A Beach Bought for a Song

Beryle Huntting Stanley inscribed “With Nancy, 1947” on the small black-and-white photo. Her daughter, Carol, and a friend, Nancy Parsons, look back at her, their faces in the afternoon sun. Carol’s slightly pained expression, likely similar to that of many 31/2-year-olds, bears that “Mom, do you have to?” look.

Many years later, the picture represents a gem in Carol’s fondest memories of those summer trips to East Hampton, visiting Uncle Jud, as he was known to the family. At her tender age, she no doubt never knew the role he played securing public access and the bathing pavilion on what would one day become rated as the number-one beach in the country. Sitting in the gorgeous sand, working on a small sand castle with her good friend nearby, life could not have been better.

It took the village three attempts to purchase the Main Beach pavilion and access, and though the third time was the charm, it was only by the slimmest of margins. Jud Banister was barely into the second year of his first mayoral term in 1937 and well aware of the village’s two previous failed attempts to buy the property. The nation was still trying to pull out of the Depression, and any action that increased property taxes would have an uphill climb.

Jud and his wife, Harriet Conklin Banister, spent any free summer time he had at their camp on Three Mile Harbor, and Carol, who is now my wife, has no family history of their making much, if any, use of Main Beach. But the property had family history.

In “From Sea to Sea: 350 years of East Hampton History,” Averill Dayton Geus describes the early family bath houses brought to Main Beach each year until a group of summer residents built the Association Bath Houses in the late 1800s. They hired Aaron Conklin as manager. He was Harriet Conklin Banister’s father, as well as the father of Nancy Parsons’s grandmother, thus the ready association between Carol and Nancy. Jud remembered Aaron, who had died long before Jud came to East Hampton. In an East Hampton Star interview just months before he died, Jud recalled his memories of East Hampton life and his time as mayor, and was well aware of his wife’s connection to Main Beach.

“Village Leases Bathing Beach; Vote on Purchase Up in June” declared a front-page headline in The Star’s April 22, 1937, edition. The village was about to enter a lease for a second summer season with Austin Culver, who had purchased the property from the Association. Mayor Banister was quoted as saying the village came out even on the lease for 1936 and fully expected the same for the coming season. Raymond A. Smith, the village counsel, told The Star that an initiative to purchase the property would be submitted for the June ballot. Villagers knew that such an initiative had been defeated overwhelmingly twice before.

In 1932 the Sea Spray Corporation, which was prepared to buy the pavilion and beachfront as part of a larger offer to the village that would include rental cottages, sought $35,000 for the consolidated properties. Taxpayers voted it down 233 to 116. Three years later, the village looked for taxpayer support to the tune of $24,000, which included an estimated $3,000 in legal, insurance, and related fees, for the pavilion and beachfront. Again, the voters said no, by a 197-to-122 margin.

Less than two years after that, the board and the new mayor, Jud, were back again, this time hoping to get support for purchasing Culver’s 351 feet of ocean frontage, including 258 feet on Ocean Avenue and the pavilion. Would the third time be the charm? Not without effort.

Always influential, the Ladies Village Improvement Society was the first to hear the case for purchase. Jud and a village board member, Thomas Crane, met with the society at its regular June meeting and made their pitch. In giving the background of the ballot initiative, Jud said the property would be paid off over 10 years in annual installments of $2,000 raised by selling bonds. Jud felt the price for two acres on the ocean was an excellent buy. Crane, using his experience as a member of the summer colony for a number of years, related how, in his judgment, East Hampton’s main industry was the summer colony, and the village should view any taxes that supported the colony’s needs, such as beach access, as wise investments.

In light of taxpayer resistance to the previous ballot measures, Jud took the rare move of requesting public support through an open letter published in the issue of The Star preceding the vote. “Mayor Urges Purchase of Village Bathing Beach” was the headline on the front page. Jud assured voters he had personally inspected the property, and though the pavilion showed typical signs of exterior shorefront exposure to the elements, he said the inside was sound, with years of life left and little maintenance expense involved.

He was known to have acquired other properties around town and was recognized as knowledgeable regarding structural conditions. He hoped his experience and word would alleviate concerns of some who had been opposed to the purchase previously.

Perhaps more important, he reminded villagers that many were not members of the exclusive Maidstone Club, and that Main Beach and its pavilion amounted to the only other village beach available to the majority of taxpayers as well as staff employed by many in the summer colony. Adding supporting evidence that income from renting “two apartments over the pavilion along with a cottage on Ocean Avenue and a studio on the west end” would significantly help finance the bonds, he closed by connecting the beach to the essence of East Hampton. Making a point that beach aficionados would always recognize, he said, “The beach along the ocean at this particular spot is one of the finest beaches on the Atlantic Coast, and I think it would be most vital that the village own it.”

A week later, The Star could report that taxpayers had supported the proposition. Jud probably never knew how influential his letter had been, but surely he was relieved by the six-vote win. Whether out of a lack of desire, resignation, or something else, only 160 voters chose to weigh in, but 83 agreed with Jud and the board, and, as the saying goes, they “set the wheels in motion.”

Village minutes from April through the election describe the process. When the board voted to lease the property for the coming summer season, members included language giving them the first option to purchase it for $20,000. Records show the lease was signed by Austin Culver, owner, and Judson L. Banister, mayor. This led to the election language unanimously adopted at the same board meeting requesting that taxpayers authorize the board to buy the property. With the successful outcome, the board unanimously approved a resolution to proceed with the purchase and issuance of the bonds. Main Beach was about to become village property.

The village was so proud of this purchase that the board approved a full-page advertisement in the 1939 publication of the Ladies Village Improvement Society’s “Home, Sweet Home” cookbook. The ad in what was the seventh L.V.I.S. cookbook, the first since 1924, read, “The Village of East Hampton Offers Beach and Bathing Facilities in Its Municipally Owned and Operated Pavilion and Bath-Houses at the End of Ocean Avenue.”

In September 2007, the present bathing pavilion, reminiscent of the sketches appearing in The Star 70 years earlier, served as the backdrop for another photo of Carol and Nancy on Main Beach. Sitting in the sand admired by so many beachgoers, they reflected on the fun days of their youth. It may have taken a helping hand from me for each to get back up, but it was obvious that the hold they had on those 60-year-old memories was one that would never fail.

Steve Rideout, a regular “Guestwords” contributor, lives in Shutesbury, Mass. He comes to East Hampton every off-season to research family history.