The owners of a historic timber frame house on Montauk Highway in East Hampton Village appeared before the village’s design review board on Tuesday to seek a retroactive certificate of appropriateness after gutting the house during renovations.
The house, owned by Liz Young and Ryan Denehy under the name 132 Montauk Highway L.L.C., is one of roughly two dozen protected 1700-1850 timber frame landmarks in the village. Village code prohibits some of the types of alterations done at the property including replacement of historically significant windows.
Alerted last month that significant portions of the house had been altered contrary to village guidelines, village code enforcement officials issued a stop-work order.
By that time, however, there was “a pile of debris” and “no original windows left that could be salvaged,” Billy Hajek, the village planner, told the design review board. Andersen windows installed in their place and listed on the application to the D.R.B. as “proposed” “are not appropriate for this site,” Mr. Hajek said.
“No, they’re not,” said Robert Caruso, the chairman of the board.
“It’s a shame they took those windows out,” said Sherrill Dayton, another board member. “I’m not big on all this vinyl trim. People use it so they don’t have to paint it, but what’s wrong with painting a little wood?”
“It’s really egregious quite honestly,” said Tom Preiato, the village building inspector. “There’s court proceedings as well. . . .”
Ms. Young and Mr. Denehy received tickets for failing to have a building permit and working without design review board approval, which is required for protected timber frame landmarks. According to East Hampton Town Justice Court records, the couple failed to appear for their March 27 court date. They are due at the court again on May 8.
A building permit will not be issued by Mr. Preiato until the design review board issues a certificate of appropriateness.
Mr. Hajek suggested in a memo to the board that before it offers the certificate, “a complete set of floor and elevation plans be provided to the board so that the full scope of work can be evaluated.”
Mr. Denehy and Ms. Young arrived late to the hearing and while the board waited for them, it heard from Erica Broberg Smith, an architect with an office
in East Hampton who was originally hired for the project.
“Many of the original windows were in the house,” Ms. Broberg Smith contended. She had done a full site survey and had pictures. “The interior was significant. The mantels, the trim, the wainscoting. It was like a wedding cake on the inside of the main house,” she said. “I have all of the documentation on that as well. It is now stripped and gutted.”
She went through a history of her emails with the owners, making it clear that she had warned them that the house was historic and that specific rules must be followed.
She read the board an email from Ms. Young in which she asked, “Does the historic zoning of the house limit us at all?”
“I answered, ‘We don’t want the house to look like a science project,’ “ said Ms. Broberg Smith. She said she quit the project because she could not go along with “what the interior designer wanted to do.”
Mr. Denehy and Ms. Young spoke after Ms. Broberg Smith.
“We want to collaborate with everybody,” said Mr. Denehy.
“We bought the home because it was a historic home and completely fell in love with it,” explained Ms. Young. “The intention has always been to preserve as much of the historic nature as possible while making it comfortable and safe to live in.”
Ms. Young is no stranger to real estate. She is the founder of the Realm app, “a one-stop-shop for accessible, actionable home advice,” according to her website.
“You know obviously that it’s a historic house?” asked Mr. Caruso.
“One hundred percent,” said Ms. Young.
“And then you know it comes with certain covenants?” asked Mr. Caruso.
“Within the first six months of owning it, I emailed the village and got the timber frame PDF and began reviewing it,” said Mr. Denehy.
“Why didn’t you follow that?” asked Mr. Caruso.
Ms. Young admitted to making some mistakes. “What I can say we did incorrectly is that we didn’t stay involved enough in the project,” she said. She said the house wasn’t structurally sound (“You could basically fall through the top floor”) and that they should have paid attention to the type of framing that would have to be used, and the windows.
“How can you say you can fall through the floor when it’s been standing since the 1800s?” asked Kristin Corwin, a board member.
“The previous owners did some really low-quality work,” said Mr. Denehy.
“There’s nothing as strong as a timber frame,” Ms. Broberg Smith said in a phone call later. “It’s a solid structure. You can’t take one piece out of it; it works as a unit. They cut the timber frame in multiple places, which destroys the integrity of the structure. Meanwhile they said they did it under the guise of safety.”
“The windows specifically, that doesn’t affect the floors and that definitely changes the look of the house in a significant way,” Kate Davis, a board member, said during the hearing.
Ms. Young said their intention in replacing the windows was to make it a “safe family home” with proper egress. She claimed the windows on the third story were too small to qualify as egress.
The board cannot know that for sure until it sees drawings noting the original size of the windows.
“We’re thinking it would make more sense for us to come back with a much more robust set of plans,” said Mr. Denehy.
“You mentioned a few times how important the historic nature of the house is and that’s why you loved it. Why, then, did you gut the inside, rip off all that trim and the original mantel?” asked Ms. Davis.
“We kept as much of the trim as we possibly could,” said Ms. Young. “We kept the original fireplace mantels. I can’t wait to keep them. We’ve maintained as much as possible.”
“Any of the stuff we took out was added in the ‘90s,” added Mr. Denehy.
However, Ms. Broberg Smith wrote in an email that far more than a later addition to the house had been gutted. “They also gutted the historical portion of the house.”
The landmark timber frame houses are considered so important to the village’s history that, to incentivize owners to preserve important aspects of them, the village allows owners to build second residences on the landmark properties.
“They should not be allowed to construct the allowable second dwelling on this parcel since that law was developed to incentivize preserving the historic residence, which clearly they have not done,” Ms. Broberg Smith said.
Mr. Hajek said the allowable gross floor area for the parcel was 5,356 square feet. The maximum size for an accessory structure on their lot is 1,874 square feet.
“They’re not proposing one at this time,” he said.
