The evolution of East Hampton's architectural landscape is a fascinating tale of tradition meeting innovation. This is exemplified by the story of 38 Egypt Lane, a location that embodies the area’s rich history and its embrace of modernist design.
East Hampton Village Historic District
Early Memories and Transformations
My first home was the 18th-century Hiram Sanford House at 13 Egypt Lane, which now shares its half-acre lot with a recent modernist container home designed by Tom Morbitzer of Ammor Architecture. We soon moved to the 1910 Edward Gay House at 38 Hunting Lane. This house, too, has been extensively renovated. My father and mother subdivided the architect James L’Hommedieu’s Brown House estate on Ocean Avenue and remodeled its carriage house using a local architectural icon, Alfred Scheffer.
Sometime in late 1961, I learned that a new house was to be built across the street from my family’s home on Ocean Avenue in East Hampton Village. At that time very little new construction was happening in this area of town. From the start, I knew it was not to be an ordinary house.
The Chalif House Emerges
The Glass House: 986 Noyac Path, Water Mill, The Hamptons, NY
What developed was Julian and Barbara Neski’s modernist 1964 Chalif House, described so well by Alastair Gordon in the Aug. During construction sometime in 1962-63, my siblings and I first met Sy and Ronnie Chalif and their young son, John. Sixty years later, I have vivid memories of this lovely family. Sy was a soft-spoken, thoughtful, intelligent man. Ronnie was a creative artist. She was then experimenting in Op Art - producing wonderful geometric paintings. I remember her taking the time to explain to me both her art and the current movements in modern art that she was then practicing. Ronnie was also an incredible cook.
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Example of Op Art
Soon after settling in, Sy decided that young John needed his own house. At the rear of the property was an overgrown strip separating the property from the abandoned mansion to the east. A suitable tree was identified and work on a spacious tree house commenced. I believe that there were still wood scraps left over from the main houses’ construction, and these were supplemented with new materials from the East Hampton Lumber Yard. Over many weekends I helped to plan and saw and nail until it was finished. There are so many stories of the Chalifs and my family and all the times spent in and around this wonderful home.
The Surrounding Area in the Early 1960s
Terbell Lane was a funny little street. On the north corner of its entrance was a small vacant lot thickly overgrown with spindly, prickly honey locust trees. Having felt the thorns on several occasions, it was a property hard to forget. At that time, this small house was occupied by a grandfather of one of my Most Holy Trinity schoolmates, a local man who served as the caretaker of the estate. Every fall, a large open trailer would be pulled into the driveway, full to the brim with locally dredged scallops. Across the eastern end of the property were many acres of tall grass - probably the location of the home’s original horse paddocks. Beyond to the east and overlooking Hook Pond was another large home, abandoned and ransacked by vandals. At the north end of Terbell was another house also backing onto Hook Pond. I remember it was local knowledge that its owner would pay a $1 “bounty” for each snapping turtle head delivered to his door.
Art, Architecture, and Personal Connections
A friend from Coach Kiernan’s Boys Club, Stephen Scull, would often invite me to his parents’ house on Georgica Lane for lunch and a swim in their pool. I was taken then by his family’s collection of work by Warhol, Lichtenstein, Johns, Twombly, and Rauschenberg. These artworks seemed to an 11-year-old East Hampton kid to be somewhat odd but were, nevertheless, like Ronnie Chalif’s Op Art, strangely captivating.
For the past 40 years, I have been very active in the planning, development, or redevelopment of numerous iconic buildings. Working in the historic centers of London and Washington, D.C., the requirement to acknowledge, respect, and preserve the important elements of a historic site has always been close at hand and to my heart. Over the years, it has become increasingly clear to me that art and architecture constitute the pinnacle of human endeavor. Throughout history, great civilizations and their citizens have left their mark through creating, decorating, and refurbishing the centers of mankind. The Neskis’ Chalif House falls within this category. Even as a youngster, I realized the importance of this unusual but brilliant reconfiguration of earlier East Hampton building forms. My brain at that time was being rapidly transformed by the changes to postwar mankind’s world and worldview.
Read also: The Story of Egypt Lane
Preservation Concerns
Today, while the Chalif House sits in the middle of the Ocean Avenue Historic District, it enjoys no extraordinary historic protection. Given East Hampton’s ongoing loss of significant modernist buildings, as cited by Alastair Gordon and others, perhaps it is time to rethink the need to protect these irreplaceable cultural assets. Perhaps the village and town should commission Mr.
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