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Is This Wooded Enclave the Best-Kept Secret in the Hamptons?

Devon colony was founded at the turn of the 20th century and remains a relaxed hideaway for nature lovers and privacy seekers., emma reynolds, emma reynolds's most recent stories.

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Devon Colony, between East Hampton and Amagansett, was founded in 1908 by four wealthy businessmen from Cincinnati: William Cooper Procter (of Procter & Gamble), Richmond Levering (of Lever Brothers), Joseph Rawn, and William Rowe. The men first came across the area during a hunting trip—back then, hunting was common on the East End of Long Island—and they eventually acquired 1,000 acres in the Amagansett Highlands, where they built a cluster of homes they used as their summer residences. 

The enclave was one of the first gated communities in the Hamptons , but because Procter & Gamble’s soap sales helped pay for the homes within Devon Colony, it initially garnered a contemptuous reputation among some of the more high-brow Hamptonites as “Soap Hill.” The foursome also founded the still-standing Devon Yacht Club, which includes a small private marina.

Mickey, Marilyn, McCartney

“Devon Colony is tucked between Napeague Bay and the Atlantic Ocean; it’s much less crowded than the lanes or dunes of Amagansett,” says Martha Gundersen, a listing agent with Douglas Elliman in the Hamptons. “What people love about it are big plots of land surrounded by the Peconic Land Trust, which is state-owned land. There are 500 acres of New York State land that will remain undeveloped that surround Cranberry Hole Road, which is where many of the homes are. Many successful people seeking an under-the-radar destination own here, including [Galaxy CEO] Michael Novogratz, businessman Mickey Drexler, and entrepreneur Fouad Chartouni, among others.”

More Elbow Room, More Privacy

“For as long Devon Colony has existed, people have taken the environment into consideration,” Gunderson says. “People come out here to enjoy the bird life and slow-paced living. A certain caliber of people don’t just want a house, they want land, privacy, and to be a part of the community. You’ll see Paul McCartney on his boat driving past, you’ll see Randy Lerner downtown.”

Gunderson goes on to say that once people get a feel for the landscape of the Hamptons and discover Devon Colony, it appeals because “there’s more elbow room and a more laid-back, less-crowded atmosphere,” she explains. Situated within the elevated Amagansett Highlands, Devon Colony has far-reaching views of Gardiners Bay, the ocean, and the surrounding land. Situated within thickets of forest, horse farms, and farmland, the lack of development is thanks to the large amount of preserved land. 

Over the years, Devon Colony has also become known to design – and architecture-loving locals for its historic homes and picturesque gardens. Indeed, homes in Devon Colony are regularly included on the East Hampton House and Garden Tour that’s put on annually by the East Hampton Historical Society. 

Yesterday’s Traditions, Today

When the men from Cincinnati built their homes for their families, they crafted four grand stucco mansions and one shingle-style home, which were originally known as ‘the cottages.’ The families tapped Cincinnati-based architectural firm Tietig and Lee to create the Italianate villa-style homes with English-style perennial gardens. This stucco-over-concrete style was unusual for the Hamptons at the time. Not just that, but these homes rivaled the size of other famed mansions in Long Island’s blue-blooded Gold Coast, particularly those in Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Harbor.

At the heart of the community is the Devon Yacht Club, which has remained largely unchanged since its founding in 1908, and that’s just the way members like it. Situated along Gardiner’s Bay, the club has long been popular as a family-friendly club that hosts kids’ sailing and tennis lessons. It’s also one of the few private members’ clubs that still holds old-school traditions true; a dress code is enforced throughout, from the beach to the dining room and the tennis courts. “They still shoot off a cannon at sundown,” says Paul Brennan, a listing agent with Douglas Elliman, who lives and works in the area.

Putting Down Roots

At a time when the Hamptons real estate prices are skyrocketing—and bidding wars have reached an all-time high—agents are seeing increased interest from buyers seeking close proximity to their favorite Hamptons hotspots and the beach, yet with more land, lower taxes, and additional privacy. 

