school. They were married in 1938.

To America

That same year, Italy passed anti-Semitic laws. The Guggenheims escaped to Switzerland and applied for an American immigration permit. During a visit to Paris after bidding her parents farewell, Mr. Nivola learned that he was wanted by the Italian police for alleged anti-Fascist activities, and the younger couple, too, came to America.

"It was unbelievable," Mrs. Nivola said. "Like so many Jews, my mother had fled three times: first from the Russian Revolution - her family had been wealthy - then from Nazi Germany, and again from Italy."

"Yet these people never surrendered their high ethical and moral ideals, and showed amazing spirit. I remember when the anti-Semitic laws were announced in Italy, she filled the whole apartment with fresh flowers, just to counteract the horror."

Early Struggles

America in 1939 had not yet recovered from the Depression, and the young couple struggled in New York. Mrs. Nivola spoke a little English, her husband none at all. They worked side by side in factories, and she took jobs as a nursemaid. She stopped doing art; he persisted.

Mr. Nivola, who at the age of 25 had been the art director of Olivetti in Milan, peddled hand-painted Christmas cards to New York department stores to make ends meet. Eventually Bonwit Teller hired him in its advertising department, which led to his becoming art director at Interiors magazine.

This income enabled him to continue sculpting in various Greenwich Village studios, one of which he shared with a friend, the architect Le Corbusier, in town to help design the United Nations building.

Sculpture Garden

In 1947 the couple rented a cottage in East Hampton, and bought their then very rundown farmhouse a year later. When the house "pushed at" Tino, his widow said, he'd push back - removing walls and obstacles until the space felt comfortable.

Now a blend of the openness of modern architecture and the coziness of a cottage, the sparely furnished interior is dominated by a dramatic Le Corbusier mural that covers two walls with yellows, blues, greens, and black. Sardinian baskets share wall-space with paintings by cherished neighbors.

Outside, a sculpture garden displays such unusual works as cement walls etched by Mr. Nivola with a screwdriver in the style of ancient graffiti, large stone fruits he made for a playground, and a tombstone he designed for his in-laws' ashes - one of his series of softly undulating "Sardinian Widows."

Life After Tino

A parade of statues of friends and family by Claire Nivola Kiley, the couple's daughter, marches out of the woods, led by a regal likeness of her mother.

Ms. Kiley, who writes under her maiden name, has just published a children's book, "Elisabeth." It tells the true story of a beloved doll Mrs. Nivola left behind in Germany that miraculously turned up in a New York antiques shop, and now belongs to her granddaughter, Alycia.

A son, Pietro S. Nivola, works at the Brookings Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. The author of "Regulating Unfair Trade" and "The Extra Mile: Rethinking Energy Policy for Automatic Transportation," he's "a serious thinker," according to his mother.

Life after Tino keeps Mrs. Nivola busy with his estate, and with the museum his hometown, Orani, dedicated to him, to which she donated works.

"When I'm not traveling, I live here," she said. "This house, for me, is like my skin. All of Tino's spirit is here, too, so I am happy."

The Southampton Town Aquatic and Recreation Project has organized a beautiful-pools tour on Saturday, apparently the first of its kind. It includes several swimming pools said to be among the most spectacular in the Hamptons.

The proceeds from the tour will go to help build a public pool and aquatic center in Southampton.

The 10 pools to be visited are in Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor, South ampton, Water Mill, and Hampton Bays. Maps and tickets, at $20 apiece, will be available at two main check-in points, Alan Ornstein's Green Hedges on Halsey Neck Lane, which is set in handsome gardens and has an adjoining pool house, and Martin Richards's By the Sea on Gin Lane, both in Southampton.

Mr. Richards's pool is highlighted by sculptures and an antique fountain. According to a release, it is the longest saltwater pool on the East End.

Three of the pools have won international design awards. Dr. Bilha Fish's pool on Bridge Lane, Bridgehampton, won a gold medal in the 1996 National Spa and Pool Institute design competition. It contains an elevated spa with a 25-foot cascading stone water wall down to the pool.

