They looked like seven conquistadors claiming El Dorado as they stepped from their boat and walked up the modest rise of sand, moss, beach grass, and cobble-sized stones that marks the north-to-south center of Hicks Island.

Their quest was a modern one, however: to put an end to the island's long absence of roseate terns, an endangered species. The "gold" they sought was a few hatched tern eggs, sometime in the future.

The boomerang-shaped island is longer than narrow and lies close to land - less than 100 yards across the swiftly-moving tidal race that separates it from the entrance to Napeague Harbor to the east and the fishing cottages of Shore Road and the Lazy Point launching ramp to the west.

Return-The-Tern

Hicks Island has gained in size because of dredged spoil placed there over the years. Roseates are known to have nested on its western tip as recently as the late 1980s, but only one or two pairs.

Larry Penny, director of the East Hampton Town Natural Resources Department, described the roseate as an "elegant" member of the tern family, black and white with fine-pointed wings and forked tail, and with a breast that turns "a suffusive pink at the beginning of the breeding season."

On Friday, Mr. Penny was joined by a staffer, Barnaby Friedman, and a neighborhood resident, Job Potter, who has been hired by the department for the duration of the return-the-tern project to oversee the building of "apartment complexes" for the prospective tenants.

George Larson, representing the state, came along, too. Hicks Island is state-owned.

Museum Ornithologist

The other conquistadors included Cathy Brittingham of the Nature Conservancy and Andrew Milliken of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the agency that lists endangered species. Mr. Milliken, while looking for likely roseate sites, also kept an ear cocked for the sound of piping plovers, another endangered bird.

But it was Helen Hays, representing the ornithology department of the Museum of Natural History, who dispensed wisdom about ways to lure roseates back to Hicks Island and suggested likely sites.

She should know. Since 1969, Ms. Hays has returned each May to Great Gull Island, between Plum and Fishers Islands, to watch over that small outcropping's colonies of common and roseate terns. Both have swelled, the commons from 3,000 the first year to 18,000 last year; the roseates from a few to over 3,000.

They Ought To, But . . .

But that's Great Gull. In East Hampton, the only place roseates are known to roost is at the Ruins, off Bostwick Point on Gardiner's Island.

Several pairs try to establish themselves each year at Cartwright Shoals on the opposite end of Gardiner's Island, but have been frustrated by the aggressive behavior of herring gulls.

"They should come here," said Ms. Hays, but she said it in a way - with a quick shrug - that spoke of the difference between what humans know and what they don't.

For instance, there was a well-established colony on Cedar Point in Northwest not too long ago, numbering as many as 200. The Cedar Point population has disappeared, perhaps because of predators, but no one is sure.

Bring In The Cousins

The key to luring roseates back here, said Ms. Hays, could be to attract them to Hicks Island along with their more aggressive - and thus protective - cousins, the common tern.

The birds are very different, she explained. While they may nest in the same general place, common terns like large, open, central areas, while roseates keep to the outside edges, where they seek shelter under cover of beach grass.

The others bowed to Ms. Hays's expertise in choosing the proper ground for what she insisted they should consider an experiment - "It may not work the first year." She recommended trying several locations on both the north and south sides of the island.

Location, Location

Each site had to fit the bill for natural cover and proximity to the water, but would be enhanced to attract roseates.

Ms. Hays recommended short ground cover. The group crisscrossed the island, approving and rejecting various spots. They finally zeroed in on four possible landing zones, one of them beside the chimney remnant of an old menhaden-processing plant.

Hoe-wielding volunteers began clearing this week, making circular center sections and narrow lanes leading to the water. Because the roseates prefer to nest in shelter, a low apartment complex - a two-by-four roof above with small blocks of wood interspersed below - is being provided.

The apartments would be more attractive if they had a back wall, Ms. Hays remarked, with the opening facing the sea. Such custom lodgings should be ideal, she said, although the birds have been known to nest "in a pile of boards or a potato basket."

Roseate decoys are being put in place to give the site a lived-in look. A tape recording of a roseate's call is set to play at intervals.

Ms. Hays stressed that the sites and their appointments had to be ready by April 27 in order to lure birds looking for a place to nest. The project is being paid for in part by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the Interior Department, in cooperation with the Natural Resources Department.

Oystercatcher!

On the way back to the town boat for the short cruise to Lazy Point, heads turned to search for the source of a shrill cry.