Among the current offerings is a brand-new, $5 million modern farmhouse-style estate that sits on three quarters of an acre directly across from a 30-acre preserve and an eight-bedroom residence on two acres that’s just five minutes from the beach and priced at $11.7 million . And just south of Montauk Highway, another new build, a 12,400-square-foot spread that borders the golf course of South Fork Country Club and isn’t too far from the popular Amber Waves Farm, Market, and Cafe, is on the market for $14.75 million .

A world apart in many ways, Devon Colony is also convenient to the farm stands in Amagansett, downtown East Hampton and popular hot spots like the Stephen Talkhouse music venue. For many modern buyers, the solitude of the forested land and the working farms might not appeal. But once you get accustomed to the open spaces and slower pace of living, it’s pretty hard to leave. 

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Devon Yacht Club Charts Course for Higher Ground

Hoping to survive rising seas, yacht club sets course for next 100 years

Citing the threat of erosion, the Devon Yacht Club, a private club and marina founded in 1908 on a 13-acre parcel of land along Gardiner’s Bay in Amagansett, is seeking to move to higher ground.

At the May 18 East Hampton Town Planning Board meeting, the club presented a preliminary plan for the move, which board members greeted favorably.

“The board of governors and the membership have realized that the aging facility should be upgraded to make it more flood-resilient to ensure longevity, while simultaneously improving the club’s efforts at the protection of the natural resources present on the property,” the application reads. “It is specifically noted that the improvements that are proposed at this site will not increase the size, membership, or the capacity of the Devon Yacht Club.”

The current buildings would be demolished, and the clubhouse, bath house, and sailing center would be moved away from the water. A residence used as staff housing would also be moved. Minor aspects of the plan include relocating a workshop and reconfiguring the tennis courts.

The town’s new Coastal Assessment and Resiliency Plan (CARP), released late in April, warns of the potential for East Hampton to be transformed “into a series of islands with permanent submergence of low-lying areas, as early as 2070.” Financially, this could be crippling: “Losses associated with property damage will increase significantly in the future due to sea level rise and increased flood risks.”

It would be years before some aspects of CARP, such as the implementation of flood barriers and levees, would happen. Right away, though, the report recommends starting “shoreline setback review and regulation” and establishing a “Design Flood Elevation, that incorporates sea level rise.”  

“They’re looking to make sure this club is going to be around for the next hundred years,” said Richard Warren, a land-use planner representing Devon before the board.

The current staff housing is located close to wetlands, which is problematic. Worse, according to Marco Wu, a town planner, the building is “serviced by a cesspool located in the wetlands.” The good news is that the club proposes to locate a low-nitrogen on-site waste treatment system in the optimal location, given the environmental constraints on the property.”

“How many employees reside in the residence?” asked Samuel Kramer, the planning board chairman.

“About 18,” said Mr. Warren. Its sanitary system “has been there forever,” he said.

“This is a pretty ambitious project on a difficult site,” he added. “We’re looking at phasing the construction.” To start with, the tennis courts will be removed. The sanitary, clubhouse, and parking reconfiguration would also be done in Phase One.

Devon will restore the dunes as much as possible, Mr. Warren said, as the buildings are moved away.

“This is the beginning of the process for us, we know we have a long way to go,” he said. Approvals from the Town Zoning Board of Appeals, the Suffolk County Health Department, and the State Department of Environmental Conservation will all be necessary. The move will likely take a year and a half or two years to complete.

“The East Hampton Star has characterized the projected sea level rise as ‘ominous,’ “ said Michael Hansen, a board member. He asked if there was a history of flooding on the property.

“One thing we are concerned about is sea level rise,” Mr. Warren replied. “They haven’t had incidents to date of significant storm damage.” He said the new buildings would be on pylons.

