Donors fund repairs of damaged Stargazer sculpture in Manorville

The damaged Stargazer sculpture in Manorville will continue to greet Hamptons travelers for years to come thanks largely to two recent donations funding repairs.

The 50-foot sculpture north of Sunrise Highway has been vandalized and damaged by the elements over the years, most recently sustaining significant destruction in an August 2020 storm that ripped off sheaths of stucco covering.

Dr. Harvey Manes, a Lindenhurst orthopedist who gives money to charity through his Manes American Peace Prize Foundation, presented a $100,000 check for the restoration at a small reception at the Stargazer site on Sunday. A part-time South Fork resident, Manes said he wanted to preserve the sculpture which, for many, is an unofficial welcome sign to the East End.

"I have a house in Westhampton. When I saw Stargazer, I knew I was almost there," Manes said. "It was a landmark, an icon. It is the gatekeeper to the Hamptons."

The sculpture was built by the late artist Linda Scott for the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons in East Hampton. Officials there would not allow the nearly 50-foot sculpture for fear it would interfere with the town-owned airport. Instead it was situated on a Manorville sod farm, where since 1991 it has greeted East End travelers who pass it while leaving the Long Island Expressway and getting on to Sunrise Highway.

Scott died in 2015 at the age of 77, but her partner and collaborator David Morris has acted as the sculpture’s steward ever since.

Morris said the work to restore the sculpture will begin in about two weeks. The money will fund materials and labor costs, although Morris will perform some work himself including tracing the sculpture onto plywood. Other costs include insurance and rent on the one-acre parcel.

"I was worried we wouldn’t have the funding, but here it comes," Morris said. "It’s like a miracle."

The sculpture is purposely abstract, Morris said, but a spectator can clearly see it is a deer with an antler in its mouth. It represents the shedding of one’s former self, he said.

The Greenpoint, Brooklyn, nonprofit Arete Living Arts Foundation is handling donations. The Flag Art Foundation, a Manhattan contemporary art organization, will donate $50,000 and more than $11,000 has been raised through a GoFundMe campaign, according to Arete’s executive director Ceasar Pink.

The generosity of donors makes art like this, visible to all without barriers, possible, Pink said.

"Linda believed this sculpture symbolized the connection between humanity and the universe," he said. "Without people like Harvey ... public art would not be available."

By Vera Chinese

vera.chinese@newsday.com@VeraChinese

Vera Chinese joined Newsday in 2017 after working as an editor for the East End lifestyle publication northforker and a general assignment reporter for the New York Daily News.