Richard Bungarz's pool and spa on North Side Drive in Sag Harbor is set on a hilltop. A 28-foot custom-designed free-form installation, it won the Pool Institute's gold medal in 1995. Tony and Terri Toscano's pool and spa on Hill Street in Southampton, surrounded by Arizona sandstone, won a bronze medal last year.

Philip and Lisa Bennett's pool on Hedges Lane, Southampton, sits in a traditional English garden and features bluestone coping with custom brick terraces. The free-form pool of Jay Salsburg, on Bettina Court in Hampton Bays, has a natural pond-like setting and large rocks for diving.

Choice Of Terrace

Thomas Nitti and Gail O'Brien's pool on Noyac Road in Sag Harbor is also free-form in shape, but its design seems to suggest a mountain setting. It has two sunning terraces, one for mornings and the other for afternoons.

Carlos and Wendy Routh's house on Little Noyac Path in Water Mill has a panoramic view of the pool from a secluded veranda.

Just down the road on Little Noyac Path in Water Mill, is John Segreti's pool, which features specially designed "fountain seats" in the middle of the water.

Finally, John and Kathleen Figlioni's bluestone-enclosed pool on Pheasant Close West in Southampton has an open cabana with a wet bar.

The tour runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and refreshments will be served. It will be followed Saturday evening by a cocktail party at the Ox Pasture Road residence of Carol and Steven Antler, including a fashion show, silent auction, and raffle. The grand prize is, appropriately, a gunite pool worth $30,000.

Tickets to the party, at $75, include the daytime pool tour.

The Southampton Town Board's pool advisory committee has recommended building a public aquatic center on the grounds of Southampton College in conjunction with Southampton Hospital, although the Town Board has not yet approved the suggestion. The cost is estimated at $7.5 million.

It is the kind of good news that comes along very seldom, say once every 25 years. In fact it was exactly a quarter of a century ago that the Federal Government banned the pesticide DDT.

DDT, as many will remember, almost wiped out the osprey population in the years following World War II, causing the birds to lay thin-shelled eggs that did not survive incubation. By the time the connection was recognized, fewer than a dozen breeding pairs remained in New York State - all of them here on Long Island.

Celebrating the silver anniversary of the nationwide ban, which was bitterly opposed by the chemical and agricultural industries, environmentalists had some encouraging numbers to report this week. At last count, 305 breeding pairs of ospreys were counted in New York, not just on the Island but throughout the state. The nation's symbol, the bald eagle, has multiplied almost thirtyfold, as has another formerly imperiled bird of prey, the peregrine falcon.

Residents of the South Fork, who still live close to nature, will be delighted but probably not surprised to hear of the resurgence of the osprey. The statistics confirm what our eyes tell us: The fish hawk is back in our midst. If you doubt it, call the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Riverhead and make a reservation for one of its osprey-observation cruises around Gardiner's Island this week.

Art is sneaking out of studios and galleries and into the view of shoppers, strollers, and diners.

There is a plethora of places besides galleries that display artists' work, and, for the "curators" there, no dearth of artists clamoring to be seen.

Artists seeking to catch the eye of gallery owners or a prospective collector or two are providing restaurant, shop, and cafe owners with changing, original displays. Most spaces are provided for free, though in some cases the business owner earns a small commission on any sales.

In East Hampton, the Coach Store on Main Street has for the past six years dedicated an entire back room - a former bank vault - for use as a gallery by local artists. The space is booked almost a year in advance, said Lynn Dale, a manager at the store, which throws an opening party at the inception of each show.

Good Testing Ground

On display through the end of June are wood carvings by Harry Honorowski. In July, Darby McHugh, a veteran of alternative art spaces who has shown her work at outdoor shows, Ashawagh Hall in Springs, and Estia restaurant in Amagansett, will mount a display of her hand-colored photographs.

"It's an artist-friendly way of getting the work out there - a good testing ground," said Ms. McHugh of the "alternative" spaces. Making a few sales "builds confidence" to approach galleries, she said.

The Coach Store does not exact commissions on sales, but deducts 10 percent of the sale price for donation to a charity of the artist's choice.

The Bridgehampton Cafe changes the paintings that decorate its walls every four to six weeks or so, throwing a cocktail reception to introduce the new works and artist.

"It's worked out really well," said Don Evans, the restaurant's owner.

