Hearing on Gardiner Purchase

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing next Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at Town Hall to consider the town’s purchase of the 3.7-acre Gardiner home lot on James Lane, in conjunction with East Hampton Village.

Olney Mairs Gardiner, who is known as Bill, put the property up for sale last fall and has accepted the town’s offer of $9.625 million for the historic property, which the town would buy using money from the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund. The respective open space plans for both the town and village recommend the property for acquisition.

Claimed by Lion Gardiner in 1648, the Gardiner home lot is adjacent to the South End Cemetery, where many Gardiners are buried, and Town Pond. The parcel contains the historic Gardiner, or Pantigo, Windmill, dating to 1804, and an 18th-century timber-frame mill cottage. Also on the lot are a 2,700-square-foot house built in 1750 and a newer, 3,500-square-foot house.

Earlier this month, the East Hampton Village Board unanimously passed a resolution to request that the town make the purchase. That resolution called the Gardiner home lot one of the most significant historic properties in the village. The windmill was deeded to the village in 1996 and restored. Should the town acquire the property, the mill cottage will be restored and the remainder of the property maintained as an open and agricultural setting.