’40s Cottages in Pine Neck

TODAY MY SISTER AND I wandered the streets of Pine Neck, a bayfront community about three miles west of Sag Harbor, on the north shore of Long Island’s South Fork.

It should by rights be called Oak Neck for the towering trees that define the neighborhood; it’s not all that piney, but someone must have thought Pine Neck sounded better.

The area’s cottages, each unique, seem to be mostly of 1940s vintage.

With few signs of encroaching development, it looks more or less as it did in the days before rock’n’roll.

We looked last night at some real-estate listings, which confirmed that one thing has changed since the Andrews Sisters ruled the air waves: the prices. The active listings seem to start at about 400K for the smaller, non-waterfront cottages and ascend from there.

The unusually large (for the area) waterfront property in the two pictures above sold last year for $1.1million.

Most of the houses are on small lots (about one-tenth of an acre), neither derelict nor overly spiffed up. The house below is an exception.

I’m guessing many of them are still owned by the families that first bought or built them.

There are few visible ‘For Sale’ signs. The houses below are not necessarily on the market; they’re the ones that caught my eye as we rambled, for one reason or another.

The sandy beach on Noyac Bay, below, is the reason a community of summer cottages sprung up in this particular spot. None of the houses are more than a few minutes’ walk away.

Here are a few of the coveted bayfront cottages:

And some of the local denizens:

This is my sister’s adorable pea-green rental, below, recently renovated and kitted out with mid-20th century furniture.

HAMPTONS VOYEUR: Quintessential Cottage in Sag Harbor

WHEN I FIRST SAW Phyllis Landi’s cedar-shingled cottage on a curving half-acre waterfront lot not far from the ridiculously charming village of Sag Harbor, I thought I’d found my dream house. Of course, Phyllis, a freelance TV producer, lives there, and has no intention of moving.

But this house has it all, in my book: location cubed, and the warmth that comes only with age (it was built in 1908). And, like all my favorite houses, it’s quirky: the house, now around 750 square feet, was once twice the size. Owned by two sisters, it was cut in half at some point, and the other half moved down the road a piece.

Phyllis, who bought the cottage in the early ’80s, used it for many years as a weekend place, and now lives there full time, did all the right things. She put on an addition for a kitchen and breakfast nook, opened a wall between the two main rooms to create one expansive living/dining area , and put French doors on the back, bringing in light and leading to a deck that must be glorious in warm weather.

Yes, it’s tiny, but perfect for a woman and her 3-month-old golden Lab puppy, Wilson (there’s one bedroom in the attic loft, and a daybed for guests in the sunroom, above).

It helps that Phyllis has a confident hand with decorating. She painted dark paneled walls and woodwork mostly Linen White (she painted right over the panels in the living room, below, and added wainscotting up to chair rail height in the dining room). She stuck to a neutral palette to keep things serene and uncluttered. Most of the furnishings have a 1930s-’50s aesthetic.

The main pieces are a ‘pretzel’ rattan sofa and chairs in the living room, which came from Secondhand Rose in New York; a blond wood Heywood-Wakefield dining table, hutch, and console, below; Eames chairs in the same pale wood; a shag wool rug and George Nelson daybed from Design Within Reach.

The kitchen has a classic cottage look, all white with pieces of collectible art pottery and Fiestaware providing splashes of aqua and green.

In the attic bedroom, Phyllis built a window seat with storage beneath.

After visiting Phyllis for the first time, I decided I’d move a mountain to get a place like hers. Later, when I found out what it was worth (well upwards of a million), I realized I’d have to move an entire mountain range, which is beyond my capabilities. So I went back to my own cottage in the woods, a tad disappointed, but delighted that such a place even exists.

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A giant shout-out to Carrie of Brick City Love, who blogs about the ongoing renovation of her Newark, NJ, rowhouse, for her patient tutuorial in uploading pictures to WordPress from Flickr. She has saved me untold hours of time and aggravation. THANK YOU CARRIE!!

Bayfront Cottage in Pine Neck for, say, 425K

I LOVE this old-fashioned 3BR cottage in an excellent location in Pine Neck, right on Noyac Bay. Two doors down, smack on the water, there’s a mean little shack, and they’re asking $3mil for it.

This one has a real summer-bungalow feel, though it’s winterized. Ask is 455K but James Keogh, the listing agent (james.keogh@elliman.com), thinks it can be had for 425K or thereabouts — “400 to start the conversation.”

If I could have pulled it off, I would have, but it was a bit beyond my reach. I tried to talk my sister into buying it, so I could at least hang out there, but she didn’t bite.

Here’s what I love about it:

• water views from nearly every window
• the kitchen: roomy, clean, country-ish, and in the right place — at the back of the house, leading to the rear lawn and future porch
• the funky ’40s trim, now painted blue, like the scalloped brackets under the window boxes
• the windows, unique and original, with unusual vertical mullions in the top sash
• it’s very near Foster-Memorial Long Beach Town Park, wonderful for swimming
• the hip, historic town of Sag Harbor is only 2 miles away

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Here’s what would make it more fabulous:

• landscaping
• shutters, to give the windows more presence
• removing the screening from the front entry porch, which faces the road (an exceedingly quiet road, but nonetheless)
• putting a screened porch at the rear of the house, facing the water – duh!
• slamming through the dropped ceilings inside the house and opening them to the roofline to create vaulted ceilings throughout