"Oystercatcher!" the veteran birders exclaimed in unison, and there on the shore a strange-looking bird with an upturned orange beak searched for food.

The Fish and Wildlife Department's Mr. Milliken took his own roundabout route to the boat and reported hearing but not seeing a plover along the way.

Ms. Hays said it was only recently discovered that the endangered roseates traveled all the way to Argentina on their winter migrations, Punto Raso, to be exact. She said a scientist there had begun netting and attaching a small, orange flag to the birds to keep track. "You should look for the flags. They could come here," Mrs. Hays said.

In 1970 John McConnell, a Sag Harbor resident, and the anthropologist Margaret Mead suggested that a day be set aside each year to advocate for the earth and all of its inhabitants.

They wanted the day to be in March to coincide with the spring equinox. Others, including Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, pushed for an "Earth Day" in April.

April won out. This weekend marks the 27th annual celebration of Earth Day, and a number of events and celebrations will be held around town to observe it.

Naturefest

Southampton College, the Group for the South Fork, and the college's student environmental group, PEACE (Protecting Every Aspect Concerning the Environment) have invited "parents, children, earthlings, granola lovers, tree huggers" to participate in a free event called Naturefest, from noon to 8 p.m. on Sunday.

There will be tellers of children's stories, a jazz quartet, and a professional drum troupe. A raffle will feature prizes donated by the Agri-Balance Organics Consulting Company of Sag Harbor. Wildlife rehabilitators will describe their activities, and there will be presentations on organic farming, alternative energy, and recycling as well.

Off-campus activities will include walks on Tuckahoe Hill and a boat ride on Shinnecock Bay aboard the Paumanok.

In Montauk

The Concerned Citizens of Montauk will celebrate Earth Day on Saturday, from noon to 2:30 p.m. at Third House.

This year's theme, "Celebrating Our Montauk Woodlands," will be dramatized by Montauk School students in a presentation called "Today's Tree, Tomorrow's World." The students will also present a "living diorama" depicting Native Americans in costume and traditional settings.

The Montauk-based group Trilogy, whose members are Bill Akin, Mathew Katz, and Teri Cox, will perform as well.

Student art and poetry will be displayed in the Teddy Roosevelt room at Third House - the perfect setting, said Lisa Grenci, president of C.C.O.M., "since he was the country's first statesman to address the need to preserve our forests." Concerned Citizens has worked to preserve Hither Woods, Camp Hero, Shadmoor, and Montauk County Park itself.

Caldicott Speaks

Dr. Helen Caldicott of East Hampton, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, an author, and the founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, will celebrate the day Sunday at Southhaven County Park in Brookhaven.

The Earth Day observance there, which is free, will begin at 11 a.m. and continue to 5 p.m., rain or shine. Dr. Caldicott will speak during the ceremonies on "reclaiming health," both for the planet and its population.

The park can be reached from the north service road of the Sunrise Highway (Route 27), between Exits 57 and 58.

Lovers of the earth and all its inhabitants also should know that the Nature Conservancy needs a few good coastal stewards and invites volunteers to join the effort to protect the local population of endangered piping plovers beginning on Sunday.

The conservancy says that the work can be arduous but is always rewarding. Volunteers have been asked to call the conservancy at its East Hampton offices today to learn about where to meet on Sunday. Another such work day is scheduled for April 26.

The nurseries are out of Martha's celadon geraniums. Your Range Rover needs new sisal mats. Your life savings are spent, the restaurants are booked. It's only April.

Welcome to another simply grand season in the Hamptons.

With this column, I hope to take you through every up-to-the-minute, excruciatingly timely, must-see-and-do East End experience. Regardless of how many miles I must travel, meals I must eat, benefits I must attend, beaches I must traverse, pick-up lines I must endure, music I must subject my tender ears to, and horse shows I must mince through, I do it all for you, dearest readers, in order that you too can frantically relax in the Hamptons.

So you've spent all your money on a rental in an area the real estate agent told you was called North Hampton but in fact turned out to be a deer-infested, rodent-friendly, architecturally-challenged Bonac fixer-upper artist's dream house on a road called Aquopoxacockabogue Hollow that you can't even find in broad daylight much less after a few refreshing beverages at Club Le Bub. As you are about to embark on a vacation where every sun-soaked, celebrity-ogling, dollar-munching minute counts, trust me, you need guidance.