Booked Months In Advance

Renovations completed prior to the restaurant's opening in April 1996 created "wonderful wall space," he said, large enough for pieces up to four feet square.

"I couldn't afford wonderful art . . . . I was tired of looking at posters," he said of his decision to showcase artists' works.

The word is out, said Mr. Evans. Artists' interest in showing at the cafe has "increased exponentially," he said. Artists are now bringing him slides to consider, and the wall space is booked up to four months in advance. The room "dramatically changes" according to the art displayed, Mr. Evans said. "It is never static."

Mr. Evans shows things he likes, though his favorites may not be everyone's. "Our severest critics are our waiters," he said.

Helping Artists

Once or twice, he has heard complaints, with a few taking offense to a particular piece, but over all he receives "continual positive comments" from diners, he said. "Sensitive stuff goes in the bathrooms," he laughed.

Colin Ambrose has been showcasing artwork at his restaurant, Estia, in Amagansett, for the past six years. The enterprise began with a desire to have a "continually changing display in the room," he said, as many of his customers return to eat there often. The shows change every six to eight weeks, he said.

After initially having galleries curate his shows, Mr. Ambrose has become personally involved, with a growing interest in helping artists to "establish themselves in the art world."

Nude Was Removed

Many artists who excel in the creative realm do not do so in the business world, he noted. "I've been a salesman all my life . . . . I'm happy to get out there for these guys," he said. "We give artists an opportunity to tell the gallery owners to 'go have lunch, and look at my stuff.'"

Mr. Ambrose looks for "dramatic, colorful paintings that are going to warm the room," he said, especially those with a local focus. "I am inclined to show people I know," he said. Estia's walls are spoken for through December.

As for content, Mr. Ambrose imposes few restrictions and has even exhibited a "relatively abstract" nude, which, however, he took down after parents of young diners complained.

"If they want to make a social comment, that's fine," he said, "but they can't be vulgar or use nudity - it has to be intellectual."

Busier Than Galleries

Mr. Ambrose retains the services of a public relations outfit to promote the shows and throws an opening reception, too. He retains a small commission for brokering on-the-spot sales, which number maybe four a year, though Nick Weber, this month's featured artist, sold three works at Sunday's opening reception.

"I think art is best experienced in life, rather than just in a gallery space," said Ann Harper, who curated the Estia shows for several years. Ms. Harper's Amagansett gallery will be run this year by Yaari, who is pursuing alternate venues to hang the work of gallery artists.

Mr. Evans of the Bridgehampton Cafe noted that his restaurant is "busier than the most successful gallery out there" and provides artists with wide exposure. Artists are realizing, he said, that "the demographics are that the people who frequent the Cafe are the people who may buy their art."

It's In The Bank

Banks, some of which have long decorated their walls with local art, are increasingly jumping on the bandwagon, too.

The wall space at the Bank of New York in East Hampton is reserved, in one-month periods, through most of 1998.

Never mind withdrawals or deposits. "We have people coming in just looking at the show," said Kay Coles, an employee of the bank who invites new artist-customers to display their work. Rivalyn Zweig's work is on display there now, with Leo Riva on deck for next month.

"There's a lot of good local talent out here that should be seen and aren't well-known enough to be seen in galleries," said David McHugh, the owner of the Hampton Photo Arts shop in Bridgehampton Commons. Like several other businesses that house exhibits, Hampton Photo Arts does not get involved in sales, instead just putting buyer and seller in touch.

Open To Anyone

Mr. McHugh allows artists who work in a variety of media to hang works in the shop's window for two weeks at a time. His only stipulation is no nudity - otherwise those who come in and ask are penciled in on his show calendar.

The work's quality varies, Mr. McHugh said. Some are "just starting out," and some of the artists are "really, really, good."

Sculpture has cropped up, too, with pieces for sale by Steve Loschen of Amagansett and other local artists displayed on the grounds of Gansett Green Manor in Amagansett, and Artscapes, a business that curates sculpture exhibits, installing pieces at various sites around town.

As the ranks of artists grow, so too do the alternative venues.

Among the other spots where art can be seen are the Golden Pear in East Hampton, Breadzilla in Wainscott, Spot's Cafe in Sag Harbor, and Gurney's Inn in Montauk.

