A Hamptons Property Fight Over a Black Whaler’s Homestead

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/01/style/hamptons-black-whaler.html

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SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Though summer crowds have retreated from this exclusive enclave, one fixture of its landscape has lately become a year-round constant: a large white container truck parked on an overgrown lot by Agawam Lake.

Its contents include stacked original beams salvaged from the 19th-century homestead of Pyrrhus Concer, a Black whaler who became a prominent local businessman and philanthropist. Despite strong community opposition, the homestead was demolished in 2014 to clear the way for the construction of a private home. (That home was never built.)

For the past several years, activists and some local residents have led an effort to reconstruct Mr. Concer’s home on its original plot in Southampton. But the project has been mired in bureaucracy, arguments over architectural history and byzantine building code requirements.

Set against the backdrop of the extraordinary wealth of the Hamptons, the saga raises deeper questions about whose history gets preserved. Georgette Grier-Key, the executive director and chief curator of Eastville Community Historical Society in Sag Harbor, N.Y., has worked closely on the effort. “We want to be recognized,” she said, referring to Black history in the region. “And we believe that this is what we deserve. Period,” she added. “But because it’s in the heart of Southampton on prime property, they don’t think that we deserve to be here.”

The proposed project to redevelop the lot at 51 Pond Lane — which is just under an acre — includes the restoration of Mr. Concer’s home and the construction of a visitor’s center on the same lot. Brenda Simmons, a longtime local resident who is the founder and executive director of the nearby Southampton African American Museum, said the project has languished for years in the municipal approval process.

In the meantime, the ax-hewed beams, some marked with Roman numerals dating from the building’s original construction, have accumulated cobwebs in the truck’s container. And far from a monument, the site has become a quagmire.

Local officials largely support the project, and permits have been issued to rebuild Mr. Concer’s home itself. Jesse Warren, the mayor of Southampton Village, said some funds could be made available to begin the construction of a septic system. But the project’s leaders see a visitor’s center as central to their vision, and the building has generated concern among some neighbors and the village zoning board.

Paul Chiarani, 78, a professional woodworker in Southampton, lived in the one-and-a-half-story home at 51 Pond Lane with his family from 1986 to 2013. He replaced some windows while he was there, renovated the kitchen and front porch, and even repaired the pool in the yard.

He was aware, he said, of Mr. Concer’s connection to the general vicinity of his home, which overlooked Agawam Lake, where he knew Mr. Concer operated a ferry service. But in an interview, he was adamant that his former home itself could not have been Mr. Concer’s, as he believed it was built too late.

“There was nothing historical about that house,” Mr. Chiarani said.

Around 2012, Mr. Chiarani considered tearing down 51 Pond Lane and applied for a permit to do so. Because the house was within the Southampton Village Historic District, the village sent its consultant, Zachary Studenroth, to evaluate whether the building was of historical significance and ought to be preserved.

In his January 2013 report, Mr. Studenroth noted that, with the exception of a cement block foundation dating to the turn of the 20th century, there was no other architectural evidence on the exterior to suggest the house was built earlier than about 1900. The report concluded: “Due to lack of architectural or historical integrity, a demolition permit may be granted for this property.”

But Mr. Chiarani changed his plans and instead sold the home to his neighbors, David Hermer and Silvia Campo, in July 2013 for $2.75 million. Soon after, Mr. Hermer, who is a managing director in the investment banking division at Credit Suisse, and Ms. Campo applied for permission to demolish the home. They planned to build a two-story house and dig a new pool. (Mr. Hermer and Ms. Campo did not respond to multiple interview requests.)

This time, the application came to the attention of Ms. Simmons, who was the assistant to the village mayor at the time, Mark Epley. “She came in yelling at me, ‘You can’t do this!’” Mr. Epley said. “I had no idea what she was talking about.”

Though Southampton Village had honored Mr. Concer in its historical museum and with plaques and signs, his name was not a household one for many, Mr. Epley said. (At the Southampton African American Museum, the institution Ms. Simmons now runs on the former site of a historically Black barbershop, a mural dedicated to Mr. Concer graces one wall, accompanied by an educational video.)

The village’s architectural review board convened a public hearing on whether to allow the demolition of 51 Pond Lane in September 2013. The outpouring was intense. Ms. Simmons, Dr. Grier-Key, representatives from historical associations, academics and amateur local history buffs shared details of Mr. Concer’s life, including records — such as deeds and estate documents — that indicate he lived at the home, and that it therefore qualified for protection under the village landmark criterion for a structure “identified with historic personages.”

It’s an unfortunate tenet of historical scholarship that in centuries past, the lives of marginalized people are often poorly recorded and therefore more difficult to trace. More documentation of Mr. Concer’s life survives than is typical of a Black man of his time. He was born in Southampton to enslaved parents in 1814 and under the legal process known as Gradual Emancipation, he was classified as an indentured servant, and was to be freed by age 28. As a young man, he sailed on whaling voyages captained by scions of local families as a means of working toward his freedom, which he attained in 1835.

By then, records show, his grandparents had acquired land that included what is today the lot at 51 Pond Lane, and in 1838, Mr. Concer bought an acre from them to the west of this lot. In 1843, his grandmother, then widowed, granted her property and home to Mr. Concer in return for his care later in her life.

The same year, Mr. Concer sailed from Sag Harbor on the Manhattan, a whaling ship that traveled the world, captained by Mercator Cooper, who came from a prominent Southampton family. Mr. Cooper’s sailing log and other documents list Mr. Concer as boat steerer, an important position.