And I, Pauline Goliard, feel enormously qualified for this task. I can swing a racquet at Devon on Monday and cruise the dump on Tuesday. I will sip Southsides at the Bathing Corporation and flick bottlecaps at Wolfie's. I honk. I'm blond. I'm qualified.

An essential element to survival, nay, enjoyment of a season here is to first of all dress the part. What part you choose to portray is entirely up to you, because you are a summer resident, nobody knows you, and you can fake everybody out. And, if you're spending so much money to be here for a short time, image is everything.

Here are some basic dress codes for you to choose from that fit in very nicely.

One excellent and popular look for women is the pert and sassy tennis skirt ensemble, which can be worn anywhere, anytime. It does, of course, help to have a physically fit body to accompany this outfit. Even better is the full equestrian ensemble. This can be worn by anyone, but, if you do actually ride, it's best to wipe some of the mud off your boots and try to minimize the equine essence on your jodhpurs.

Trust me on this, these two outfits, worn in grocery stores or on Main Street, just drive men mad, mad, mad. They are even more alluring in a mother-daughter combo. But please leave racquets and crops behind. This is somewhat off-putting, not to mention inconvenient when you're trying to juggle your bags from Barefoot Contessa or DKNY and keep your Jack Russell terrier from killing the shih-tzu over by the arugula.

If you are the genuine article you don't have time to read this because you're either preparing for dressage or doing spin control over those rumors about you and the new tennis pro.

Producer-Rocker, or Little Men in Big Cars: This is a high-maintenance image and one that is extremely expensive to fake. You must drive a Jaguar, Mercedes, BMW, or Land Rover. You must have your own Gulfstream IV, wine cellar, and a humidor filled with Cohibas. Your summer residence has a state-of-the-art sound system throughout, and, even if you're only renting, you have bought up all the surrounding properties to insure your privacy.

You only date tall women and always wear a baseball cap. If you are balding, a ponytail compensates nicely. It's good to refer to your best friends only by first names: Barry, Steven, Jann, et al.

You must go only to the best restaurants in town, two nights in a row if need be.

Once again, be cautious about attempting to fake this image. The women you want to attract can smell real money and power a mile away. If they find out you were only a sound engineer on Abba's first album they'll slip into Nick and Toni's powder room and mysteriously never reappear.

The Artist-Writer: There are a lot of artists and writers out here. If you are the real thing, you won't be reading this because you'll either be somewhere drinking with other creative types or working somewhere way out in Springs, all by yourself.

For those of you who wish to achieve the look, it's fairly easy and inexpensive. Try not to bathe or shave for a while (this rule applies to both sexes). Next, get some well-worn overalls and spatter paint all over them, and I really mean all over them. For writers, some baggy, wrinkled chinos with coffee stains are nice. Make sure backside is extra saggy from sitting over the laptop all day.

Name-dropping is good for when you're feeling a little insecure or trying to attract a new patron: "Jackson gave me these overalls right before the accident." "Truman left this Number Two pencil to me in his will."

Bonus hint: Don't go to the Artists-Writers Softball Game to meet real artists and writers. Most of them haven't played for years. The game's name is going to be changed to Actors-Arbitrageurs.

Landed Gentry-Country Club Look: For men, the club-member look is fairly easy. Any jarringly bright colored clothes will do. But not just primary colors. I mean colors you only find in the 64 Crayola box: chartreuse, melon, puce, salmon, and so forth.

An occasional bout of gout is also good to enhance the image of successful living.

The female must always be neat, clean, frosted blond, preferably pretty. Clothing is similar to male club members' but the colors are muted to pastels. Some absolute requirements are diamond stud earrings as large as your husband can afford, and some of those nifty $280 needlepoint ballet slippers or J.P. Tod driving moccasins. Nothing risque, no decollet‚, forget heels.

I would tell you where to shop to achieve this look but Mark, Fore and Strike and Ralph Lauren only sell new clothes. The genuine members of this tribe bought their clothes 20 years ago and haven't replaced them since. If you are the real McCoy, you will never see this column because all you read is The Wall Street Journal or Town and Country's wedding page.

Why anyone from New York City who spent $100,000 for a three-month rental would want to pretend to be a local is beyond me. But I have seen them with my own eyes sidling up to the doughnut bar at Dreesen's on a Saturday morning, buying this newspaper, and talking weather with fishermen who would rather get out on the water. You can achieve this look with any boots and slickers from the J. Peterman catalog. It will cost you a lot more than LaCarrubba's and probably won't last as long, but that's not the goal here.