Pottery At Duryea's

Displays range from a curated grouping of work to a casual painting or two with a business card stuck in the corner, or even furniture, as part of the decor.

Four potters will exhibit their wares at Duryea's Lobster Deck in Montauk this weekend, and Michelle Murphy, an Amagansett painter, has carried her work to New York City for display in the window of Brioni, a 57th Street clothing store, through the Fourth of July.

Two of three films to be based on biographies of Jackson Pollock are no closer now to the big screen than they were two years ago. But the third, based on Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith's 1989 Pulitzer Prize-winning "Jackson Pollock: An American Saga," has a star committed to playing the lead and financial backing from a well-known South Fork resident.

Ed Harris, the Hollywood actor who is known for "Apollo 13," "Nixon," and "Glengarry Glen Ross" among other films, told The Star last week that, after years of seeing the project take tiny steps, Peter M. Brant, a founder of the Bridgehampton Polo Club and chairman of Interview magazine, had agreed to provide the financing. Mr. Harris said he was ready to play the pioneering Abstract Expressionist, to whom he bears a more than passing resemblance. He also noted that a new screenwriter, Susan Emschwiller, had begun work on the script.

"We have a very strong project here, and we're moving steadily ahead," said Mr. Harris.

Next Spring

Ms. Emschwiller is a daughter of Edward Emschwiller, a video artist and filmmaker. Mr. Brant, who has a house in Montauk, is a partner in Brant Allen Films, which backed the acclaimed film biography of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Mr. Brant, reached at his office in Connecticut, said the script was expected to be finished this summer and that production could begin by next spring. He said some filming would definitely take place in Springs, where Mr. Pollock spent several summers and then lived year-round for the last four years of his life.

Mr. Harris explained that he had taken a copy of the biography shortly after it was published to James Trezza, a New York City art dealer, and convinced him to option the book for a film. It would have been his first foray into the industry.

Recent Visit

Two years ago, Mr. Trezza said that Barbara Turner, who wrote the screenplay for "Georgia," had completed a script focusing on the last 15 years of Mr. Pollock's life, and that Jennifer Jason Leigh, who played leading roles in "Backdraft," "Dolores Claiborne," and "Georgia," would play Ruth Kligman, the only survivor of the 1956 car crash on Fireplace Road in Springs that killed Mr. Pollock and another woman passenger.

Mr. Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, lived nearby, part of a group of artists and writers who found the hamlet both congenial and inexpensive after World War II. The couple's house and studios overlooking Accabonac Harbor are preserved now as the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center.

Ms. Emschwiller is rewriting Ms. Turner's treatment, said Mr. Brant. She visited the Pollock-Krasner House in April and Mr. Harris said he would visit here soon.

Whether or not Ms. Leigh will be in the film was uncertain this week. Mr. Brant said only the lead was definite so far, to be filled by Mr. Harris, and that casting would not start until after the summer.

Krasner Role

As to the part of Ms. Krasner, a renowned artist who failed to gain recognition until after her husband's death, Frances McDormand, who won an Oscar this year for her role in "Fargo," has been mentioned.

Mr. Harris confirmed he had been after the Pollock role for years, and said he was more optimistic than ever now that the project was nearing production.

"I'm not going to put a timetable on it because it takes years and years to make a film, but we are in real good shape," he said.

Legal Battle

Mr. Harris is most often cast as a good guy with a bad temper. Mr. Pollock's kindest acquaintances say he was "touching" when sober. Others, including the "American Saga" authors, describe the painter as a tormented person who turned nasty when drunk.

The dispute over just how complicated a personality Mr. Pollock was became a factor in a $1 million counter-suit brought by the biographers against Jeffrey Potter, the East Hampton-based author of "To a Violent Grave," after Mr. Potter sued them for alleged "misappropriation of material."

The suits were settled out of court.

A compilation of interviews with many friends, contemporaries, and foes of Mr. Pollock and his wife, Mr. Potter's book was criticized by Mr. Naifeh and Mr. Smith as romanticized. Mr. Potter, in turn, called theirs harsh and sensationalized, and said there was no truth to their implication that Mr. Pollock struggled with homosexuality.

