Montauk Association Historic District

The Montauk Association Historic District is a group of seven Shingle Style houses that McKim, Mead & White designed in 1882–1884, set on a site plan Frederick Law Olmsted drew in 1881. They sit on the ridge above DeForest Road, east of Ditch Plains, facing the Atlantic. The houses are often called the Seven Sisters.

The district carries two designations. The National Register listed it in 1976. The Town of East Hampton regulates it as a local historic district under guidelines adopted in 2004 (Local Law No. 30-2004), and those guidelines are among the strictest on the South Fork.

The Town's guidelines say the setting matters as much as the houses. The open lawns, the unpaved roads, and the views from each house to the ocean and to the others are all regulated.

What is designated, by whom and when

National Register. Listed October 22, 1976 (reference 76001282). The National Register record counts 9 contributing buildings and 2 contributing sites. Secondary summaries of the 1976 nomination describe about 100 acres. The contributing sites include the sites of the Association's former laundry and stable.

Town of East Hampton. The Town Board designates historic districts by local law. Their boundaries are drawn on the Town's zoning map and listed in the Town Code's Table of Historic Landmarks and Historic Districts. The district's guidelines were added to the Town Code on October 19, 2004. They record the history:

• Arthur Benson and a group of friends established the Montauk Association in 1881 as a private summer sporting retreat.
• Olmsted drew the site plan for more than one hundred acres of open pasture. He laid roads along the natural contours and placed each house to take the ocean view and breeze.
• Seven of the original owners built houses from 1882 to 1884, all by McKim, Mead & White, with a clubhouse by the same firm. The houses were sited along the ridge just north of DeForest Road.

The boundary in words

Summaries of the National Register nomination describe the district as bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the south, the Ditch Plains area on the west, and marsh and scrubland on the north and east. The Town's guidelines describe what lies inside:

• a ridge north of DeForest Road with ten Olmsted house sites and the clubhouse site, seven of them occupied by the original houses;
• a plain south of DeForest Road where Olmsted drew only two house sites. Two houses stand there now, and three lots are vacant;
• an arc of ten more Olmsted sites well to the north, where three houses stand.

The guidelines count five vacant lots in the district, with potential for more if two large parcels are subdivided.

Historic and nonhistoric properties

The Town guidelines name the seven original houses:

The Orr House burned in 1997 and was reconstructed in 2000 from documentary and physical evidence. The Town treats it as a historic building within the district.

The guidelines also give specific rules for two other properties:

• The Clubhouse site, 139 DeForest Road. The 1882 clubhouse burned in 1933. The present house there was built in 1962, about ten feet south of the old foundation. The Town treats the site as historic because of the surviving lawn terrace.
• The c. 1930 Ditch Plain Coast Guard Station, moved to 136 Benson Drive in 1956.

The guidelines classify five houses as nonhistoric: 109, 139, 152 and 156 DeForest Road and 1692 Montauk Highway. They cite the 1985 house at 152 DeForest Road as a nonhistoric house that fits the district well.

What designation changes for an owner

Town review (binding). Town Code requires Architectural Review Board approval before any reconstruction, demolition, moving, removal or exterior alteration of a building in a historic district, and before any new building there. "Exterior alteration" includes changes to steps, doors, windows, shutters, siding, roofing, lighting and trim, and a change of color, whether or not a building permit is needed. Repainting in the same color is not covered. No building permit issues before approval. An approval is valid for three years, and the Board keeps jurisdiction to modify it during that time.

The Montauk Association guidelines then set unusually specific limits:

• No additions to the south, east or west walls of the seven houses, and no alterations there except restoring missing features. Additions go on the north wall, modeled on the original service wings: stepped back, modest and secondary. If the program needs more space than that, a separate building has to be considered.
• Materials. Original shingles and clapboards are retained and repaired. Roofs take eighteen-inch cedar shingles. Only the Agnew House keeps its original eighteen-inch Atlantic white cedar wall shingles.
• Paint. Early Shingle Style colors (dark green, dark red, reddish-brown) are appropriate on trim and clapboards, and so is white. Removing paint is reviewed.
• Setting. No boundary or yard fences. Garden and pool fences are allowed up to four feet. Solid board fences, chain link and masonry walls over three feet are not appropriate. Gate posts should be plain unpainted timber. The original roads stay unpaved, and asphalt or block paving is not appropriate unless a slope requires it.
• Pools are set away from the house with minimal grading. Tennis courts are not appropriate anywhere in the district.
• New houses. The Olmsted plan is the first test for siting, and the house cannot block views from the historic houses or the clubhouse site to the ocean. It should fall within the historic houses' range: 2,000 to 5,000 square feet on two floors, a south façade 32 to 54 feet wide (47 to 67 feet with porches), gable roofs, and cedar, shingle and clapboard. The Board requires a pole mock-up marking ridge and wall heights on site.
• The Clubhouse site may be rebuilt above 5,000 square feet only within the exact footprint of the original clubhouse, matching its front block and rear wing.

Meeting the historic guidelines does not settle zoning. In 2016 The East Hampton Star reported a proposal to reconstruct the clubhouse that complied with the district guidelines. It still needed Zoning Board of Appeals variances for a 39-foot height where 32 feet is allowed and for a third floor, plus wetlands permits.

• Demolition. No historic building or significant component should be demolished. The Board must find that all alternatives were considered, may require documentation, and requires approved plans for the site first. The seven houses must stay on their original sites.

National Register (honorific). Listing adds no review of privately funded work. It may make an owner-occupied contributing house eligible for New York's 20% homeowner rehabilitation credit, if it is in a qualifying census tract and the project is approved before work starts.

Diligence for a buyer or seller

• Confirm the parcel against the Town zoning map and the Table of Historic Landmarks and Historic Districts. Then check its classification under the guidelines.
• For one of the seven houses, assume the south, east and west elevations are fixed. Price only the program that fits within the house, a north addition or a separate building.
• For a vacant or nonhistoric lot, the buildable house is set by siting and view corridors as much as by zoning. Commission a siting study against the Olmsted plan before valuing the land.
• The ocean bluff and the low ground toward Ditch Plains bring coastal-erosion, flood and wastewater review that is entirely separate from historic review. See the oceanfront-property guide.
• A seller should assemble the Architectural Review Board approvals, restoration evidence and any Orr-style reconstruction documentation.

For the wider market, see the Montauk guide. The Town's other local districts include Amagansett, Bluff Road and Springs.

Considering a Montauk Association property?

Request a property brief from The Roebling Research Desk: Town and National Register status, the guidelines applied to that specific lot, the approval and restoration history, coastal constraints, and the Montauk properties that actually compete.