If you are a Bonacker, you are probably reading this in your pickup truck at Main Beach and your dog is about to eat your Villa Combo if you don't stop laughing.

Pauline Goliard is a resident out-of-towner. She was last seen attempting to look insouciant at the Morgan Rank Gallery. "Frantically Relaxing" will be seen here every two weeks.

"As a cook, you don't necessarily take the job home with you," said Ed Lightcap. "As a chef, you take the job home with you. You think about it when you're going home, you think about it when you're driving to work." You even think about it when you're being interviewed, he added, explaining that his mind was still in the kitchen as we talked.

The chef at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton for the past year and a half, Mr. Lightcap got his start, as so many chefs do, as a dishwasher. Raised in Levittown, he was "traveling around to see what was going on" and got a job in a restaurant in Key West. Dishwashing led to cooking and two years later he moved on to Yellowstone National Park, where he worked as a cook at a 700-room hotel in the park. "It was high-volume institutional cooking," he said, but the location was unbeatable.

After Yellowstone, he and his girlfriend, Grace, a Montauk native whom he later married, returned to Long Island. He cooked at various restaurants in Montauk for about four years and eventually decided he wanted more formal training, which he got at the Culinary Institute of America. "You reach a certain point in restaurants where the chef isn't there to teach you," he said. After graduating, Mr. Lightcap decided to return to Montauk, where he had a job lined up at Dave Marcley's new restaurant, Dave's Grill.

"The day I graduated I drove down here and was in the kitchen that night," Mr. Lightcap recalled. He worked at Dave's Grill for five years before moving on to other Montauk restaurants. First it was the Below the Royal Atlantic restaurant, which earned a "very good" in The New York Times while he was operating it. Then he was the chef at Gosman's Topside for a year.

"Then, it was becoming such a seasonal thing. My family was starting. I really needed year-round work." He got a job as a cook at Nick and Toni's, where he worked for three years before being offered the chef's position at Rowdy Hall, which is owned by the same people who own Nick and Toni's. "After three years of being a cook, you need some progression," Mr. Lightcap said. "Rowdy Hall and Nick and Toni's are totally different ball games." Still, the standards at each restaurant are similar. "Everything we do here, it has to be done well. We have real food, everything is made from scratch."

He likes the style of Rowdy Hall's cuisine. "I like to produce food that isn't challenging to the customer - meat loaf, mashed potatoes, familiar food prepared in a creative way," he said. "There are no real surprises, nothing too off the wall. . . . We take the classical preparation and recipe and add a little twist."

Despite a jam-packed schedule, Mr. Lightcap finds time to coach soccer and run Montauk Youth's T-ball program for children in kindergarten through second grade. Both give him a chance to spend more time with his sons, Dustin, 10, Evan, 8, and Terence, 7.

Roasted Butternut Squash And Apple Soup

Ingredients:

3 butternut squash, split lengthwise, seeds removed, skin left on

2 large onions, sliced

4 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, seeded, and cut in quarters

3 large potatoes, peeled and cut in quarters

2 or 3 quarts chicken or vegetable stock

2 cups heavy cream

2 Tbsp. ground cinnamon

1 Tbsp. ground nutmeg

Vegetable oil

Sour cream

Salt

Ground black pepper

Method:

Place cleaned squash on a baking sheet, skin side down. Sprinkle with vegetable oil and season with salt, pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Bake in a 275-degree oven until the squash flesh is mushy. Remove from oven and, when cool enough, scoop out the cooked squash and discard the skin.

In a large, heavy-bottom soup pot sweat sliced onions in vegetable oil until translucent. Add apples, cook five more minutes, and add the potatoes and cooked butternut squash. Add enough stock to cover the ingredients.

Bring to a simmer and allow to cook until potatoes are soft. Remove from heat, cool slightly, and puree until smooth.

When ready to serve, put soup back in the pot, bring to a simmer, add two cups of heavy cream and return to simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste.

A dollop of sour cream flavored with ground cinnamon is a nice garnish for this dish.

Serves about 12.

"Dancing Cheek to Cheek," "Let's Face the Music and Dance," "How Deep Is the Ocean" - to many, there were never better songs to sing or listen to than Irving Berlin classics such as these.