Still Possible

Mr. Potter's book was optioned by Barbra Streisand's Barwood Films, which was to work with Columbia Pictures and Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Productions. That option expired last year.

Mr. Potter, who spends summers in Nova Scotia, said last week that Rocking Horse Productions now held the option. Gene Davis, brother of the late actor Brad Davis, and his wife, Penny Perry, a casting agent, are the principals of the company. They are said to be pursuing a production as well.

The third project, seemingly in last place in the race to put Jackson Pollock's life on film, would be based on Ruth Kligman's 1974 "Love Affair." Al Pacino, the most recent holder of the rights to her book, reportedly has allowed them to lapse.

Driving Force

Meanwhile, Mr. Brant said he agreed to back Mr. Harris's project after seeing the successful actor "was doing his own research and quarterbacking" - much like Julian Schnabel, an artist and friend of the late Jean-Michel Basquiat.

"Ed is spending a lot of time on this, his own time, and that's why we're so encouraged. That collaboration, with us on the business end and him as the driving force, is the formula that will make it work," said Mr. Brant.

When Leonard and Judi Ackerman first moved to East Hampton in 1973 with their two young daughters, they bought a small house on Egypt Lane. He practiced law from the kitchen table and she ran a children's clothing store around the corner on Pantigo Road.

But as business boomed and the family grew they decided to build. By 1976 they purchased four and one-half glorious sloping acres on Georgica Pond from one of Leonard's elderly clients, who was subdividing the larger 40-acre parcel and whom the Ackermans had befriended.

They interviewed several architects and chose Eugene Futterman, a prominent architect who lived and worked on the East End from 1964 to 1987, when he died at the age of 51.

Built Vertically

"We wanted a simple barn-style house, and we'd seen a dozen or so that Gene had done, including the Ron Lauder house," Mr. Ackerman said. Moreover, at that time Mr. Futterman was building as well as designing, and he could give the Ackermans a fixed price that would include everything and meet their budget.

"Gene came to the site and explained how he could take advantage of the topography and build us a multi-level house that we could grow into as a family living here year round," Mr. Ackerman said. Mr. Futterman said that by slicing into the land and building vertically they could have views of Georgica Pond in the back and the 20 acres in the front that were to be deeded to the Nature Conservancy and kept wild.

Multi-level indeed. Tightly wrapped around the central spine of the slope, the Ackerman house is a marvel of siting.

Three-Plus Levels

One comes up a long winding driveway and parks at the ground floor, level one. Here there is a two-car garage, swimming pool, and large brick terrace area that overlooks the pond, laundry, and workout equipment, plus a sub-basement for air conditioning and heating equipment as well as storage.

Fifteen steps up and you're at the main floor, level two, with a restaurant-quality kitchen (Mr. Futterman was a master chef), dining room, cozy wood-paneled library, screened-in porch. Seven steps down to the left, between these two levels, is a giant sunken living room with double-height ceilings and views in three directions. Back to the second level and up another 14 steps and you're at level three, the bedroom wing.

The stairs are steep. "I don't think Gene ever thought we'd live in the house this long," Mrs. Ackerman confided.

Two years of study with the Japanese landscape architect Sasaki helped Mr. Futterman learn site planning and Japanese landscape architecture. "Gene carved all the flower beds right into the terraces," Mrs. Ackerman said.

Originally planted by Eleanor Whitmore and Jane Lappin, the beds are immaculate and elegant. There are no gardens on the grounds, only four and one-half serene rolling acres of "crabgrass." Concerned about the health of the pond, Mrs. Ackerman only uses natural fertilization.

Ernest Schifferstein, a North Haven architect and former Futterman associate who worked on the Ackerman house, said that it was a classic example of Mr. Futterman's early work. "It's a cross between the barn vernacular out here and classic modernism: open floor plans, lots of glass and light-filled spaces, a strong relationship of indoor to outdoor," he said.

A dozen skylights flood the house with light - even an upstairs shower.

On A Napkin

"Futterman was a born teacher and a real problem solver," Mr. Schifferstein said. He recalled how the architect would stand on a site and "see the whole thing." He'd go home and sketch it all on a paper napkin, which he'd bring to the office the next day, and direct his staff to start making a model.

