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Activists fight 'mansionization' of Amagansett

BY DAVE MARCUS | dave.marcus@newsday.com

August 9, 2007

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The sounds on Hedges Lane in Amagansett are familiar in suburbs everywhere: Hammers bang and saws whine as small ranch houses morph into supersized Colonials with great rooms and recreation rooms, master suites and detached garages.

But there's another sound: the murmur of protest. Neighbors are organizing to stop "mansionization" of quaint neighborhoods, where newcomers look at $2-million houses as tear-downs.

The controversy pits one group of professionals - often retired doctors and lawyers some of whom are year-round residents - against another - usually investment bankers and Wall Street brokers who summer here. The activists complain that wealthy summer people are building houses that are far too big for their small lots.

Recently the anti-mansion movement has scored several rare victories. Last year, for example, a vigilant neighbor hired an aerial survey company to prod East Hampton Town to order a builder to reduce the height of a house by 3 1/2 feet.

"What is it about these people that they can't live in a reasonable amount of space?" said Rona Klopman, a retired educator who is vice chairwoman of the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee, which works on zoning issues. She and her husband, Alan, say they have more than enough room in their 1,800-square-foot house for their visiting children and four grandchildren.

The Klopmans successfully halted construction of a 4,800-square-foot house across the street because the builder wanted to breach a fragile dune.

As Wall Street and Hollywood money pour into the East End, arguments about house sizes and appearances are raging from Hampton Bays to Montauk. Nowhere is the fight more bitter than in Amagansett Village, which has close-packed houses laid out on grids. In a picturebook neighborhood known as "The Lanes," on tidy streets with names like Hedges Lane, Hands Lane and Meeting House Lane, some residents talk to each other only through lawyers.

Looking for code violations

Rona Klopman strolls the neighborhood, taking before-and-after pictures of houses to make sure they aren't too large. Others pore over blueprints to make sure that additions honor the zoning codes, which require that houses occupy no more than 20 percent of property. That means a house on a half-acre lot can have a footprint as much as 4,000 square feet.

"It's the rustic beauty of the village, the country look, that attracts people here," said Jeanne Frankl, a retiree who lives in a 1,750-square-foot house dwarfed by new 5,000-square-foot mansions. "The Lanes is beginning to look very suburban, like Great Neck."

Elsewhere on Long Island and across the country, these upstart houses are often called McMansions. But the Hamptons has its own customs and its own lexis. Many of the houses are being built for weekenders, whom Joan Porco of Montauk described to a Town Council meeting as "second castle homeowners." She added, "It's the equivalent of a mink coat. These are show-off houses."

More than 100 residents have signed a petition asking the East Hampton Town Board to put stricter limits on the size of houses. The citizens advisory committees from Amagansett and neighboring villages are working with architects and builders to examine zoning codes, many of which are decades old.

Town Supervisor Bill McGintee has warned that new restrictions could hurt local lumber yards and contractors. In addition, he said he wants to respect landowners - especially as the cost of land soars in the Hamptons. "If you spend a million or two million dollars on a piece of property, it's very difficult to have someone tell you you can only put a $700,000 house on it."

One of the few homeowners to speak in favor of large houses is Robert Schwagerl, who grew up in the Hamptons and recently built a six-bedroom, 5000-square-foot house on a half-acre on Meeting House Lane. Schwagerl, an interior designer, said he and his wife went to great pains, and great cost, to ensure that the house drew on architectural details from the 100-year-old large houses that line the street.

Not a big fan of small houses

"I don't get this thing about small houses," he said, noting that many historic Hamptons houses were built with extra rooms for city visitors who brought children, grandparents and nannies. If anything is out of place, Schwagerl said, it is the ranch houses that were built in the 1960s and '70s.

"It's unfair to deprive people of their right to build homes for their families," Schwagerl said. "I live here. I want bedrooms, I need a playroom, I need a family room because I have a family."

Proposed construction goes to a planning board and zoning board, but ultimately the arbiter-in-chief is Don Sharkey, head of the five-person East Hampton Town building inspection department.

"We've caught a few scoundrels over the years," he said. In one case, a homeowner built a house that was too high, and the inspectors ordered him to cut down the attic.

In perhaps the most spectacular case in town, a builder erected a large spec house on a hilly property on Bluff Road in Amagansett, where powerful neighbors have included CEOs and prominent architect Charles Gwathmey. One of the neighbors hired a surveyor in a plane as well as an expert to look at historic topographic maps. The experts showed that the builder had used landfill to go 3.5 feet over what his plans allowed. The town ordered the builder to reduce the height of the house and he did, by lifting it up and knocking down the foundation. "It must've cost tens of thousands of dollars," Sharkey said, "and he lost some of the ocean view."

Ultimately, that didn't seem to matter to a buyer. The neighbors say the house just sold for more than $7 million.