On Saturday, Susannah McCorkle will present a preview of her new show, "The Passionate Irving Berlin," at the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor at 7 p.m. She will be accompanied by Allen Farnham on the piano and Chris Berger on bass.

Ms. McCorkle, a leading interpreter of jazz and pop standards, was named Singer of the Year by The Los Angeles Times and has won many honors, including the New York Music Award. In addition to the above-mentioned songs, she will sing "Heat Wave," "I'd Rather Lead a Band," and her celebrated version of "There's No Business Like Show Business."

Volunteers Needed

Special material for the show includes her medley of Berlin hits as sung by Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Ethel Waters and a witty medley of special occasion songs.

Bay Street has announced that it is looking for volunteers for ushering and concessions to work six to 10 evenings or matinees during the summer season.

In return, volunteers enjoy invitations to dress rehearsals and participate in gala events and fund-raisers. Those interested have been asked to call Vivian Bell at the theater.

Earth Day was launched back in 1970 in the era of the happening and the teach-in. Pick a cause, any cause, make a few phone calls and within minutes street, beach, campus, or meadow would fill with people sporting all manner of outrageous clothing, signs, sculpture, and effigy - or so it seemed.

But like all living things, causes are bound to Mr. Darwin's survival-of-the-fittest law. Not all survive. It's good that Earth Day - one out of 365 set aside to celebrate the natural beauty of the planet, to acknowledge the devastation humankind sometimes has created on it, and to ponder solutions - has survived. Unfortunately, one day is not enough.

Earth Day observances are planned for Saturday and Sunday this weekend, although the anniversary actually is on April 26. As we approach this year's observances, 27 years after the first, we lose 100 species per day, a rate of extinction that will see 20 to 50 percent of all known species disappear by the year 2000. Most of these species are in tropical rain forests, of which an area the size of a football field is razed or burned every second.

In the United States, we have lost more than half of our original wetlands and prairies and 2.5 million acres of forest are expected to be gone within three years. The mournful list goes on.

It's time again to make a sign, call a friend, and find ways to become part of the solution.

The East Hampton Village Board should be commended for taking on a seemingly impossible job - the amelioration of parking and traffic problems in the business district. So far, it has spent $2 million on new parking fields and on reconfiguring the traffic pattern at the Long Island Rail Road station. The latter seems to have worked, but, as for parking, the board's efforts have fallen short of effectiveness. These long-term efforts go back to 1984, when the village bought 10 acres from the East Hampton School District for $331,000. New parking spaces - 400 of them - were created.

The board's controversial proposal now to charge long-term parking fees takes the parking needs of others besides railroad patrons into account. It is intended to free up spaces for employees of village businesses, who have been encouraged to park in the long-term lots but can't always find a spot, and for those heading to the new Learning Center, the now-expanded John Marshall School, and the soon-to-be-built RECenter.

An anticipated increase in train ridership also was a consideration, as a result of both population growth and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's upgrades, which are now under way.

It is reasonable for all who ride the train to expect adequate parking at the station they find most convenient. The debate is over which townspeople should pay for it, and how much.

We don't have to remind anyone that East Hampton is an affluent place. Taxes are relatively affordable for most of its property owners. Nevertheless, it isn't entirely fair for village taxpayers to foot the full bill for facilities for those who ride the train. The village expects little or no help from the railroad; it had applied for assistance when the area around the station was renovated in 1994, but was turned down.

A potential charge of $1,200 a year, as one letter-writer to The Star calculated the proposed fees could cost, is clearly excessive. This idea provoked another untoward one - that village merchants be pressured, perhaps even boycotted, unless the fees were abandoned.

We hope wiser heads will prevail on both sides at tomorrow's public hearing on the proposal to charge $5 a day for any car parked in the Lumber Lane long-term lot for more than 23 hours without a village beach sticker.

For its part, the Village Board should acknowledge that it is stuck with the primary train station for the surrounding communities and that its proposal went too far. Opponents of any fee at all should acknowledge that charging nonvillage residents something for the use of public facilities that village taxpayers have paid for is legitimate.

Someday the idea of creating a transportation hub at East Hampton Airport to include a train station and bus stops, along with plenty of parking, may come into being, as recommended by a state commission a few years ago. Another approach to funding adequate facilities for railroad patrons would be a modest surcharge on train tickets - along the lines of the surcharges added to airline tickets to pay for airport improvements. Meanwhile, fair overnight parking fees and practical methods of collecting them are warranted.

