Two months have passed since a Star article in early October examined the falling out of the board of East Hampton's LongHouse Reserve and some longtime supporters.
Those rifts have only grown. Since mid-October, a donor filed a complaint with the New York State attorney general's office, sculptures have been removed from the grounds, and a board member has resigned, all in protest of the board's management and the Sept. 4 dismissal of Matko Tomicic as executive director.
In The Star's Nov. 25 issue, a group calling itself an "artist network" took out a full-page advertisement on behalf of Mr. Tomicic critical of the board's stewardship. Subsequent letters to the editor revealed even deeper cracks at the garden and art center brought on by the abrupt firing of Mr. Tomicic, who had been in charge of the management of the sculpture garden for more than three decades.
He has been replaced by Carrie Rebora Barratt, who had a long career at the Metropolitan Museum of Art before leaving as deputy director for collections to take the position of chief executive officer and president the New York Botanical Garden from 2018 until 2020. She is serving as interim director, but said on Sunday that she has agreed "to stay as long as it takes" to transition from a private organization led by its founder, Jack Lenor Larsen, to a public institution.
Eric Fischl recently removed his "Tumbling Woman," a sculpture installed on the property for many years. He was part of the network of artists who took out the Nov. 25 advertisement, along with April Gornik, his wife. Some of the other 31 artists listed in the ad were Laurie Anderson, Bryan Hunt, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Julian Schnabel, Frank Stella, Ai Weiwei, and Jane Johnson.
Two other sculptures, "Mandala" by Tony Rosenthal and Yoan Capote's "In Transit (the weight of distance)," were removed from the property this fall.
Mr. Fischl told The Star last week, "There is no way I want to see LongHouse hurt or be diminished but I have to say that the way the dismissal of Matko was handled was egregious, and they have to figure out how to make it right."
He added that his sculpture "was on loan to LongHouse for several years on a year-to-year renewal basis. It just happened that the renewal came due at the same moment the debacle occurred, and it seemed to me the best thing to do was remove it until they could get their house in order. God knows, I hope they can and that they do."
Ms. Barratt said she had not received a direct notification from any of the artists that their sculptures were removed in response to any recent events. She said she would welcome them back, but in addition to LongHouse's own collection, "we have other loans in the pipeline that we're able to install over the winter" for next season. "There's always something new for people to see every spring."
Cowtan & Tout, the firm that holds the license to Larsen's fabric design archive, removed the archive from the property in two truckloads beginning in October. The company declined to comment.
According to Ms. Barratt, "They picked it up in a sudden way that was disturbing to all of us." But the archive was always intended to go to the company's warehouse prior to the conversion of the house into a museum, given the fabric's delicacy and the humid climate here. She has since spoken to a principal at the company and said, "We can borrow any of it back anytime we want."
Regina Levin, a board member, resigned her post on Oct. 19 after nine years, citing Mr. Tomicic's firing as "a fatal blow to the organization" in her resignation letter. "Losing Jack and Matko in less than a nine-month period removed the heart and soul of LongHouse." She said she doubted that Larsen would have approved.
A gathering for members and supporters was held on Saturday, but Ms. Levin criticized the board leadership for not addressing their concerns more promptly. She said many knew Larsen very well, "helped him grow the organization since its inception, and donated much-needed funds consistently over the years. The co-presidents and the executive committee appear disrespectful, dismissive, and perhaps even fearful."
In a statement to The Star, the LongHouse Board co-presidents, Dianne Benson and Nina Gillman, acknowledged that "LongHouse is a beloved place, and we receive letters of concern and question as a sign of interest that we get this right. We ask for patience and in return promise to be more forthcoming and open to all as we take on the hard work of setting LongHouse up for generations to come, just as Jack asked us to do."
Mr. Tomicic has declined to comment because of the terms of his severance agreement. Others, including Alex Feleppa, the former horticulturalist and more recently chairman of the LongHouse Garden Committee, confirmed his abrupt expulsion from the property in the middle of a work day. Mr. Feleppa resigned from the committee in October, also in protest of the board's actions.
Pat Golder, who as a volunteer made significant contributions of money and time to the organization, said she was present at an event in recent years at which Larsen and Mr. Tomicic discussed plans for LongHouse after his death. They "were progressing on a detailed long-range plan for successful transition, while preserving the founding vision," one that included Mr. Tomicic. "He was totally in support of Matko."
Many of the former supporters also question changes to a trust agreement signed by Larsen close to his death. They say the previous trust had been in effect since 1995, with standard changes and updates made over the years. The final revocable trust was presented to Larsen in November 2020 by a new lawyer and a new trustee who replaced Larsen's longtime estate planning advisers. It was signed by Larsen six days after a 48-day hospitalization in the I.C.U. at Stony Brook Hospital. The trust had last been updated in April of that year, when Larsen was presumably in better health.
Ms. Johnson, who is also a LongHouse donor, said she had spent a day with Larsen in London a few years before he died. "He was in good health and had his estate plans in place," she recalled. "I was aware from that talk that Jack's intention was to leave a majority of his estate to LongHouse and to have Matko there to carry on. . . . This sudden change before he died was pretty horrifying. I don't believe he would have done any of the changes he made then."
Susie Gelman, a long-term donor with her husband, Michael Gelman, said that she has serious concerns about Larsen's final revocable trust and the board's inaction in defending "what are understood by many people to be Jack's longtime intentions with regard to his estate."
Ms. Gelman, who has chaired and sat on the boards of several nonprofits over decades, added, "More importantly, I understand that millions of dollars were reassigned at the very end of Jack's life, and shortly before he died, from his previous bequest to LongHouse to a trust for Peter Olsen, to the detriment of LongHouse." She and others estimate the reduction in value of Mr. Larsen's bequest to LongHouse to be about $3.5 million currently.
"If I were on the board of LongHouse, I would do everything in my power, certainly, to examine the circumstances under which that happened," she said. She would also challenge the revocable trust for Mr. Olsen, who sits on the LongHouse board, "which, by all appearances, could constitute a conflict of interest at a minimum."
A request for comment by Mr. Olsen was not responded to by deadline. According to a spokesman for LongHouse, the board understood that "over the course of his last year, Mr. Larsen wished to and did change his estate plans to provide additional support for his long-term domestic partner of 34 years, Peter Olsen. This was Jack's right, and the board respected his wishes." They said the majority of the estate was left to LongHouse, and the portion left to Mr. Olsen will go to LongHouse upon his death.
Addressing his position on the board and within the organization, Ms. Barratt said Mr. Olsen's role -- having helped build the house and garden at its origin -- has always been appropriate. "In the past, it never seemed like a problem. It's only become a problem because of this will," she said. "We're at this juncture . . . of going from a private place to a public place. That means we have to be looking anew at a lot of the ways we operate," and that includes the structure and activities of the board.
According to Ms. Gelman, the board has five years (out of a total of six) left to contest the trust. "If the circumstances are as questionable as they appear to be, there would be grounds to contest, and they don't seem to be doing that."
Ms. Johnson filed the complaint with the attorney general's office at the end of October. "We don't know anything more yet," Ms. Gelman said, "but these things obviously take time." She said the basis of the complaint is the issues mentioned above, but could not share the complaint because "it's not a public document." A request for the complaint has been filed with the state, but it was not made available before deadline. The LongHouse spokesman said the board has not seen the complaint.
Ms. Benson and Ms. Gillman said they were "conscious of the good governance required of nonprofits" and that their priority was "to ensure the vibrant future of our organization."
