Judge Says ‘Legs’ Must Split
Seven years after Larry Rivers’s 16-foot-tall “Legs” sculpture first strode onto Janet Lehr and Vered’s Sag Harbor property, a State Supreme Court justice has ruled that the legs must split.
The couple installed the 1960s sculpture of a woman’s legs, a fiberglass casting of original artwork, in 2008. Because they did not have a building permit, the village ordered them to remove the work from the Henry Street side of their house. A debate ensued about whether the legs should be considered artwork or an accessory structure, temporary or permanent. In 2011, the village zoning board denied a request for variances that would allow them to keep the sculpture. The couple filed suit in 2012, and the shapely legs, in mid-stride, have remained on the property since then.
Acting Supreme Court Justice James Hudson ruled on Nov. 4 that the Z.B.A.’s decision was a well-reasoned one and should not be overturned, and that the building inspector and the Z.B.A. properly found that the sculpture was a structure. “It is not within the Z.B.A.’s jurisdiction (nor did it attempt) to judge what is art. That is a question philosophers from Plato to Arthur Danto have debated and is best left to their province,” the judge wrote. “The Z.B.A. correctly limited itself to dealing with the structure as it is affected by the village and state zoning laws.”
The couple applied again for variances in 2012, but were denied again in April of that year. The zoning board upheld the building inspector’s determination that the sculpture qualified as a structure under the village code. In order to stay, the board said, the sculpture would need to meet the required setbacks, which it does not, standing as it does just one foot from the Henry Street property line. Alternatively it would need a 35-foot variance, as well as a 1.1-foot height variance and a pyramid law variance of 16.7 feet through the sky plane. The couple’s large house, a former Baptist church they had restored and converted, stands two or three feet from the property line in the historic district.
Later that year, the couple filed an Article 78 lawsuit to vacate the zoning board’s determination that approving the variance would result in an undesirable change in the character of the neighborhood and would set a precedent that would undermine the zoning code.
In his ruling the judge said that the issue before the board was that “Legs” was installed in a location not allowed under the code. “As such, the village zoning code in question is content-neutral in that it treats all structures equally, in service . . . Thus, the Z.B.A.’s determination does not violate petitioner’s right to free speech or expression.”
Stephen Grossman, a Sag Harbor attorney representing Ms. Lehr and Vered, said he needs to further review the decision, “but from what I did read, it is clear that it is wrong and needs to be revisited,” he said by email yesterday. He will meet with his client this weekend to go over options on how to proceed.
Vered, an art dealer who with Ms. Lehr runs Vered Gallery in East Hampton, had said the sculpture, by the renowned artist who lived in Southampton and is buried in Sag Harbor, added character to the village. Ms. Lehr had referred to the sculpture as a “landmark.”