Eric Woodward, a Southampton architect who took over Mr. Futterman's practice when he died, said 1976 to 1978, when the Ackerman house was going up, proved a transitional time for the architect. Peter Tishman, a friend of the Ackermans, watched the progress and was so impressed that he hired Mr. Futterman to build his own house on the south side of Georgica Pond.

Pictured in "East Hampton's Heritage: An Illustrated Architectural Record" (by Clay Lancaster, Robert A.M. Stern, and Robert Heffner), the Peter Tishman House of 1980 became the first of Mr. Futterman's grand-scale, traditional houses of the Shingle Style which were to remain his signature until his death.

Enthusiasm Lives On

"Futterman's practice did not gain the recognition it deserved," said Mr. Woodward, who was his associate on the Brous and Adler houses of 1983, both of which are pictured in Paul Goldberger's book "Houses of the Hamptons." Mr. Goldberger, however, described Mr. Futterman's work as having ". . . a nervous active quality about it that gives his houses the air of shingled castles."

According to Mr. Woodward, Mr. Futterman always said that the architects who got highly published were all from Yale, which he called an old boys' network. Mr. Futterman went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

"His whole enthusiasm lives on in so many people. He had six associates and we're all practicing architecture out here," Mr. Woodward said.

Interior Decor

In all, Mr. Futterman built or renovated nearly 100 private houses from Quogue to Montauk in the course of his career. The elaborate renovation of the 1926 oceanfront Lawrence Oakley House for Mort Zuckerman on Drew Lane and the renovation of Edith Beale's Grey Gardens at the corner of Apaquogue and Georgica for Ben Bradley and Sally Quinn are examples of his work.

Two decades later and with two daughters grown, little in the Ackermans' house has been changed. The furnishings, almost all bought locally, are straightforward: English country antiques, large upholstered pieces, cheerful floral chintzes.

Family pictures in old silver frames adorn tabletops and walls, and antique porcelain and glass smalls glitter everywhere. The Ackermans also bought the work of local artists. A large Ralph Carpentier painting graces the tiled fireplace in the living room, and there are two Ronnie Chalif sculptures.

A Little Warmer

"The only thing I've really changed was to rip out the built-in formica beds, Mrs. Ackerman said. "Gene's idea was to keep everything very abbreviated, but I've gone a little Ralph Lauren up here to warm things up." There are nine pillows on her bed.

Leonard Ackerman, a local attorney and investor, is known for some of the famous clients he has come to represent, including Calvin Klein and Martha Stewart. "A lot of my clients also live on the pond and feel I can represent their interests," he said.

Mr. Ackerman also owns two office buildings on Newtown Lane as well as the Revco building. And until this year he was the co-owner with Mickey Schulhof of WEHM, the local radio station which was recently sold to Frederic Seegal and has just merged with the Amagansett station WBEA.

Few Regrets

Mr. Ackerman has long been an aficionado of antique cars. Mr. Futterman built a freestanding barn for two additional cars when the attached two-car garage became inadequate. Mr. Ackerman confesses to storing four more golden oldies somewhere in Springs.

An avid sailor, Mr. Ackerman owns one of the two dozen 12.5-foot catboats (Beetle Cats) that have unofficially become the one-design class boat of Georgica Pond. But because "Jones Cove," the finger of the pond he's on, is shallow and hard to sail out of, he keeps it moored at Peter Tishman's, in the large belly of the pond.

Twenty years later do the Ackermans have any regrets?

"Oh, I wish Gene had built a circular driveway so we could enter on the second floor," Mr. Ackerman said with a big grin. And Mrs. Ackerman pines for the laundry chute that never got built.

"I kept saying, 'Gene, how do you expect me to get the clothes and bed linens from the third floor to the laundry room on the first floor?' " Mrs. Ackerman explained. "He kept saying, 'Don't worry, we're going to do a wonderful laundry chute.' When the house was almost finished I asked him again and he said, 'I think the laundry chute will have to end up on your front lawn!' "

"As you get older it gets harder carrying the groceries and cleaning up all the flights," Mrs. Ackerman lamented.

But she and her husband still love their house and land too much to leave. "And let's not forget that these stairs have kept Judi Ackerman, age 55, in good shape," she said.

