Hamptons August Rental, Walk to Water

SPEND A WEEK OR FOUR this August living the beachy life in my idyllic modern rustic/Bohemian chic summer house in East Hampton (Springs), N.Y.

Built in the 1940s as a fishing bungalow, with a c.1970 addition, the house is 1,400 square feet on half a landscaped acre. Share with friends or another family — it’s ideal for two couples with a total of two or maybe three kids.

• Swim in Gardiner’s Bay, at unspoiled, never-crowded Maidstone Beach, a 5 minute stroll from the house
• Walk the scenic ‘loop’ through Maidstone Park, or along nearby Gerard Drive with Gardiner’s Bay to one side and Accabonac Harbor to the other
• See egrets and ospreys, wild turkey and deer (not on my property, however; I’m fenced:-)
• Nap on the deck, watch the sun set over the jetty, picnic at Louse Point, make bonfires on the beach or in my fire pit, shower outdoors, grill on the brick patio, hang out on the porch at the Springs General Store
• Paddleboard or kayak in the bay
• Do yoga at one of several nearby studios
• Surf or swim in the ocean at Amagansett (10 minutes by car) or Montauk (25 mins.)
• Farm stands, greenmarkets, nurseries
• Yard sales, antiquing, shopping
• Art shows and galleries, live performance at Guild Hall, music at Stephen Talkhouse, historic house tours
• Garden tours + garden visits at LongHouse Reserve, Madoo, Bridge Gardens
• Restaurants and bars galore
• Explore nearby Sag Harbor (20 minutes), Shelter Island (30), North Fork, Block Island (day trip)

The house sleeps 6, officially — there’s a master bedroom with comfortable queen bed; guest room with two twins; as well as a separate 14’x17′ guest cabin with double bed and space for additional cot or crib (bathroom is in main house). There are also sofas comfy enough for overnight guests and a queen-size air mattress.

There are two showers, one indoors and one out, and plenty of room to spread out — there’s a dining/sitting room with sofa, chairs and fireplace, in addition to a great room with three sofas, and a home office with a partner desk, if you must work.

Live like Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner in (whose home and studio is a mile away) in the 1940s… no TV, no air conditioning, no dishwasher.. but good Wi-Fi and fans in each room. (*TV and DVD player on request)

Flexible rental schedule, August through Labor Day, $3,000/week.

Contact me for more pics and info: caramia447 [at] gmail [dot] com

AUGUST RENTAL: COTTAGE NEAR BAY, SPRINGS (EAST HAMPTON), N.Y.

WANT TO RENT my bright and comfortable 1940s cedar-shingled cottage in Springs, N.Y. (5 miles north of East Hampton village) August 1-31? It’s on a landscaped half-acre with a view into peaceful woods from the back deck.

The house is half a mile – a 10 minute walk, 5 minute bike ride, or 2 minute drive –from the beautiful, unspoiled, never-crowded Maidstone Beach on Gardiner’s Bay.

– 2BR (one full bed, two twins), 1 bath

– High ceilings, skylights, screened porch, huge deck, best outdoor shower ever

– ½ mile to Maidstone Beach, 1 mile to Louse Point (another spectacular beach on Accabonac Harbor). Superb swimming, kayaking, paddleboarding, etc.

– 5 miles to ocean beaches at East Hampton and Amagansett

-Under 1 mile to Springs Historic District, including Jackson Pollock-Lee Krasner House and Springs General Store

– 10 minutes East Hampton Village, 10 minutes Amagansett, 20 minutes Sag Harbor, 25 minutes Montauk (restaurants, bars, stores, art galleries, historic houses, movies, etc.)

– 2-1/4 hours from NYC, barring traffic

– Washer-dryer in basement

– Flat-screen TV, DVD player, Wi-Fi, printer, iPod dock

– A/C in living room, ceiling fans in LR and MBR

– $7,000 August 1-31

To see more photos, go here. Email caramia447@gmail.com if interested in renting, or for more information. Thanks!

Diary of a Suddenly Busy Lady

LATELY, I’VE BEEN RUNNING hither and yon and back again. In the five days since my last post, I put 450 miles on my car — from East Hampton, L.I., to Brooklyn (108 miles), down to Philly and back (150 total), and out to Long Island again today (another 108), plus side trips. And if you count subway miles — well, I’ve been on the Upper East and West Sides of Manhattan and in Brooklyn neighborhoods from Carroll Gardens to Bedford-Stuyvesant.

<- Colored Rhythm, Sonia Delaunay, 1946, Cooper-Hewitt

A few months ago, I could be heard telling people my life was “quiet with a capital Q.” It was, and even with my highly-developed tolerance for solitude and quietude, I was a little unnerved by it at times. When I began my dual-home lifestyle in earnest this spring, I found myself gardening to exhaustion here on Long Island, then going back to Brooklyn to relax. That program has now been discontinued.

Suddenly, there aren’t enough hours in the day or days in the week no matter where I am (and I haven’t even been doing any work work — I polished off the last of five magazine deadlines a week ago). I was reminded of one of my English friend Diana’s visits to New York, when she drew a grid, divided each day into boxes for morning, afternoon, and evening, and wrote an activity into each time slot.

