First Neck Lane

First Neck Lane runs south through the Incorporated Village of Southampton along the west side of Lake Agawam. It is one of the summer colony's original streets, and much of its length lies inside the National Register-listed Southampton Village Historic District, which is also a local district under Village Code Chapter 65.

The lane has two property conditions. Parcels on the east side between the road and the lake share a back line with a 60-acre freshwater lake that the Village manages as an impaired water body. Parcels on the west side are inland summer-colony lots with no lake edge. The lake governs the first group's value and its regulation.

The 1985 National Register nomination for the village places the summer colony "south of Ox Pasture Road to the Atlantic Ocean, west of Lake Agawam to Coopers Neck Road." First Neck Lane crosses that line at Ox Pasture Road, which is why the lane changes character there.

The houses the record names

The nomination's sample of the summer colony's best houses includes the 1889 Colonial Revival Parrish Residence at 409 First Neck Lane, designed by McKim, Mead & White, and the Meadow Club at 555 First Neck Lane.

The Village's 2026 draft boundary-expansion report re-inventories several more:

• 400 First Neck Lane, The Dolphins. Originally the home of James Hampden Robb, and one of the few surviving Stanford White houses in Southampton. The draft notes a large contemporary addition on the north side that cut off the former wraparound porch.
• 376 First Neck Lane. The Dolphins' barn and garage, now on its own tax lot.
• 292 First Neck Lane. A ca. 1900 garage converted to a residence, believed to have served the Caramar II estate at 300 First Neck Lane.
• 155 First Neck Lane. The ca. 1930 Woodhull House, on the west side.

Press accounts add the lake-side group. Anne Surchin, writing in 2017, describes two lawyer brothers who bought more than 32 acres at the southwest base of the lake around 1880 and built twelve cottages. The larger ones were on First Neck Lane, among them Mocomanto, The Clovers (Blue Haven), The Mallows and Bonnie Bourne. She places Old Trees (1912, designed by Goodhue Livingston) and Normandy House (1925, Polhemus and Coffin) beside The Dolphins on the lake.

Several of these estates are now split across tax lots. The barn at 376 and the converted garage at 292 are examples: an estate name on a listing may refer to the main house, an outbuilding, or a later house on former estate land. Ask which.

Lake Agawam is the regulator

The Village's 2009 management plan describes Lake Agawam as a 60-acre freshwater lake whose only link to the ocean is a manually operated outflow pipe. Apart from Agawam Park, Pond Lane and Gin Lane, the shore is private rear yards. The plan records zoning around the lake as entirely residential, mostly R-120. R-120 is a district named for its minimum lot area in square feet. Surchin's 2017 column reports the lake on the state's 303(d) list of impaired waters because of recurring algal blooms.

For a lakeside parcel, the Village wetlands law (Chapter 116, Article IIIA) does most of the regulating. It creates a regulated area within 150 feet of a wetland boundary for buildings and structures, 200 feet for septic or other discharge systems and 125 feet for clearing, landscaping and fertilizer. Work inside those lines needs a wetlands special permit from the Village Zoning Board of Appeals, or from the Town Trustees where they hold jurisdiction. Mocomanto, in the 2017 account, sat inside the 150-foot setback with an expansion before the ZBA. Other older lakeside houses can be in the same position.

The 2009 plan's storm-surge (SLOSH) mapping puts land within roughly 100 feet of the lake inside the Category 1 hurricane surge area. That is a planning model, not a flood map; the parcel's FEMA zone and elevation certificate decide insurance.

Historic review

Inside the district, the Village's homeowner guide says a building permit for exterior work, demolition or new construction cannot issue without a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation. The guide names historic trees and landscape screening as a particular concern. On First Neck Lane that often matters as much as the house.

Contributing status is assigned building by building. A non-contributing house on a contributing estate's land, or a converted outbuilding, will be judged differently from the main house. The 2026 re-evaluation may change some classifications, so the current inventory, not the 1986 one, should govern a purchase.

Questions to settle before contract

• Does the parcel run to the lake edge, and does the deed or survey describe the shoreline boundary?
• Where does the wetland boundary fall, and what share of the house, pool and septic sits inside the 150-, 200- and 125-foot lines?
• Contributing, non-contributing or outbuilding of a named estate, and under which inventory?
• Which existing structures depend on prior variances or wetlands permits, and are those permits closed?
• If the estate name is being used, which part of the original estate is actually on this lot?
• FEMA zone and elevation certificate for the house and for mechanicals.

Nearby

Ox Pasture Road crosses First Neck Lane and runs west to Heady Creek. Gin Lane takes the summer colony to the ocean at the foot of the lake. Halsey Neck Lane and Great Plains Road run parallel to the west. The broader village context is on the Southampton Village page.

Considering First Neck Lane?

Request a private pricing review of a specific First Neck Lane property from The Roebling Research Desk. It covers lake frontage and wetlands setbacks, district and contributing status, the estate's history on this lot, and the comparable lake and inland sales.