One Man's Return To Springs, A ceremony at the house Ward Bennett built

The ashes of the late Ward Bennett were returned last Thursday morning to the property on Accabonac Harbor in Springs that he loved. Mr. Bennett, an architectural, interior, and fashion designer, died at 85 in Key West, Fla., in 2003.

His ashes, and those of his dog, Mischka, were spread, according to his wishes, around a gingko tree by Robert Middleton, Mr. Bennett's companion, caretaker, and executor. Also attending were Andrew Sabin of Amagansett, a precious-metals trader who now owns the property; Lei Shen, a friend of Mr. Sabin, and a reporter. A security officer watched from a sedan parked nearby.

Mr. Sabin arrived last, talking into a cellphone, and the group gathered in front of the tree, surrounded by the summer quiet of the cedar woods and salt meadows stretching to the water.

It took a bit of doing to open the crematorium box containing Mr. Bennett's ashes, but Mr. Middleton managed, using a key to pry open the lid. He emptied the fine, soft ashes in a wide circle around the base of the tree. "It was the only tree he ever planted," Mr. Middleton said. The dog's ashes formed a separate circle around the tree.

"He always talked about bonemeal," Mr. Middleton said. Mr. Bennett had tried to garden, he said, despite the nibbling of deer and of turtles who took bites out of ripe tomatoes. "If it shoots up, we'll know," said Mr. Sabin, a better-than-amateur herpetologist who said the estate is a great habitat for turtles.

"He's home," Mr. Middleton said. After a moment, Mr. Sabin offered a tour of the house, whose four corners are aligned to the cardinal points. Mr. Bennett designed the house, which has a Japanese quality, to fit naturally into the landscape.

When he bought the 26-acre property in 2002, Mr. Sabin became the subject of complaints that he had snatched it out from under the town at $2 million, a hard-to-believe bargain price.

Town officials believed Mr. Bennett had bequeathed the estate for public use as an environmental and cultural center. They talked about condemning the land after Mr. Sabin bought it, but eventually dropped that plan.

The sale also prompted an investigation into whether Mr. Middleton, who had power of attorney and fiduciary responsibility for the Bennett estate, had sold the site too cheaply. Jann Wenner, the publisher of Rolling Stone and Men's Journal, had once rented the house and said his own offer of $3 million was declined. He complained to the New York State attorney general. No charges were filed.

Walking through the house last week, Mr. Sabin took pains to point out how things had remained mostly unchanged, according to Mr. Bennett's wishes. An easement over the land given by Mr. Sabin to the Peconic Land Trust almost completely curtails further development, but, he noted, the house has also been left in its original state.

A large central room contains Bennett furniture and a large tropical houseplant that the designer owned for decades. The plant survived even while the house stood empty because rain was leaking through skylights, which have since been repaired. Even the dishes and flatware in the kitchen were of Mr. Bennett's design.

The visitors lingered a little while, as Mr. Middleton recalling his years at the house. Then they headed down the long driveway, over the soft needles of the cedar trees, and out again into the world.