Open space: Marking 20 Years of Grace Estate-How and why a huge tract of Northwest Woods was preserved

A gathering in Northwest Woods on Saturday will celebrate the 20th anniversary of East Hampton Town's purchase and preservation of 515 acres of the Grace Estate.

The property, with white pine and other woodlands, ponds, wetlands, and trails, is a portion of an originally 623-acre tract bordering on Gardiner's Bay and Northwest Harbor.

It is likely that the area was a center of Native American encampments, based on artifacts found there dating from the Woodland Periods of from 500 to 1,000 years ago. In Colonial times, it was a port where, as early as 1662, East Hampton residents established a trading post and settlement where whaling flourished.

The land was bought for $6.3 million in 1985 after a referendum, the largest and most expensive public land purchase ever undertaken here at the time. The Nature Conservancy contributed $500,000 to the cost.

"The town was definitely at a crossroads," said Randall Parsons, who, in his former post as an East Hampton Town councilman, was instrumental in negotiating the purchase. "There were subdivision applications in on Barcelona Neck [across Northwest Harbor], the Grace Estate, and Hither Hills in Montauk. It was the first time that people really rose up and said, 'This is not what we want.' "

The purchase was made after a prolonged public debate. Opponents argued against borrowing so much money, saying that if the Grace Estate were developed, town zoning laws would sufficiently limit development at far less expense.

The Grace Estate had been owned since 1910 by William R. Grace, founder of the W.R. Grace international chemical and industrial corporation, and his family. Ben Heller, an art dealer who lived in New York City and East Hampton, and his partners in North Bay Associates bought the property in 1981 for about $4 million.

They submitted a subdivision plan for 262 lots on the Grace Estate. At around the same time, Mr. Heller also submitted a 140-lot subdivision plan for the 341-acre Barcelona Neck on the west side of the harbor.

With applications before the town planning board for more than 500 luxury condominium apartments and houses, as well as such amenities as a golf course, tennis courts, and riding stables, the East Hampton Town Baymen's Association was concerned about then-productive scallop beds in Northwest Harbor.

The baymen's association, joined by the newly formed Northwest Alliance and the Committee to Save the Grace Estate, pressed for the property's preservation. And the East Hampton Town Trustees challenged Mr. Heller's claim to trustee roads, long-used tracks through the woods to the water, on the two large properties.

In 1983 a Democratic ticket, including Mr. Parsons, Tony Bullock, and former Town Supervisor Judith Hope, was voted into office on a pro-preservation platform, gaining a town board majority.

The board commissioned a study by Suffolk County on the effect on shellfish if the Grace Estate was developed with the two-acre lots for which it was zoned. The study concluded that it could well hurt the population.

During an update of the comprehensive plan, the town board enacted a moratorium on large subdivisions in 1984, then upzoned both the Grace Estate and Barcelona Neck for house lots of at least five acres. Mr. Heller sued the town on several grounds, challenging the rezoning and trying to gain approval of his subdivision plans.

Purchase negotiations began in earnest in late 1983 and took over a year. The initial asking price for the acreage was $18 million, way beyond the value set for it by appraisers for the town. Officials considered condemning it, but then dropped that idea.

Eventually, there was an agreement hammered out allowing North Bay Associates to create 30 lots on 100 acres in the northwest portion of the tract. An adjacent 85-acre preserve would be given to the town to satisfy zoning requirements, and the remaining 431 acres purchased publicly.

The late Tom Lester, a bayman, and his wife, Cathy Lester, who later became town supervisor, led the Northwest Alliance push for the purchase, along with Larry Cantwell, who was treasurer of the Committee to Save the Grace Estate and is now the East Hampton village clerk.

Opponents, led by John Courtney, then a Republican member of the town planning board and now the attorney for the East Hampton Town Trustees, mounted a petition drive and forced a referendum on the plan.

Voters approved the purchase, 2,488 to 1,600, in June of 1985. Barcelona Neck was purchased by New York State in 1989.

During a recent roundtable discussion of business owners and town officials, Frank Dalene suggested that the town look at its landholdings, including the Grace Estate, for areas where new hamlet centers, with commerce and housing, could be created.

"The town should establish a priority of retaining our next generation," Mr. Dalene, a member of the board of the Long Island Builders Institute East End Chapter and president of Telemark Builders in Bridgehampton, said yesterday. To do so, he said, there must be land which young people can purchase to build homes and equity.

On a large tract such as the Grace Estate, he said, "the town can properly plan a hamlet center using 'smart growth' principles, and develop it to satisfy the environmentalists." While drinking water and overall environmental protection remain priorities, Mr. Dalene said, new technologies, such as advanced wastewater treatment systems, can make development of sensitive areas safe.

"I'm not promoting paving the Grace Estate," he said, noting that it is just one area that could be considered. "I'm presenting a concept. I'm asking the town to reassess its priorities."

However, he noted, he has received numerous positive responses to the idea. "A lot of people in the Northwest complain about having to drive to town to get groceries," he said.

The celebration on Saturday will begin at 9:30 a.m. at the Van Scoy Cemetery site near the schoolhouse plaque on Northwest Road, two-tenths of a mile west of Alewife Brook Road. A ceremony commemorating the ecological and historical importance of the Grace Estate and the efforts undertaken to preserve it, along with a presentation of ideas for protection and management of the entire Northwest region, will be followed by guided hikes.

If it rains, Richard Lupoletti of Oyster Shores Road in East Hampton can be contacted to see if there is a change of plans.