Huntting Lane Historic District

Huntting Lane is East Hampton Village's most uniform historic district: twelve shingled houses built within about ten years, from 1894 to 1904, on matching deep front lawns. The Village designated it a local historic district in 1999. Exterior changes need a certificate from the Design Review Board, and new houses are held to the street's 90-to-190-foot setbacks.

The lane runs south from Main Street to Egypt Lane. Charles and Mary Parsons, proprietors of the Huntting Inn, opened it in 1893 down the middle of their home lot, which had been Huntting family pasture for two centuries, and bridged the Hook Pond dreen (a local term for a drainage channel) to reach Egypt Lane.

The district's documented history is unusual: summer cottages and year-round houses built side by side, in the same Shingle and Queen Anne idiom.

What is designated, by whom and when

The Village Board of Trustees designated the Huntting Lane Historic District in 1999 under Chapter 176, the third of the Village's four local districts after Main Street (1986) and the Hook (1996). The Village's preservation consultant records that the residents worked with the Mayor's Committee on Historic Preservation on the designation and helped draft the street's guidelines.

The Design Review Manual (August 1998) describes what the district contains:

• Twelve historic residences, built 1894–1904, which set the standard for compatibility.
• The Greycroft Carriage House at 73 Huntting Lane and the Greycroft Windpump Tower at 53 Huntting Lane, both 1894. The manual calls the tower the Village's only surviving example of a once-common type, and notes it is not on its original site.
• The 1917 Woodhouse Playhouse at 64 Huntting Lane, a landmark of a different style from the former Woodhouse estate.
• A 1924 cottage at 15 Huntting Lane, of a later period, which the manual says contributes to the street.
• Four non-historic properties.
• The Village-owned East Hampton Nature Trail and Bird Sanctuary at the Egypt Lane end, the former Woodhouse Water Garden.

The district also takes in the access strips of four flag lots. For those, the houses are outside the district, and only a fence, wall, gate or new driveway within the strip is reviewed.

The Village's web page spells the name "Hunting Lane." The design manual and the consultant's history use "Huntting."

Documented houses

The consultant's account names:

• Greycroft, 63 Huntting Lane, built in 1894 to designs by I. H. Green Jr. for Lorenzo G. Woodhouse and described as one of the Village's grand Shingle Style summer houses.
• The George A. Eldredge House, 41 Huntting Lane, 1901, designed by its builder. The consultant uses it to show the Shingle Style adapted to a modest year-round house.

Other houses were built for local builders, a mason, a plumber and the president of the East Hampton Lumber and Coal Company. The account also describes a group of Queen Anne houses built by local residents. The manual counts six gable roofs, six gambrel roofs and one hip roof among the residences, and notes that all thirteen houses it counts have front porches.

What designation changes for an owner

Chapter 176 requires a certificate of appropriateness before any exterior alteration, removal of a pre-1880 timber-frame member, demolition, new construction or moving. It comes before the building permit. Normal maintenance is exempt, the Board rules within 60 days of a complete application, and the chair or vice chair can approve eligible work on an expedited basis.

What the manual exempts:

• reshingling walls with matching wood shingles;
• a new wood shingle roof;
• storm and screen windows and doors;
• gutters and leaders;
• in-kind porch steps and floors;
• walkways, other than the public sidewalk;
• porch lanterns and low-wattage landscape lighting.

What it reviews, and the standards:

• Front fences. Nothing over four feet, no solid board, and a masonry wall no higher than two feet. Chain link is not allowed on any property line.
• Driveways. New driveways are reviewed, and so is resurfacing gravel with asphalt.
• Street-side plantings within 10 feet of the street are reviewed. A four-foot evergreen hedge or a six-foot privet hedge is acceptable.
• Pools and tennis courts go behind the house. The manual names 53, 64 and 73 Huntting Lane as lots where side yards could work. Tennis courts are not to be lit.
• Porches are called one of the most important features to keep. Enclosure with traditional divided-light storm panels, as at 18 and 30 Huntting Lane, is cited as appropriate.
• Shingles stay natural. Siding under a porch may be painted white.
• Skylights are not to go on a front roof slope.
• Additions are subordinate. The side additions at 38 and 41 Huntting Lane are named as the standard.
• New houses keep the front setback within the historic range (90 to 190 feet, averaging 120), face the street, and match the front-block dimensions of the historic houses. Extra floor area goes in a setback rear wing.
• Demolition and relocation. No historic building should be demolished. The twelve residences, the Playhouse and the carriage houses should stay on their sites. The manual allows that moving the Greycroft Carriage House forward could be reasonable.

National Register status

This page does not claim National Register listing for Huntting Lane. It is not a separately named National Register district in the East Hampton list. Whether any part of it falls inside the 1988 boundary increase to the East Hampton Village Historic District has to be checked against that nomination. The nearby Egypt Lane Historic District is a different, three-property National Register listing.

That matters for one reason: New York's homeowner rehabilitation credit requires State and National Register status (or a certified local district), so local designation alone does not establish eligibility.

Diligence for a buyer or seller

• Confirm whether the parcel itself is in the district, or only its access strip.
• Read the property's designation report entry. The manual names the Greycroft structures, the Playhouse and the 1924 cottage; the twelve residences are classified in the report.
• On the four non-historic lots, test any new house against the setback, front-block and roof rules before valuing the land.
• Porches and front doors carry more weight here than in most districts. Document their condition and any enclosure approvals.
• A seller should assemble the certificate history and any restoration records, and should distinguish the Woodhouse estate's history from claims about an individual house.

Huntting Lane begins at the Main Street Historic District. The Village's other districts are the Hook and Ocean Avenue. See the East Hampton Village guide for the wider market.

Considering a Huntting Lane property?

Request a property brief from The Roebling Research Desk: the property's classification and approval history, what the guidelines allow on that lot, National Register status checked against the nomination, and the Village houses that actually compete.