As the ship neared islands off the coast of Japan, it encountered two groups of shipwrecked Japanese sailors, whom the crew rescued and returned to the vicinity of Tokyo Harbor — a risky endeavor at a time when Japan was closed to most foreigners. (The crew of the Manhattan wasn’t permitted onshore.) Japanese artworks from that time documented the Manhattan’s arrival, including portraits that appear to depict Mr. Cooper and Mr. Concer.

After an unsuccessful voyage to California in 1849 to seek gold, Mr. Concer returned to Southampton. The 1850 federal census lists him as a head of household living in the vicinity of 51 Pond Lane, and land records, photographic evidence and contemporary maps suggest that he, along with his wife, Rachel, moved into his grandparents’ home shortly thereafter, and remained there for decades.

It is this structure, the records indicate, that — with substantial alteration — would survive at the site.

Mr. Concer’s wife and their two children predeceased him. For years, he worked on Agawam Lake running the ferry, invested in property in the area, worshiped at the First Presbyterian Church and spent time on philanthropic efforts. Upon his death in 1897, Mr. Concer left the majority of his savings to charitable causes including funds to support and educate children at his church.

Elihu Root, a neighbor, bought the property at 51 Pond Lane from the executor of Mr. Concer’s estate. Mr. Root would go on to serve as President Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary of state and to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. He also wrote the epitaph engraved on Mr. Concer’s tombstone in the village’s North End Graveyard: “Though born a slave, he possessed those virtues, without which kings are but slaves.”

In October 2013, given the community outcry, the village commissioned a second inspection of the house, this time including its interior. The report noted some elements of construction dating to the mid-19th century, including floor joists that “preserve the characteristic saw marks of the period,” while the house’s “present size and massing has resulted from numerous alterations and additions to the original dwelling.”

In an interview, Mr. Studenroth, who inspected the house, said that it had not been included in the village’s historic buildings survey made in the late 1970s, and as a result wasn’t noted as a “contributing” structure in the village’s historic district. “We’re faced with this predicament where the awareness and the uproar and the response mechanisms to save something are triggered when something is in danger,” he said. “Then you find out we’ve known about that for 20 or 30 years?”

In December 2013, the architectural review board denied Mr. Hermer and Ms. Campo’s application to demolish it. “This application has generated a substantial amount of contention and controversy among the applicants, the Board and members of the public,” the board noted in its decision.

The following March, the couple filed a $10 million lawsuit against the village. The complaint argued that the architectural review board had no jurisdiction over building interiors, that the denial was tantamount to a government property seizure and that the village caved to community pressure.

By May 2014, Mr. Epley, the village mayor at the time, brokered a settlement: The architectural review board was to approve the demolition, and the couple were to permit the salvaging of any historically significant material from the structure within a 60-day window.

The village hired Robert Strada, a specialist in architectural preservation and restoration projects, to help identify what to save. After spotting an older style of fascia trim on the exterior, Mr. Strada made his way to the basement.

There, he found that the sill of the house — the wood that sits on top of its foundation — was white oak, chopped with an ax. “You don’t find these things in 20th-century homes,” he said. At its core, he said, the original house was a modest, barnlike dwelling.

The wooden pieces were stored outdoors under a tarp behind the village historical museum while advocates for the home’s rebuilding sought a suitable location, Ms. Simmons said. Some time later, they secured the trailer truck.

After Mr. Hermer and Ms. Campo tore down the old house, they decided not to proceed with their new one. Instead, they put 51 Pond Lane on the market, and requested a refund of the $18,750 they had paid in new-construction fees, which the village agreed to honor in January 2015.

About six months later, the Town of Southampton bought the property from Mr. Hermer and Ms. Campo for $4.3 million so the homestead could be reconstructed. The following summer, the town reached an agreement with Southampton Village, allowing the village to manage the property in conjunction with Ms. Simmons’s nonprofit, African-American Museum of the East End.

Around this time, Allison McGovern, an archaeologist specializing in Black and Indigenous populations, conducted a field investigation of the lot. Among the items her team surfaced was what appeared to be a bamboo calligraphy brush, perhaps a souvenir of Mr. Concer’s from Japan, Dr. McGovern said. “I think it’s a real shame that the building came down before anybody had the opportunity to document it” with the rigor of an archaeologist, she said.

In 2017, three years after the house’s demolition, the village issued a building permit for the reconstruction of Mr. Concer’s home on the lot at 51 Pond Lane. But Ms. Simmons, Dr. Grier-Key and others had a more comprehensive vision that involved modern facilities to display and store artifacts and to host cultural events.

In 2021, the project seemed to be finally moving ahead. The plot was designated a village landmark in January, and in March, the advocacy group, now known as the Pyrrhus Concer Action Committee, submitted its application and requests for variances.

Still, the pace of progress can seem glacial, and to supporters, the impasse has lately become something of a proxy for racial and political tensions that simmer beneath the facade of idyllic luxury in the Hamptons. “They haven’t been able to get an answer one way or another,” said Fred Thiele Jr., the New York State Assemblyman whose district includes Southampton. “It has been like three-card monte, where they’re supposed to go next to get their approval. It’s been a very, very frustrating process.”

Jay Schneiderman, the supervisor of the Town of Southampton, agreed that the project had become stuck. But the village approval boards are charged with making complex decisions, he said: “If the village board believes the museum building is too large, then it has to be smaller.”

During a meeting of the village’s zoning board of appeals last year, Mark Greenwald, the chair of the board, said that the board had no issue with the rebuilding of the homestead. “Everyone here is in favor of honoring that legacy,” he said. It was the visitor’s center, and issues like lack of parking, that was causing concern.

“We need that building to help educate that community and the kids,” Ms. Simmons said, wiping away tears.