Perhaps, in addition to a single overnight parking fee (say $2 or $3), the village could issue parking permits for nonvillage residents by the week, month, season, and year. (As an example: $12 a week, $40 a month, $140 a long season, or $300 a year.)

As it deliberates, the Village Board should bear in mind the ramifications that imposing parking fees may have, such as encouraging residents to drive rather than take public transportation and compelling others to seek free parking on nearby residential streets.

Would that all who attend tomorrow's hearing do so in a spirit of compromise and leave with a feeling of accomplishment.

As cyberhype gathers momentum, the devoted reader could be forgiven for succumbing to it - to gloomily accepting the much-plugged idea that the book is dead and that our reading matter in future will consist of little more than cryptic runes such as http://www.com.

But just as the despairing reader comes up for air for the last time, someone always seems to throw a lifebelt. On Saturday, it was thrown by the Parrish Art Museum, which, as a thank-you to the benefactors of its Landscape Pleasures gardening weekend, gave a literary tea.

Yes, a literary tea - that artifact of a time when life moved more slowly, books were gold, and courtesy was a universal currency - with eminent readers, daffodils in full bloom, and cucumber sandwiches and scones with Devonshire cream.

Eminent Readers

It was held at the Sagaponack house of Maria and Peter Matthiessen, and the readers were Mr. Mathiessen, Robert Hughes (whose wife, Victoria, thought of the idea), Anne Raver, Mac Griswold, Ethne Clark, and Robert Dash.

Trudy Kramer, the director of the museum, explained how the Landscape Pleasures series came about after she first saw the museum's East End landscape paintings and realized that this was a place where art and landscape are inextricably linked. The event is now in its 14th year and provides one day of garden lectures and one day of garden tours in June.

Ms. Raver, who writes about gardening for The New York Times, opened the readings.

"I was told, 'You're going to be first because we know that you're going to read about gardens, and we're not sure about the others,' " she said. "But I'm going to read to you about my dog."

Elegy To Her Dog

And she did. She read an elegy to Molly, who seldom left her side for 14 years and eventually was buried, wrapped in a tablecloth, under the last of the summer's roses.

Mr. Hughes, Time magazine's art critic and the author of many books, claimed to be the only person present who didn't know anything about gardening, a claim which was hotly disputed by Mr. Matthiessen, who insisted he knew even less. Mr. Hughes read from his newly published book "American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America."

The book grew out of an eight-part series to be broadcast on public television in May and tells how a romantic involvement with nature led to landscape becoming the primary mode of expression in American painting. Without history to draw upon, or great heroes to paint, he explained, the amazing grandeur of the country's untouched landscape came to symbolize America for artists.

This pious identification with nature, Mr. Hughes said, ran along the lines that "the creator put the Grand Canyon in America and then put Americans there to look at it." That passionate scrutiny of nature still continues, Mr. Hughes said, only now "10 million people a year visit the Grand Canyon for 'a wilderness experience.' "

Ms. Griswold, who teaches and lectures on garden design and history and wrote "The Golden Age of American Gardens," among other books, read from a work in progress about George Washington and his gardens at Mount Vernon.

In these days, when we like to know both the rough and the smooth, the flaws as well as the brilliance of our great figures, George Washington remains a puzzle. His own awareness of his heroic status insured that we are left only with the public George that he wished known.

"The approachable George," said Ms. Griswold, "can only be found at Mount Vernon."

Himalayan Trek

Here the great man spent 47 years digging and planting and creating his gardens (admittedly with the help of 90 slaves), losing his legendary temper, and having plenty of horticultural ups and downs: In 1785 he writes of planting seed from 200 different Chinese species - they all died.

Then it was Mr. Matthiessen's turn. He read a stirring account of part of a 250-mile walk in the Nepalese Himalayas along the course of the Suligad, whose upper reaches he believes to be the most beautiful river anywhere.

Each day's travel deeper into the foothills of the mountains seemed to take a corresponding step back through history, until it was as if they were in the Middle Ages.

"The local people didn't know if they were Tibetan or Nepalese," said Mr. Matthiessen, explaining that they had so little contact with the outside world the concept had no meaning for them.

"Time To Move On"

The forests they passed through on the river's banks were disconcertingly like those of the East Coast, but just different enough to be unsettling. They evoked nostalgia, not for home, but for lost innocence.

