Half-Houses and Saltboxes

The oldest houses on the South Fork are heavy timber frames from the late 1600s through the early 1800s. They come in a few shapes: the saltbox, the half-house (the Town of Southampton survey calls the comparable form a "half-Cape") and the Cape Cod. Each is built around a massive center chimney under a shingled roof. They are rare, often moved and frequently remodeled. The best-documented examples sit in East Hampton Village's National Register and local districts, or are recorded in the Town of Southampton's 2014 survey.

The forms, defined

The East Hampton Village National Register nomination gives working definitions:

• Saltbox. Two full stories at the front, one story at the back, under a gable roof with two slopes of equal pitch but unequal length. The long rear slope is the giveaway. Center entrance, massive center chimney, two rooms deep, kitchen at the rear.
• Cape Cod. One story front and back with a symmetrical roof, some usable space upstairs, otherwise the same plan.
• Half-house. A saltbox with the same asymmetrical roofline but an abbreviated, side-entrance plan. The nomination says at least one example has framing that suggests it was built to be extended later into a full center-entrance saltbox.
• Half-Cape. The Town of Southampton survey's term for the comparable one-story cottage; the examples it describes have an off-center door or chimney.

Common to all: heavy post-and-beam frames, large wood shingles, south-facing orientation regardless of the road, and very plain exteriors. The nomination notes coved plaster cornices on some East Hampton saltbox fronts and craftsmanship concentrated inside (paneling, chamfered beams).

Where they survive

• East Hampton Village. The village nomination counts 14 significant eighteenth-century saltboxes, two Cape Cods and two intact half-houses. They were originally clustered around the Village Green and upper Main Street. Several have been moved to Egypt Lane, Hither Lane, Middle Lane and elsewhere.
• Water Mill. The Town survey lists eighteenth-century half-Capes and two-story center-chimney houses among the oldest buildings in its potential Water Mill district.
• Bridgehampton. Vernacular half-Capes, a saltbox-form parsonage and one of Bridgehampton's first surviving houses, the Ezekiel Sandford house (1680, Bridge Lane).
• Southampton Village. The Thomas Halsey Homestead on South Main Street, which the Village's guide says is reputed to be the oldest surviving dwelling in New York State.

Documented examples

• Mulford House, Mulford Farm, James Lane, East Hampton. Probably built for Josiah Hobart about 1680. The present saltbox shape came from Mulford-family alterations in the first half of the eighteenth century. The Library of Congress HABS record dates later work to about 1720 and about 1750 and a 1950 restoration under Aymar Embury II. Owned by the East Hampton Historical Society since 1948 and open to the public. The 1721 barn survives.
• Home Sweet Home, 14 James Lane, East Hampton. An eighteenth-century saltbox, now a museum. The nomination records an antiquarian restoration beginning in 1908 as part of its history.
• David B. Mulford House and Isaac W. Miller House, Main Street, East Hampton. The village's two intact half-houses, both c. 1700–1750.
• Stephen Sayre House, Bridgehampton. A half-Cape built about 1800 for a farmer, now on its third site.
• First (Swamp) Parsonage, Bridgehampton. A two-story saltbox form with a center chimney, occupied by the Rev. James Browne from 1748 to 1775.
• 84 Montauk Highway, Water Mill. A half-Cape with Federal detailing, built in 1804, designated a Town of Southampton landmark in 2013.

Moved, raised and remodeled

Buyers should assume an old frame has been altered until the record says otherwise. The village nomination documents saltboxes raised to full two stories at the rear, houses moved once or twice, and summer-resident remodels from 1885 onward that added "colonial" features. A long rear roof may have been lost. A center chimney may have been replaced with end chimneys. A Federal doorway may be an early-nineteenth-century update to a 1700s frame. See Colonial Revival.

Renovation and historic review

Each municipality has its own board and its own rules; check which one governs the parcel first.

• Village of East Hampton. Chapter 176 requires a Certificate of Appropriateness (the Design Review Board's written approval) before anyone removes a member of a pre-1880 timber frame on a landmark or a property in a historic district. The board's criteria call for keeping those frames "altered as little as possible." The Village also designates timber-frame landmarks. For an accessory dwelling on one, the board prefers a separate building to additions on the old house.
• Town of East Hampton. The Architectural Review Board reviews landmarks and district properties. For a "special historic landmark," the Town allows a second, detached dwelling and encourages owners to put new space there rather than enlarging the historic house.
• Town of Southampton. The Landmarks and Historic Districts Board reviews any demolition or construction application for a structure built before 1941. Designation as a Town landmark requires the owner's written consent. The Town also points to a property-tax exemption provision for landmarks (Town Code 298-34 and 298-35). Check eligibility with the assessor.
• Village of Southampton. The Board of Architectural Review and Historic Preservation reviews exterior work in the Village's districts and on its landmarks.

Interior framing matters here in a way it rarely does for later houses. In East Hampton Village the frame itself is regulated, not only what shows from the street.

What the assessment roll does not tell you

The State's style codes include "Cape Cod" and "Old Style," which can attach to a 1700s saltbox and a 1950s cottage alike. On the South Fork records the Research Desk has reviewed, the style field reads "Unknown." The form has to be read from the roofline, the chimney and the frame.

Year built is the weaker field. The State manual keeps actual year built, effective year built and year remodeled separately and allows estimates where the assessor could not get in. For a house built about 1700, raised in the 1800s and moved in the 1920s, the roll date may describe any of those moments, or none. The nomination inventory, the HABS record where one exists and a framing inspection by a preservation carpenter or architect are the evidence.

Related: Farmhouse Vernacular, Georgian Revival, all style guides.