On November 25th, the East Hampton Historical Society held its 38th annual House & Garden Tour. This year, they toured five historic houses in the area. Among these was the famed former home of the Beales, relatives of Jackie Kennedy, the house known as Grey Gardens. Other named houses were the Windy Dune and The Procter House. The tour included a 1799 Main Street house once owned by the East Hampton Postmaster and an oceanfront artist retreat. The event began with a cocktail party on Friday, with the tour taking place the following day.
Grey Gardens is a 19th-century home inhabited by the reclusive Big Edie and Little Edie Beale. This pair was the subject of a 1975 documentary, a 2006 Broadway Musical, and a 2009 HBO television movie. Now owned and managed by Liz Lange, Grey Gardens has been updated to an extravagant East Hampton landmark. The tour included its newly revised interiors and impressive garden.
The second stop on the tour was an oceanfront home with views of Wiborg Beach. This 1960s cottage was where Sara Wiborg and Gerald Murphy, famed socialites of the roaring twenties, first met and began the storied romance that earned them the nickname the Fabulous Murphys. In 2011, the home was heavily remodeled to serve as an artist retreat, taking advantage of its beach views with a deck, a swimming pool, and large pane windows.
The former East Hampton Postmaster’s house has a more grounded history. Besides being where mail was sorted at the turn of the 19th century, its claims to fame included having Long Island’s second-ever gambrel roof and being the site of the East Hampton Garden Club’s first plant sale in the 1910s. Like other houses on the tour, it’s been maintained and brought up to modern standards, but the building still harbors plenty of clues to its history.
Finally, Windy Dune and the Procter House were toured in Amagansett. They were part of a 20th-century enclave built by four businessmen, primarily funded by the success of the company Protect & Gamble, earning the site the nickname Soap Hill and giving the Procter House its name. Among these grand, gray stucco houses was one originally named Red Roof until a 1938 hurricane took its roof, which was renamed Windy Dune. Their residents maintained and updated these houses who were generous enough to allow the tour to view them.
Tickets to the Friday cocktail party included entry to the tour, though those could also be purchased separately until the beginning of the time itself. The money raised by the event benefited the East Hampton Historical Society’s mission to preserve and educate about the cultural and economic heritage of the area. They maintain local sites, such as the historical Mulford Farm and the Osborn-Jackson House, run the East Hampton Town Marine Museum, and host a changing array of exhibits at the Clinton Academy, another historical site they maintain. The Historical Society is an important cultural feature of the East Hamptons, and the post-Thanksgiving house tour is only one way to show support.
