Connections: In Bridgehampton
Driving, as I often do, toward the Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton, crossing the place where Lumber Lane and the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike conjoin and a driveway for a large parking lot to the west butts in, I can’t help feeling a sense of satisfaction when I see the imposing 19th-century buildings that mark two corners of the intersection. Not too long ago they were in need of various degrees of rehabilitation and faced uncertain futures.
Today, one, on the northeast corner, is the high-style Topping Rose House, with a celebrated restaurant and hotel accommodations, while the other, on the southeast corner and still undergoing renovation, was preserved with the help of Southampton Town and Suffolk County and will become a Bridgehampton Historical Society museum.
Both buildings were built in Greek Revival style in the mid-19th century by a prominent Bridgehampton man, Abraham Topping Rose, who settled his family first in what is now known at the Nathaniel Rogers House. He built the Topping Rose House later, apparently wanting to live in something bigger.
I can’t but feel good about historic buildings that have been saved and put to good use, and I admire those who make it happen, even if they are not in my immediate neighborhood. (I once thought about restoring a three-story building in Flanders, which was dark green, derelict, and totally out of place, but it was only a fantasy.)
We East Hamptoners tend to be full of pride of place; we puff up like peacocks when we have an opportunity to tell visitors the history of the 17th-century Mulford Farmhouse or the early-20th-century Thomas Moran studio, among other historic buildings in the village. We almost claim ownership of the Montauk Light, which is as iconic a structure as can be and certainlydoesn’t belong to us.
On the other hand, Sag Harbor, which is full of old houses that residents, summer and year-round, have restored, didn’t seem to make much noise when the former Bulova watchcase factory was sold to developers who are turning it into a citified and exceedingly high-priced complex of condominium apartments. It’s too bad that a use wasn’t possible that was more or less in keeping with the New England factories that have been reimagined as public gathering places.
As for my own house, a part of it dates to the 18th century although additions and renovations were done in the 20th. And it certainly is not going to be a teardown in the 21st.
Back in Bridgehampton, it is reassuring that residents literally took to the streets (well, just Main Street) to argue against the construction of a 9,030-square-foot commercial building for a CVS Pharmacy on a vacant tract across the road from the Topping Rose House. They have argued that the community’s war monument is in the middle of the intersection there, that traffic is already bad, and that the property would make an appropriate commons. They have even formed an organization called Save Main Street.
As things like this sometimes go, the protesters seem to have history on their side and not much else. Excavation has already begun, apparently on the strength of one permit, although another is needed, and the Southampton Town Planning Board has been sued by the property’s owner and CVS for requiring that a full environmental study in keeping with state law be done. Well, at least the protesters can take consolation in the restoration of the houses that Abraham Rose built.