A fierce wind blew at their backs. When they reached a spot in the narrowing valley where a giant waterfall plunged from the heights, the wind was so strong that the plume of falling water was blown up and away before it ever reached the ground.

And then it was down to earth for some real gardening talk from Ethne Clark, a writer who is the author of the best-selling "Herb Garden Design," "English Country Gardens," and "Gardening With Foliage Plants."

Ms. Clark, who was born in America but now lives and gardens in England, said it was time to rediscover the natural landscape, use foliage as the backbone of the garden, and put less emphasis on flowers.

"It's time to move on from Gertrude Jekyll," she said, in ringing tones.

Bob Dash, artist, author, and gardener, wound up the afternoon with a fictional anecdote about two warring gardeners - organic versus non-organic - who are also man and wife. Mr. Dash, whose own gardens in Sagaponack are open to the public and whose book of essays, "On the Making of Madoo," will soon be published by Random House, delivered his amusing piece with perfect timing and droll aplomb.

As one member of the distinguished audience remarked, the only act that could effectively follow that was tea, hot scones, and homemade lemon curd.

The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects gave its highest commendation last year, the Honor Award, to a strikingly spartan Park Avenue pied-…-terre designed by Frank Lupo/Daniel Rowen Architects.

The client, a European businessman and art collector, asked for "an architecture of intellect," Mr. Rowen recalled during a recent visit. What he got was a stripped-down environment: glossy white walls, floors, and ceilings, gallery-like European halogen light fixtures, and a cantilevered, laminated-glass panel that screens the living area from the entrance.

At first glance, the apartment, featured in Architecture magazine's February 1997 issue in an article called "Living With Less," seems to cry out for movers to barge in with chairs, tables, lamps, rugs. A couch potato would go bananas: not a sofa or TV set in sight, and no visible fridge.

Space Becomes Art

"We didn't fully understand the meditative power of the empty space until it was finished," said Mr. Rowen. "The flood of light on the walls was designed for displaying part of the client's collection. But the space and light alone ended up satisfying his aesthetic needs, and he never hung a thing - the space became the artwork."

A few "concessions to comfort" - white floor cushions that provide seating and can be laid together to form a bed, a low Japanese-style table, "and other mundane objects of everyday life" - are concealed in cabinets, the architect explained, or in "closets hidden inside columns."

In the magazine photos, the apartment looks radiantly beautiful, its serene planes enhancing "the contemplative potential of the space and the power of light, air, and silence."

Growing Up Streamlined

No stranger to clean lines, Mr. Rowen, born in 1953, grew up in a Washington, D.C., suburb in a minimalist environment unusual for the Eisenhower years.

"My parents built a modern house with a flat roof and no basement, and I lived with an aesthetic of uncluttered space, large panes of glass, and streamlined Knoll furniture."

With two siblings eight and ten years older than he, he often felt like an only child at a dinner table full of grownups, and remembers scrambling to catch up.

His father was devoted to his job as an international business correspondent and columnist for The Washington Post. His mother busied herself with volunteer work (she is currently a member of the Democratic National Committee). Mr. Rowen attended Washington's elite St. Alban's School, and majored in art history at Brown University.

Yale: New Skills

He graduated magna cum laude, took two years off to travel and work as a paralegal in Georgetown, and then applied to graduate schools in law and architecture.

At the Yale School of Architecture, Mr. Rowen again found himself scrambling to catch up, pitting himself and his art background against classmates with undergraduate architecture degrees.

"I'm a very competitive person who's used to being a team player, not sitting on the bench," he said. "It was a challenge to acquire all those new skills."

During his second year he happened to take a class taught by Charles Gwathmey of Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, and the two hit it off. Mr. Gwathmey invited Mr. Rowen to work in his Manhattan offices that summer.

Gwathmey Siegel

"I walked into Charlie's office and my first job was project manager for the Fran‡ois de Menil house on Further Lane in Amagansett. For a second-year architecture student, it was an unbelievable assignment, and also my introduction to the Hamptons."

The combination got to him, he said - "I took another year off."

"Gwathmey Siegel was an excellent office to work in: well-organized, disciplined, and attentive to detail. It accelerated my architectural education immeasurably, and put me on a great professional track."

In this awe-inspiring setting, not unnaturally, the young architect's competitive spirit was curbed. "I love Charlie as a guy, and I'm close to his family. While I generally don't like working for others, working for him was different because I wanted him to win, also."