"Red hot" is how one broker described the current real estate market in East Hampton's Northwest Woods, in terms of prices, construction, and subdivision activity. East Hampton's last frontier is being quickly pioneered.

As prices south of the highway continue to soar and the availability of prime vacant land continues to dwindle, a new breed of home and land buyers are looking to the privacy and quiet of the woods. Land prices, higher than ever in Northwest, reflect that demand.

"More and more people want privacy, and they don't really mind going four or five miles out of town to get it," said Judy McMurdo, a broker with Cook/Pony Farm Real Estate in East Hampton.

The exclusive Grace Estate, at Northwest's northern perimeter, gives a good indication of the activity in the area. Only two lots now remain in the roughly 30-lot subdivision, after what Ms. McMurdo called a "scramble" to buy them up over the last two years.

"The Grace Estate has just boom ed in the past two years, absolutely boomed," she said.

One of the two remaining lots, a five-acre parcel, is listed at $275,000. That is considered relatively low, as is the price of the other parcel, 12 acres at $350,000. Brokers explained that few people were looking for quite that much privacy, and said a two-acre parcel would not cost that much less.

Three New Subdivisions

As that subdivision builds itself out, three more sizable subdivisions have have been approved within the past year, carving out more than 60 new house lots, mostly on two acres or more.

The roads are now being constructed into the recently approved, 34-acre Northwest Estates subdivision. Lots in the subdivision (being marketed as Van Scoy's East) are being offered for an average of $175,000.

That's not far from the price of new lots in the Cedar Woods subdivision off Hand's Creek Road, which are selling for between $160,000 and $225,000.

Vacant lots on Bull Path, averaging between 2.7 and 3.2 acres, are going for no less than $225,000.

House Sales

House prices are also generally strong in Northwest. A 4,000-square-foot, secluded house on Northwest Road near Old Northwest Road recently fetched $840,000, Ms. McMurdo noted.

Two other estate-style residences well south of that, and not on the water, are listed with brokers at $995,000 and $1.1 million.

"Five years ago, if someone said a house in Northwest would sell for more than a million, you would have said, 'You're out of your mind!' " said Frank Newbold of Sotheby's International Realty.

Building To Sell

Mr. Newbold traced the new boom in Northwest back to the original boom in the mid-1980s that essentially developed the area into a largely second-home community. Then as now, builders who put up houses on speculation helped drive the market.

"They really had this vision of creating consistently high-quality houses," said Mr. Newbold. "It was really developed as a second-home area."

When Wall Street sagged in the early '90s, the glut of houses created a flooded market, he said. Now, with those houses finally sold, a revived economy, and the infusion of new developable lots, contractors who build to sell are actively back in the market.

"You'll be seeing an enormous amount of construction," Mr. Newbold predicted.

A shark tournament that promises to be "environmentally sensitive" - a source of protein for the poor and data for scientists, not to mention big bucks to its winners - will be held tomorrow and Saturday from the Star Island Yacht Club in Montauk, the club's 11th annual tournament.

Luck is sure to play a larger role in this year's contest than before. New Federal shark-fishing rules will severely limit not only the number of sharks brought in to weigh, but the number caught.

That is because fishermen must now stop fishing once they have caught their new two-sharks-per-day limit. Previously they could continue to fish, but had to release the catch.

Bag Is Halved

Sharks are managed by species, and the species are broken down by category. The combined bag limit from the large coastal, small coastal, and pelagic categories was reduced from four sharks per day to two as of April 2.

Nancy Kohler, a marine biologist and shark specialist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, said that in addition to the impact on catch-and-release fishing, the new rules would probably limit the number of smaller sharks, especially makos, brought back for consumption.

The reduced bag limit is part of the 50-percent reduction in shark landings ordered by the Fisheries Service. The new rules altogether forbid the harvest of the great white, whale, basking, sand tiger, and bigeye sand tiger species, by either commercial or recreational fishermen.

For great whites, the rules instead establish a catch-and-release fishery - difficult to imagine.

For The Needy

Last year, anglers on 180 competing boats brought 60 sharks to Star Island's scales. Cash and prizes worth $125,000 were awarded. Over 350 sharks were tagged and released, and 1,200 pounds of shark meat were bagged and distributed to the needy. The Long Island Council of Churches will again be the distributor.

