AMAGANSETT | SCHEFFER HOUSES

Lately, I've been hearing the expression "it's the end of an era" a lot. Let's hope it's true indeed, when we talk about corporate greed. It's sad but true when we talk about the health of our oceans. Oceans are extremely important to me because I spent my summers as a child in the ocean, in Amagansett. Two nights ago, the house my grandfather, Alfred A. Scheffer designed and lived in for most of his life, was struck by lightning and burned down. He built another house behind this one through a cool shady path covered in dune shrubs where we stayed as children. But every evening, this was the house where we would all congregate. I am deeply sorry for the current owners of Scheff's house. My brothers and sisters and I know well that special people buy Scheffer houses. I guess it's the end of an era but I will still wake-up each summer morning with this memory:

My hair was platinum and my skin smelled of Sea & Ski. All day in the waves with lunch packed in plaid scotch coolers, that were opened with can-openers attached with string. Knocked out and tossed in the yellow-green whirl of sand twisting in the powerful waves. White foamy ocean with divine briny smells and horseshoe crabs and stingrays. Little translucent orange shells piled on the corners of beach towels. Woven-strapped lounge chairs used as stretchers to transport badly knocked out victims of intense waves to the back of wood-sided station wagons. Bikes and sandy lanes with pools of collected water splashing on sand-covered feet, with splinters from boardwalks. Seeing the first modern house designed by Charles Gwathmey as we chased across miles of dunes to the Good Humor truck. The sound of distant trains on the hill above Montauk Highway that were 100 cars-long and bound for faraway places. Nights at Devon Yacht Club dancing to the Rolling Stones with our friends and cute boys from Greenwich {yes, Davey}. Evening and grown-up cocktail hour with bow-tied grandfather who called me Bobbie as he drank his martini sounding so handsome and tall. Sneaking back to the beach every sunset with cozy, rolled-up wet and sandy corduroys and finally melting into cool, cotton sheets with the sound of crashing waves, and the smell of wooden beams and suntan lotion in our cozy summer rooms.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
~ Kahlil Gibran

On the left is the house our grandfather Scheff originally designed and built for us. Read the story about the remodel in the current issue of The Old House.

House photo left: courtesy, This Old House
Beach photo: courtesy, TimeOut NY