Battered Beach Club Survives

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SINCE THE 1890s, families have gathered in bathing houses and along the beach just south of Lake Agawam in Southampton, the site of the Southampton Beach Club. The site was originally a meeting place for the Southampton Bathing Association, where local and summer residents enjoyed a pavilion that contained 230 separate bathing houses, or cabanas.

In 1923 the Southampton Bathing Corp. was formed, and five years later a new brick and stucco building with a Spanish tile roof was constructed for the beach club. The architect was Archibald M. Brown of the New York firm of Peabody, Wilson and Brown. The old beach club building was badly damaged during the 1938 hurricane, and the new building was split in two when its foundation gave way, according to newspaper accounts of the storm. The club remains a private-membership facility.