Much of my recent busy-ness has revolved around the life-defining events that June will bring (graduations, baby showers, weddings). I’ve been to a Broadway show (Jerusalem: the hype about Mark Rylance is true), a museum (the Cooper-Hewitt, to catch the wonderful Sonia Delaunay show before it closed), a public garden (the Conservatory Garden in Central Park), and three new-to-me restaurants.

Tin City, a coffee shop/cafe on Lewis Avenue in Bed-Stuy

My new camera, a Canon S95, stayed in my bag most of the time. Taking pictures seemed too much like work. But occasionally, something compelled me to take it out for an airing, like the morning I met my cousin for a spot of house-shopping in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Love the awning — you don’t see many like that

A freestanding mansion on MacDonough Street in Bed-Stuy

Saraghina, a farmhouse-style place with a lovely garden on Lewis Avenue, Bed-Stuy

Front-yard greenery on MacDonough Street, Stuyvesant Heights Historic District

On Sunday, I zipped down to Philadelphia to consult with my son and his girlfriend about what to do with the somewhat bizarre 800-square-foot space that has just become vacant on the ground floor of their 1870s townhouse. At one time, there was an ice cream parlor/candy store there, but now the interior is as charmless as the outside is charming. There may be wainscotting and other details hidden by wall paneling, acoustical tile ceiling, and industrial carpeting, but we’re not going to find that out right now. The priority is to rent it as quickly as possible to someone who can use the space as-is: a CPA? Massage therapist? Art gallery? The location is prime Fishtown and the rent is cheap: $795/month. Spread the word!

There’s a vast disconnect between the vintage exterior, above, and the clean but commercial-looking interior, below (it’s still zoned as a store, by the way, and is also legal for living).

We had dinner at prolific Philly restauranteur Steve Starr’s newest, Frankford Hall, below, a beer garden set in an atrium constructed within the shell of an old brick industrial building. I think German food is the wurst, but who cares — it’s mostly about the beer.

Dig the funky two-tone paint job on the woodwork of the Fishtown building, below

Today I traversed the Isle of Long in the opposite direction, arriving back in Springs around 8PM. That’s Accabonac Harbor, below, as it looked last week. Not a bad place to be at all. Think I’ll stay awhile.

Wackadoodle Hamptons Houses, One Year Later

THIS IS AN UPDATE OF A POST that appeared almost exactly one year ago. Both houses are still on the market. Both have been reduced. Won’t somebody please buy them?

NO ONE COULD ACCUSE THESE HOUSES of being cookie-cutter. While cruising the East Hampton listings in the $600-800,000 range, these two, er, unusual houses came up. They’re not entirely out of context. The Hamptons have long been known for outrageous beach-house architecture, some of it brilliant.

But I’m not sure what to make of these two. I like their spirit, but they seem to be trying way too hard. Architect-designed during a ’60s-’70s Hamptons building boom, they’re remnants of an age whose architecture is taking an awfully long time to become fashionable again, if ever it will be.

The white cube with giant fisheye, above, was designed by Henri Gueron. It was featured in Architectural Record, and in a book called The Great Houses (McGraw Hill), below. New to market, asking 799K 710K, it’s tiny by today’s inflated standards: 2 beds, 2 baths, 950 square feet on half an acre, with a new pool, below, a fancy Italian kitchen, and a roof deck.

While the white box makes me cringe a little, the winged wood one, below, makes me laugh. Is it a nod in plywood to Saarinen’s TWA terminal or a Palm Springs gas station?

Known as the “Butterfly House,” it dates from 1964. The architect was Henry T. Howard (Google comes up short). Three bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,200 square feet, felicitously located on a wooded corner lot in Springs, not far from Accabonac Harbor and magnificent bay beaches. The interior, below, looks promising, and it was just reduced to 725K 699K.

While I would prefer my next house to be a late 19th century shingled farmhouse with a front porch, as soothing and unchallenging as my beloved Impressionists, I would also kind of enjoy furnishing that crazy cube with classic modern furniture, rya rugs, and a nice, big Jackson Pollock.

The more I look at these two oddities, the better I like them. They’re interesting, and that’s more than can be said for most houses. They’re economically small. They’re secluded. But they’re strange. It will take a very special buyer, now and forever after, which makes these houses a pretty hard sell and a chancy investment. Maybe they’ll be highly prized in 30 years, if they don’t get torn down by then.

1880s Farmhouse in Springs 750K

IF I COULD FLIP the postwar cottage I’ve owned for three whole months now, and buy something like this cedar-shingled 1884 farmhouse , I would. That would be premature, but it’s much closer to what I originally set out to find.

The house is on 3/4 acre on Old Stone Highway, which has been the winding backroads artery between Springs and Amagansett for three centuries, and still has a few 18th century houses on it. It’s a short stroll to the best kayak launch site on Accabonac Harbor.

Cedar-shingled, turn-of-the-20th-century houses like this one were going for around 950K a few years back, a local broker told me (that’s corroborated by a Zillow graph at the link below). It’s all in how you look at it, right? This could be a great recession bargain, or else it’s triple what it would have cost if I, we, you had had more foresight ten or fifteen ears ago.

UPDATE 12/27/10: The house has been sold, but you can see more pics here.