Art Gallery Design

With his M.A. in architecture in hand, Mr. Rowen opened his own New York office in 1985 in partnership with Frank Lupo, a fellow Yalie and Gwathmey Siegel employee.

Frank Lupo/Daniel Rowen Architects' first project was to design an art gallery in Chelsea for Larry Gagosian, whom the partners had met through Mr. Gwathmey. An extremely high-profile job, it earned the fledgling firm widespread praise for its austere beauty.

They went on to design two 57th Street galleries for Susan Sheehan, as well as the James Danziger, Perry Rubenstein, and Tony Shafrazi galleries in SoHo and the breathtakingly elegant Larry Gagosian Gallery on Madison Avenue.

"There was so much money in the art world during the '80s," said Mr. Rowen, "and Larry, with his incredible eye, was always a leader. He built his galleries on a museum-quality level."

Residential Projects

"Designing galleries was interesting for me as an art history major. How can you have doorways large enough to accommodate huge Twomblys and yet achieve closure in the various rooms? The architecture of galleries exists in the interstitial spaces, the passageways."

The firm also planned several Nicole Miller Boutique shops here and in Los Angeles, and corporate offices for Masterzone, Ltd., This Old House magazine, Coca-Cola, Martha Stewart Living, and Entertainment Weekly, among others.

Included in their many residential projects were Mr. Gagosian's 69th Street townhouse (coincidentally, a former de Menil residence), the Buckley-Tomkins house in Montauk, and, in Manhattan, the Tomkins-Kazajian penthouse and the Miller-Taipale residence.

His Own House

Soon after the firm won the prestigious A.I.A. award, Mr. Lupo left to work for a larger organization. Mr. Rowen has since undertaken, among other projects, the renovation of his own modest vacation house, on Floyd Street in East Hampton Village.

A humble endeavor compared to the "more stately mansions" in the area that bear his name, it nevertheless brought a proud smile to his face as he showed his visitor around the small, clean-cut rooms.

"The world is so cluttered psychologically that there's something thrilling about walking into an empty room," he said. "You can see yourself; you're not lost in a visual context of so many elements."

"I came to this house with modernist prejudices that turned out to be quite compatible with its 1940s' style. I think of myself not as a theorist but as a compositionalist interested in whether the effect is elegant, beautiful, and smart. If it's not intelligently arranged, the rest is undercut."

Obects Span Eras

He likes to group beautiful objects from any era in pleasing combinations. In the kitchen - white wainscoting and cabinets complementing the puffy lines of a white vintage stove - he has juxtaposed an old country library table for dining, a tall, skinny Italian lamp from the '60s for light, and a voluptuously curvaceous bentwood armchair, set in front of an old stand-up radiator for warmth.

They look smashing.

The architect's youngest son, Harrison, snoozing peacefully in a nearby bassinet throughout the interview, added a cozy note, while intermittent visits from Max, 21/2, and his babysitter, Jackie, jogged the pristine symmetry to life.

Future Challenge

His challenge in the East Hampton house will be to accommodate his attraction to emptiness to the needs of a growing family and its affinity for clutter, Mr. Rowen said.

With his obvious pleasure in his young household, the help of his wife, Coco Myers, news fashion editor of Elle magazine, and the cooperation of Max, "who's already pretty good - people overdo creating a padded cell because of the kids," there's sure to be a way to make it happen.

"Looking into the future, if I can participate in the complex process that gives architecture the integrity to make a clear statement, that's what I want for my work," he concluded. "I want it to be fresh and connected, well-considered, and, above all, honest."

The average American spends four hours a day in front of the television. That translates to nine full years by the age of 65. The average high school graduate today will have spent more time glued to the tube than in the classroom. Sounds like an addiction.

TV-Free America wants to change that. For the third year in a row, it is sponsoring a National TV Turn-Off Week. It starts next Thursday. Schools and libraries across the East End have jumped on the bandwagon, organizing family night activities and other programs to soothe the withdrawal pains.

In proposing the turn-off, the group says it is not judging the value of TV programming. Instead, it argues that television, by its very nature, fosters passivity and thwarts social, academic, and creative development.

Going a week without the mind-numbing presence of television will be harder for many than it sounds, especially for working families with children who rely on the tube as a babysitter. But it is a worthwhile goal.