All the board members agreed that taking the cesspool out of the wetlands was key to the project and a huge improvement.

“It’s a hugely ambitious project, needless to say,” said Ed Krug, a member. “You’re rebuilding the club. I thank you for taking the issue of rising sea level and coastal resiliency seriously.”

Mr. Kramer, citing other big projects in town, was concerned about the construction debris. “In terms of community impact, I would like to make sure the hauling out of the former buildings . . . is not overwhelming the local streets,” he said.

But he was pleased with the detail shown in the preliminary plan. “It looks like you have a very comprehensive, forward-thinking way of dealing with this,” he said.

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“People buy them from stores in the spring and then when they get big and messy, they no longer want them,” said Adrienne Gillespie, the hospital supervisor at the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Refuge in Hampton Bays. “They find local ponds thinking they can survive, but they can’t for long.”

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Club Profile: Devon Yacht Club

March 19, 2015 by Sail1Design Editor 1 Comment

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March 12, 2017 at 08:38

I have a second place trophy which is sterling silver, that was won by my grandfather John H. Beebe, his father Howard W. Beebe, and a Sturtevant Erdmann, which was presented by E. Clifford Potter on September 15, 1917. ‘Devon Yacht Club, One Design Class, Special Handicap Race – whatever that means.

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Devon Lawsuit Settled: We Must Get Along About Oceans and Bays

One year ago, the Devon Yacht Club filed a lawsuit against Suffolk County about oyster farming activity in Gardiners Bay. It was the strangest thing.

Devon Yacht Club sits waterfront on Gardiners Bay in Amagansett, serving as an exclusive summer beach and sailing club for members of the social set and their friends since 1908. It is almost never in the news. It does not cause trouble. In recent years, some restrictions regarding membership have been removed, but it is still basically serves that group. Summer people come out and join the Maidstone Club for golf and the Devon Yacht Club on the bay for sailing.

Why in the world would they file a lawsuit against anybody? Basically, the activities of the State would impinge on their offshore sailing course. Buoys mark it off. The course has been there for 50 years or more. Now the state is marking off a parcel of the bay as an operation of an underwater oyster farm.

The parcel would be 10 acres in size, and would sometimes be filled with floating oyster cages, which often, tied together, float just below the surface. The County marked this spot and nine others as part of the Suffolk County Shellfish Aquaculture Lease Program where outfits such as the Amagansett Oyster Company can help improve the oyster population, whose members when they grow up snuggle on the sandy bottom of the bay, a noble occupation indeed.

At the time, the general public largely considered the Devon’s lawsuit an example of noblesse oblige. Get out of the way. We go sailing here.

Indeed, it took a lot of guts for the Devon Yacht Club to file this suit. Polite attempts to get the oyster lease moved elsewhere got them nowhere. The County would not budge. And so the yacht club filed a lawsuit. They must have known it would not be popular for them to do so, and they went into it whole hog, including in the lawsuit the Suffolk County Planning Department and its director, the Town of East Hampton, the State Department of Environmental Conservation, the Amagansett Oyster Company, which was given this lease, and other individual leaseholders.

Last week, a settlement was announced ending this lawsuit. The County will shut down this particular lease (it hasn’t even begun, since it’s been the subject of a lawsuit.). And they will give the Amagansett Oyster Company a new lease at a new location, where it doesn’t interfere with the Devon sailboat races.

The Yacht Club says that’s fine because the other locations don’t interfere with the sailing.

As for the Amagansett Oyster Company, their president told The East Hampton Star that this settlement would have no bearing on his business. One spot was just as good as another. However, it will be a while before operations can begin anyway, because further applications and permits must be approved by the Coast Guard, the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Army Corps of Engineers . Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.

It seems to me that Devon has done the right thing. And officials and County bureaucrats have been, for one year, ridiculous.

