Arthur W. Benson

Arthur W. Benson bought most of Montauk at a public auction in 1879 for $151,000 and set out to turn it into a resort. The Montauk Library's archives hold the auction flyer, which advertised 11,500 acres for sale on October 22, 1879; other accounts give the figure as 10,000 acres. Either way, the purchase put the eastern end of East Hampton Town, which for two centuries had been common pasture, into a single private ownership.

Benson was a developer in the sense this section uses the word: he controlled the land and organized what was built on it. He was not the architect. The houses that survive from his project were designed by McKim, Mead & White, and the site was planned by Frederick Law Olmsted's firm.

His record matters to Montauk property for two reasons. The Montauk Association cottages he organized are a National Register district with a Town historic overlay. And the way his title was assembled, including the displacement of Montaukett families from Indian Fields, is part of Montauk's land history.

The 1879 purchase

Benson, a Brooklyn businessman and president of Brooklyn Gas Light, bought at the auction with ten percent down, according to Wikipedia's account. The Montauk Library describes him as a man who liked to hunt and fish and who wanted to develop a resort.

The auction flyer stated that the sale was "subject to the rights and privileges of the Montauk Tribe of Indians." The Library's account is direct about what followed: Benson worked to remove Montauketts who were entitled to remain at Indian Fields, selling them land in Freetown, East Hampton, instead. In 1910 a State Supreme Court judge declared the tribe "extinct," which left it without legal standing to recover the land. Wikipedia reports that the tribe still contests the transaction.

The Montauk Association, 1881

In 1881 the Montauk Association was organized on Benson's land as a private summer retreat on the ocean bluffs east of Ditch Plains. The Olmsted firm laid out the site, and McKim, Mead & White designed seven Shingle Style cottages built between 1882 and 1884, along with a clubhouse and shared service buildings. Benson's own house dates from 1883.

The cottages were set into the moorland and linked by paths, leaving the landscape largely undisturbed. The clubhouse burned in 1933. The district was listed on the National Register in 1976. See the Montauk Association Historic District, McKim, Mead & White and Shingle Style.

After Benson

The Long Island Rail Road reached Montauk on December 17, 1895, under Austin Corbin, who had bought land at Fort Pond Bay from Benson's family. In 1925 Carl G. Fisher's purchase of about 9,000 acres included land from the Arthur Benson estate, the railroad and the Montauk Company. Benson's single ownership was the base on which the next round of Montauk development was built. See Carl G. Fisher.

What this means for Montauk property

Inside the Association district. The cottages sit in a National Register district that the Town of East Hampton also regulates with its own historic-district guidelines. Exterior changes go through Town review. The district page lists the houses and their roads.

Elsewhere on former Benson land. A Benson chain of title is common east of Fort Pond and carries no special restriction by itself. What matters is what later owners recorded: subdivision maps, covenants, easements and, along the ocean, the State's Coastal Erosion Hazard Area (the mapped zone where new building and some rebuilding need a special permit). A title report traces those layers. See Montauk and Property due diligence.

Considering a property at Montauk?

Request a property brief that reads the chain of title and recorded restrictions, confirms any historic-district review, and places the house against comparable Montauk sales.