David Lee, 88, Was Community Leader

David Lee, who had owned a jewelry store in Sag Harbor and was active in many facets of the Sag Harbor and East Hampton communities, died on Nov. 29 at the Southampton Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing. He was 88 and had been in declining health following a series of falls in October.

A funeral was held on Dec. 1 at Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor, and a memorial service will be held there on Wednesday at 2 p.m., with Rabbi Daniel Geffen and Mr. Lee’s granddaughter, Cantor Rebecca Goren of Israel, officiating. He was buried at Chevra Kodetia cemetery in Sag Harbor.

Mr. Lee was president of Temple Adas Israel for many years, and seemed to have a hand in whatever may have been going on in Sag Harbor for more than half a century. “I try to keep moving, because a moving target is much harder to hit,” he told The East Hampton Star in a 1996 interview.

Mr. Lee and his first wife opened Cove Jewelers on Sag Harbor’s Main Street in the 1970s and ran it for 22 years.

Among his civic activities, Mr. Lee was the Sag Harbor School Board president in the 1960s, on the village zoning board of appeals, and was a founding member of the Merchants Association of Sag Harbor, which later became the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce. A longtime promoter of tourism on the East End and in Sag Harbor in the days after the Grumman and Bulova factories closed, he was a founding member and past chairman of the Long Island Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“He was most proud of anything he could do to help Sag Harbor thrive,” said his daughter Cheri Laviano.

Mr. Lee helped found the Sag Harbor Community Band in the late 1950s, and played with it for decades. “I’m not a musician,” he told The Star, “I just play the snare drum.” In recent years, he acted as M.C. at the band’s outdoor concerts on Bay Street. 

He was also a member of the Lions Club, the Wamponamon Masonic Lodge in Sag Harbor, and served for many years as the chairman of the board of the East Hampton Housing Authority, and, after moving to East Hampton, of the East Hampton Citizens Advisory Committee.

Her father described himself as “a conservative with real heart, Ms. Laviano said. He had served as a president of the Republican Club of East Hampton.

Mr. Lee was born in Manchester, England, on March 22, 1928, to Joseph Lee and the former Jean Mendelson. He attended Sheffield High School, Sheffield University, and British Army leadership schools, and served as a radar technician and operator with the British Army’s Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers from 1945 to 1948.

He, his parents, and two younger brothers were set follow his sister to the United States in 1948 when he met his future wife, Vera Falk, and decided to stay behind, Ms. Laviano said. His father told him, “It’s either everybody or nobody,” she recalled; if he stayed in England, the entire family would, too. He relented when his fiancée agreed to emigrate as well. The family lived briefly in Sayville with an aunt and then moved to an apartment above a diner in Sag Harbor. Mr. Lee became a U.S. citizen in 1953.

Having apprenticed as a watchmaker in England, Mr. Lee found work at Fritt’s Jewelers on Sag Harbor’s Main Street. His fiancée arrived in 1949, and they were married soon after her arrival. The couple built a house on the corner of High and Franklin Streets in the village and eventually opened the jewelry store. His wife died in 1995 and he was remarried to Joanna Paitchell, who survives.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, he worked for Rowe Industries, which had facilities in Sag Harbor, UpIsland, and overseas. He was vice president of the firm from 1968 to 1971. He had also worked in public relations, property management, and hotel operations over the years.

Even those who had not met him might have recognized his voice from the daily morning broadcasts he did on WLNG radio in Sag Harbor for many years. 

In addition to his wife, who lives in East Hampton, he is survived by his daughters, Michele Connar of Center Moriches and Ms. Laviano, who lives in Raanana, Israel, and by one granddaughter and two great-granddaughters.

Contributions have been suggested to Temple Adas Israel.