Scientists from the Fisheries Service laboratory in Narragansett, R.I., will be on hand to measure and study the catch when it comes in, starting at about 3 p.m. each day. Fishermen can enter their boats right up to the captains' meeting at 6:30 tonight at the Star Island Yacht Club. The fee is $500 per boat.

"The era of wanton destruction of sharks is over," said Sam Gershowitz, president of the Yacht Club. "As sponsors of one of the largest shark tournaments on the Eastern Seaboard, we believe we have an obligation to create a profoundly different kind of program that demonstrates just how environmentally aware the fishing community has become."

Ken Morse's disappointment is the kind only fishermen can understand - a profound letdown, as opposed to, say, losing one's job.

"I'm hurt on the inside," said the manager of Sag Harbor's Bayview Seafood Market and Tackle shop. "I'll have the experience my whole life, but I'm hurt. I have a wad of line, and I can't let it go."

Mr. Morse lost a fish.

"It was the biggest fish I ever caught surfcasting," he reported on Tuesday, robotically, in a monotone devoid of life. "I couldn't sleep last night."

Only A Story Is Left

"I will never throw it away," he said of the 200 feet of coiled 20-pound test line that a giant striped bass stripped from his reel Monday evening at the elbow near the east jetty at Shinnecock.

He told the story because it was all that was left of the fish - just the story and the cuts on his hands made by the line when he caught the fish a second time and tried to land it by hand. But that's getting ahead of the story.

When the fish first struck his bait, a "shad head with a funny-looking mogambo grub, and squid-scented jelly," it reacted, said Mr. Morse, "like no other fish - a real terror."

"It didn't budge for 15 seconds. It felt like the hook was stuck on the bottom. Then the fish yanked out about 15 or 20 feet of line, then didn't budge for another 30 seconds. It left me confused. I thought it was stuck in some weed in the tide."

High Gear

The confusion stopped, Mr. Morse said, when the fish "went into high gear, stripping 100 yards of line from the reel without slowing. The second run made the first one seem silly. Then the line broke. I questioned divinity when the line broke. I put my tail between my legs and casted for another half hour."

He caught a few smaller bass and then, as luck would have it, his lure snagged the lost fishing line with the monster bass still attached.

"I fought it by hand on 20-pound [test] no-stretch line, got about 30 feet of it and then he shook the hook. As I pulled in the lure a bluefish took it."

"I never saw it," he said of the big fish, "but I felt every ounce."

After regaining his composure, Mr. Morse suggested that bass could be taken early in the morning by Sag Harbor boaters using parachute jigs.

"From past history, there should be bass around in the 30 to 50-pound range as the second [migratory] pulse moves up, making it very potential for those who have some skill and are willing to put in the time."

Fluke, summer flounder, are being caught too. Mr. Morse said Greenlawns, on the west side of Shelter Is land, was producing fluke and weakfish.

Weakfish and "cocktail," or school-size, bluefish are found in Noyac Bay. Capt. Bob Hand, who runs a charter service out of the Bayview shop, came back with an 8.5-pound fluke over the weekend.

Blue Zillions

Harvey Bennett, whose relocated Tackle Shop is due to open at 3 Fort Pond Boulevard in Springs this weekend, credits the colder-than-usual water temperature for the abundance of fish on the bay side and their aggressive nature.

"There are 10 zillion bluefish at Cartwright Shoals," he said, meaning the bank of shallow water that sweeps off the southeast end of Gardiner's Island. Mr. Bennett said Richard Stone, his charter of a week ago, also took a 33-inch bass just outside Accabonac Harbor.

The sharking has started. For the last several days, Montauk charter boats have been making the trip offshore, as close as 13 miles and as far as 30, to find sharks, mostly blues.

Mixing It Up

It's a great time to charter a boat. The captains are mixing it up: cruising the food chain on the way offshore, first to the trusty striped bass spots - and catching their limit - then to the rips to angle for big bluefish to use for fresh shark bait, and then to the sharks themselves.

Fluke fishing has been reported productive on the south side of Montauk, as well as in the rips around the Point and by Shagwong Point.