Christopher Avery Clark, a lifelong visitor to Drew Lane in East Hampton and the founder of Clark Construction in New York City, died of congestive heart failure in New York on Sept. 26. He was 62.
Born in 1958 to the late Joseph Sill Clark and Felicia Reed Clark and reared in New York City, Mr. Clark spent his weekends and summers at his family's Drew Lane house overlooking the Atlantic. He was educated at St. Bernard's school in New York City and later attended Bennington College in Vermont.
In East Hampton, while in his early 20s, he took on local roofing and painting jobs, as did another noted St. Bernard's alumnus, the writer Peter Matthiessen, a Clark family friend, said Mr. Clark's sister, Story Clark. Soon after, Mr. Clark shifted his construction focus away from the South Fork and began working in the city, starting out in the then-gritty TriBeCa neighborhood, where he held an annual Franklin Street block party for many years.
Mr. Clark founded Clark Construction, now headquartered at University Place in New York, at the age of 25 with a focus on what he called "pride of craft" and the intention, he said, to bring a "museum level" of quality to residential construction. That pride of craft extended to East Hampton, where he eventually winterized the family house on Drew Lane for year-round use. He later became the owner, and in 1994 it is where he was married to the former Stephanie Monney. They later divorced. In his work life, Mr. Clark was said to have grown Clark Construction through his deft ability to balance the concerns of clients, architects, and subcontractors.
Sagaponack-grown vegetables from the Pike family's farm stand inspired many of the big meals Mr. Clark cooked for family and friends that anchored the steady hum of happy activity at the Drew Lane house. Mr. Clark's gift for hospitality drew the attention of The New York Times, which in 1994 noted that he was "well-known for the parties he gives at his old shingled ocean front house in East Hampton, L.I. Almost every weekend, the house fills up with friends (and friends of friends) who play touch football on the beach, go in-line skating and surfing, organize big sit-down dinners, and bang on an old piano that's painted the color of a lobster. . . ."
An outdoorsman all his life, Mr. Clark fished the Atlantic as a surfcaster, having learned to fish as soon as he was old enough to hold a pole, according to family members. In addition to enjoying the winter beach in all weather, often accompanied by his dogs, Cooper and Toasty, he found pleasure in nurturing a pair of cherry trees that his mother had planted at the Drew Lane house in the 1960s.
Other joys included family pizza dinners at Sam's, breakfasts at the Poxabogue Cafe, now known as the Fairway Restaurant, and support of the Maidstone Club, where he golfed and was a member and where he served as a member of the board. Mr. Clark was also a member of the Racquet Club and Brook Club in New York City, the Somerset Club in Boston, and the Lyford Cay Club, New Providence, the Bahamas, where he served on the board of governors.
Away from New York and East Hampton, Mr. Clark especially appreciated the quiet and natural beauty of Tuckernut, an island off Nantucket, Mass., where he spent summers in a seaside cottage lighted by kerosene lamps, and where he enjoyed time with his three children, Joseph Sill Clark, now 23, Oliver Reed Clark, now 21, and Kate Avery Clark, 20, all of New York.
In addition to his children and his sister, Story Clark, he is survived by his brothers, Joe Clark and Laurance Clark. They have suggested contributions in their father's memory to the Tuckernut Land Trust, at tuckernutlandtrust.org. A celebration of his life will be scheduled when it is safe to do so.
