Sag Harbor legs sculpture runs afoul of zoning code

In Sag Harbor, where artists and writers rub elbows every day with local carpenters and fishermen, art has collided with the village zoning code.

And, for a few months at least, art has won.

In this case, the art is a sculpture - a 16-foot-tall pair of women's legs crafted by famed American artist and sculptor Larry Rivers, considered by many to be the godfather of Pop Art.

The legs are attached to a building that was once the Bethel Baptist Church, and is now the home of Ruth Vered and Janet Lehr. Since 1972, Vered has owned a prominent art gallery in East Hampton Village, handling works by Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Fairfield Porter, as well as photographs by Alfred Stieglitz and Alvin Langdon Coburn.

Two years ago, the village's building inspector sent Vered and Lehr a notice that they needed a building permit, because all outdoor sculpture in the village needs such a permit.

They applied for one, and that application was expanded to include replacing the windows and repainting their building. The application went to all the involved agencies, from the village's building department and zoning board of appeals to the Suffolk County Planning Commission to the village board of trustees.

Ultimately, the matter ended up before the Village Zoning Board of Appeals again, which met earlier this month to decide if it should give the needed waivers from setback and height requirements.

There was also some discussion of whether, if the legs were removed from the house and left as free-standing, they would not be considered an accessory structure under the village code. The Zoning Board of Appeals decision was not to decide. It put off the vote until sometime in early 2011.

The village's files show no major objections to the legs - other than the legal ones - and local residents have gotten used to them, sometimes even using them as a landmark when giving directions to strangers.

"I love it. It gives some poetry to the village," said Lieve Thiers, a local artist who often walks past them on Madison Street. "I wish there were more things like that in the village . . . I walk along, and those legs are walking along with me."