Not everything is as simple as black and white, and in the case of Rowdy Hall, especially not black and white.
The East Hampton Town Hall meeting room was standing room only on Thursday afternoon, and despite intense community pressure that nearly brought Kathleen Cunningham, the chairwoman of the town's architectural review board, to tears, the board voted 3-to-1 to deny an application by the popular restaurant to paint the façade of its new location at 177 Main Street in Amagansett black.
"Okay. So Frank, you're the hero," Ms. Cunningham said to Frank Guittard, the only board member to cast the only vote to approve black façade. Dianne Benson was absent. The A.R.B. has jurisdiction over the commercial district and the Amagansett Historic District, and Rowdy Hall, which is leaving its East Hampton location after 25 years, will be in both.
Ms. Cunningham started the meeting by reading a statement, trying to distance her personal opinion from the town code. "We are bound by the code, not by what we think looks nice or acceptable or what we might want to do for our friends and family," she said. The charge of the board, she said, was to ensure paint colors harmonized with the rest of the historic district.
Board members had approved a gray exterior at their last meeting with the restaurant, saying that "gray can plausibly be said to be in harmony with the district's color requirements," but Rowdy had rescinded that application.
Black, Ms. Cunningham said, was as far on the color spectrum from white as possible. "Black is the opposite of white. We take this as axiomatic and find ourselves surprised to have to explain the color black cannot, as common sense or as a legal matter, be considered to be in harmony with the Amagansett Historic District, which affirmatively lists the colors white, wood, and brick."
"The applicant asks the board to perform a function it does not have a power to do. Namely, to ignore the code, to wave a wand and find that black is in harmony with white."
She said a memorandum of law submitted by Jon Tarbet, the lawyer representing Rowdy Hall, that showed the colorful history of the building, was not relevant. "None of them were for a black façade; they were for business signs or awnings. All of them are factually dissimilar from the current application."
"We are sympathetic to the applicant, but unless code is changed to reflect otherwise, this board does not have the power to issue a variance of town code. Black is not in harmony. This is disappointing to many of you here and it is personally disappointing to me. Nonetheless, it is clearly the law." To suggest otherwise, she said, would "reduce this board to a purveyor of subjective whim."
Before he cast the lone vote approving the black façade, Mr. Guittard quoted a letter from Paul Goldberger, an Amagansett resident and former architecture critic for both The New York Times and The New Yorker. "A great street is not a place of perfection, with every detail controlled to the last square inch. That is the province of malls, not of real communities. Living streets and towns have a wide range of designs. . . . The most important role guidelines for architectural review can play is to prevent egregious mistakes, the kind of awful and extreme designs that would disrupt the equilibrium of a street or of a neighborhood. The Rowdy Hall façade does not, to me, come anywhere near being in that category."
Tension between Ms. Cunningham and Mr. Tarbet was obvious, as it was at the last meeting. Mr. Tarbet asked if the board felt there was a legal impediment to their approval of the black.
Ms. Cunningham said the code was the impediment. "The code directs us to find that colors are in harmony or context and black is the opposite of white."
"Originally you said you could not approve black, now you're saying you could if, in your opinion, it was harmonious with the district," Mr. Tarbet said.
"I'm not sure it's an opinion or a color palette. It's not refutable that black is the opposite of white," said Ms. Cunningham.
"I would agree with you that black is the opposite of white," said Mr. Tarbet, to laughter. He cited multiple letters of support from local architects, in addition Mr. Goldberger's, but Ms. Cunningham was adamant.
"I value their opinion, but they're not reviewing the code," she said. "They're telling me what they think as architects, but I am bound by the code."
Mr. Tarbet began, "The code says your job is to provide your opinion if the proposed color is in keeping with the harmony of the district. I do think that people with degrees, master's degrees and doctorate degrees, in architectural history who live in Amagansett . . ."
Ms. Cunningham interrupted him: "Know better than we do? Is that what you're implying?"
At least half the audience of 75 or so people yelled out, "Yes." Mark Smith, a partner in the Honest Man restaurant group, which also owns Nick and Toni’s, Coche Comedor, Townline BBQ, and La Fondita, said he's been in front of the A.R.B. for four months, and originally he wanted a sign and the exterior color approved, but now he wanted a third thing. "You're just trying to do your job, I get it. It's not fair to you to have a code that's so ambiguous that you have to enforce your opinion." He said the town board needed to develop a more specific code, with a list of allowed and disallowed colors, so this problem wouldn't come up again.
"I agree, these guidelines do need to be updated," said Esperanza Leon, a board member. "But if color restrictions were really labeled out, you might not like that either."
"We'll look forward to your next submission," Ms. Cunningham said after the application was denied.
But there won't be a next submission. Mr. Tarbet confirmed Friday morning that Rowdy Hall would soon file an Article 78 with the New York State Supreme Court in Riverhead to appeal the decision.
Regardless of the color of its façade, the restaurant is set to open in Amagansett in the middle of November.