In the old days, if someone wanted to drop a lobster pot, they’d consult with others to see if this was a good place to do it. They wouldn’t do it where it might interfere with navigation or surfcasting or clamming areas. They might move along if a spot was already taken. Everyone would work it out with everyone else who used the bay.

What should have happened, from the very beginning, is that the County should have considered everybody else who uses the bay. But it seems in the end they took the position that they are government officials and whatever they say goes. Indeed, now, after the expenditure of all this money for lawyers, they now have pledged to consult with everybody else about where these leaseholds go. Everybody has a stake in what goes on in the bay. This is a situation where everybody has to get along.

This kind of government overreach is a hallmark of what many people think is a government gone nuts to get everything just so. It reminds me of the revolt a few years ago when the State of New York declared that they were, for the first time, instituting fishing license requirements for surfcasters .

What? It’s the ocean. Surfcasters have been down at the beach in waders trying to catch fish since the beginning of time. Catching one fish at a time this way is not, and has never been, an issue about the environment. It’s about getting your dinner. And yet, all of a sudden, the State wants everybody to get in line to buy a permit, which will cost at least enough to pay for the State to hire people to administer it. I think the initial fee was supposed to be $75. And they wanted the fishermen to line up at State offices to get them or go to a local bait-and-tackle shop to get them.

The fishermen rebelled. The owners of the bait-and-tackle shops rebelled. And nobody bought any of the permits.

Finally, the State just decided to give out the licenses for free . They’d already set this thing up and had to do something with all the licenses they’d printed. Actually, they said, they just wanted to know how many people were surfcasters. It would be for statistical purposes. States are great on statistics. The fishermen considered this offer with suspicion, but when the State went ahead with it and gave them out free, they got them. Problem solved. Or was it?

This year, I went to a New York State Park office to apply for a permit to use my 4×4 on the beaches where driving is permitted . They make sure you have a vehicle that has 4×4, that you have a rod and reel, fishing tackle and all the other gear. They actually look in your car, or at least ask if it was all there.

This year, the State 4×4 permit requires that, among all the other things, you get a New York State Saltwater Fishing License before they consider you for a 4×4 permit. And they don’t sell the surfcasting licenses right there. That’s from the NY State Department of Conservation office.

What if you just want to go surfing? Or have a picnic? Or bird watching? Or driftwood gathering? Or maybe you want to drive around without any purpose at all. Just to look around. Well, there are different prices for different locations and activities. And it depends where you are from. The 4×4 permit is $80 to residents of the state for the area I go to, and it costs $125 if you are not a county resident.

Locations include 4×4 beach, Camp Hero ($40 and $75), sport fishing ($35 and $60). For hang gliding or surfing or whatever, they don’t need the surfcasting number from the Saltwater Fishing License Registry. But if it’s for fishing, they do. Tires shall not exceed either 33 inches in diameter or 12.5 inches in width.

An office use section is filled out by the clerk after asking questions. 4-wheel drive fishing? Night fishing? Star Gazing? Regional Diving? Caumsett Fishing? What is Caumsett fishing?

At the Saltwater Fishing License Registry, some bureaucrats have actually sat around thinking of different things you might do and what they want to charge, and they’ve also come up with a bunch of questions about other personal things—height, eye color, date of birth, primary address and apartment number that do not seem relevant. They want you to give the answer to a security question. They want you to create the security question. I could go on and on.

Race and religion are not on there, but I bet they’re coming. Maybe they’ll want to know which political party you want to be identified with. They’re all coming. Finally, they don’t give out surfcasting licenses for sharks. That comes from still a third party, the Federal Government.

I might add that the beach-driving permit from the State Park Office is only good for one year, which is from January 1 to December 31, but is actually good for less than a year because you can’t buy it until January 1 and then not after April 1, and all expire on December 31.

I told a longtime friend of mine, somebody I’ve known since we were growing up out here, about the new requirements and he said he didn’t know about it. I’ll quote him exactly. But I won’t name his name.

“I don’t get any permit,” he said. “I just drive on the beach.”

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Our professional sailing staff provides instruction using the Club’s 23ft Sonars, fleet of Sunfish and Lasers. The Devon Junior Yacht program provides instruction in a variety of dinghies including Optimists, Sunfish, Lasers, and Club 420s. Campers compete in numerous PGJSA regattas on the East End and in Connecticut. Weekly one-design racing occurs from June through September with one of the largest fleets of Alerion Express 28s in the United States as well as one-design Dinghy and PHRF racing.

OPEN REGATTAS

The Club welcomes youth and adult sailors to enjoy the steady breezes and safe sailing conditions of Gardiner’s Bay. The annual Peconic Gardiner’s Junior Sailing Association (PGJSA) regatta draws hundreds of youth sailors from all over Suffolk County. The date for this year's event is Wednesday, August 7th. For more than 50 years the Club has hosted sailors from the North and South Forks to compete in the 24-mile Lawrence E. Clarke ‘Round Gardiner’s Island race.  For 2024 the race is scheduled for August 24. Click the link below for additional information and registration on Yachtscoring. 55th 'Round Gardiner's Island Race - Saturday, August 24th, 2024  

Amagansett yacht club sues Suffolk over shellfish leases

Exterior views of the Devon Yacht Club In Amagansett which has filed a lawsuit against the county over aquaculture leases in Napeague Bay on Monday, Jan. 8, 2018. Credit: Joseph D. Sullivan

An Amagansett yacht club has filed a lawsuit against Suffolk County’s aquaculture lease program, alleging 21 potential leases for shellfish farms in Napeague Bay could infringe on members’ sailing.

Devon Yacht Club, which according to the filing in state Supreme Court in Riverhead, has 326 member families who sail 8- to 14-foot vessels from Memorial Day to Oct. 1, alleged the Suffolk County Aquaculture Lease Board did not consider the club’s boating rights when it approved 2017 leases on July 26. Also named in the suit is the county Department of Planning and Planning Director Sarah Lansdale.

If completed, the aquaculture operations could make 300 acres of the bay near the yacht club off-limits for boating, the lawsuit states. Of the half dozen potential leaseholders named in the filing, only Amagansett Oyster Co., plans to move forward with shellfish farming, county officials told the club’s attorney.

“It’s a very unfortunate choice of sites. I can’t imagine that the county actually understood there was recreational use here,” Devon’s attorney Linda Margolin said.

A state judge last Wednesday issued an order barring the county from authorizing new leases or allowing operations to move forward on 10 parcels near the yacht club. County officials declined to comment on the lawsuit, which was filed Nov. 27.

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Legis. Bridget Fleming (D-Noyac) said she was hopeful the county could reach a compromise with the yacht club.

“These uses are not incompatible. Our economy depends on both of these groups being able to thrive,” she said.

Adopted in 2009, the aquaculture program offers 5- and 10-acre leases of underwater county-owned land in Peconic Bay and Gardiners Bay for shellfish cultivation. There are currently 50 leaseholders, according to the county’s website.

The program is intended as an economic stimulus for the marine industry as well as an environmental solution for contamination in the bays. Bivalves such as oysters and clams are natural filter feeders and can help clean the water.

“To limit that is ridiculous,” said Robert Valenti, who owns Multi Aquaculture Systems, one of two aquaculture companies already operating near Devon. It is not named in the suit.

Margolin said the club isn’t against aquaculture in principle — it makes an annual contribution to a shellfish hatchery in Montauk — but has concerns about the location of the parcels named in the lawsuit.

East Hampton Town and the state Department of Environmental Conservation were named as additional respondents in the suit. East Hampton Town Attorney Michael Sendlenski noted that since there are no allegations against the town made in the lawsuit, he expected the town to be dismissed from the case. A spokeswoman for the DEC said agency officials do not comment on pending litigation.

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