Sag Harbor's Eastville survives, thrives as generations protect legacy

Michael A. Butler, 69, remembers his summers in Sag Harbor fondly; days at the movies, getting treats with his friends at the bakery next door and ice cream cones at the Paradise. Boating, beaches and fresh seafood were staples of summer.

His Sag Harbor days have always been spent in the neighborhood called Eastville, an enclave of Black residents, Native Americans and European immigrants that dates to the early 1800s, and remains a multiethnic community.

Butler's ancestry is one of the main reasons he remains in Eastville. As an African American man, he said it gives him a sense of empowerment, identity and community.

"You are in a place because it is where you draw your enrichment from," he said. "It's about honoring the past, and I am here because it is where I draw inspiration."

With median sale prices in Sag Harbor in the millions, some original modest summer cottages have been sold, razed and replaced with million-dollar homes, said Georgette Grier-Key, executive director and chief curator of the Eastville Community Historical Society. But many of the original homes handed down through families over the years still exist, and there is a push by residents to keep as much of the community's ethnic identity as possible.

"The story and the intent of those communities have survived," she said. "It is true aspiration of what a community should be and was at that time."

An opportunity out East

Eastville is shaped like a triangle, with borders loosely designated as Division Street, Hampton Street and Hempstead Street. On Eastville Avenue, within the triangle, is the Eastville Community Historical Society. The organization is headquartered at Heritage House, an original Sears Roebuck home built from a kit in 1925.

From 1908 through 1943, Sears sold blueprints and building supplies ordered from a catalog. Supplies were sent precut and with all items needed to build the home according to the blueprint; roofing, lumber, wiring, bathtubs, kitchen cabinets, down to window shades and doorknobs.

Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, Black families were not able to easily obtain mortgages, so they built modest bungalows in Eastville using cash. Sears kits could circumvent the segregation laws in effect at the time. The humble cottages not only gave homeowners access to beautiful beaches, but a sense of community.

In 1920, Lippman Johnson, an African American entrepreneur, built the house now home to the Eastville Community Historical Society, said Grier-Key. Members of the community helped with the construction.

"It was a barn-raising to help Lippman and Rose Johnson," said Grier-Key, something common in those early days of settling the community.

There was no LIE, so you traveled through Long Island, which had a KKK presence, on unlit roads.

— Georgette Grier-Key, Eastville Community Historical Society executive director

Many African Americans from Queens or other boroughs began to summer in Sag Harbor because they were often not allowed to use the city's public pools.

But travel from the boroughs to Sag Harbor could be dangerous.

"There was no LIE, so you traveled through Long Island, which had a KKK presence, on unlit roads," Grier-Key said, adding, "there were social networks made in the city" that helped them travel safely.

However, once they arrived in Eastville, they felt at home.

"Overall, Sag Harbor was very welcoming and very open and receptive," said Butler.

Historic contributions

Lorraine Pharoah Brandon, a real estate agent with Douglas Elliman and a Sag Harbor resident, has imprinted memories of her time with family in Eastville.

A Native American of the Montauk Tribe, her father and her brothers were all born in their family home in Eastville. Her relatives still live in the home of her late grandmother.

"I would visit my grandmother often... It was an organic part of growing up," Pharoah Brandon said.

Historically, Eastville was a part of the Black and Native American experience much earlier.

Slavery and the whaling industry played major parts in Sag Harbor's origins, Grier-Key said. When examining how the area developed, "we look at the whaling industry, because Sag Harbor was the port of entry for New York State," she added. The heyday of Sag Harbor's whaling industry spanned from around 1760 until 1850.

"It starts with slavery," Grier-Key said, adding that the port was originally a big hill, which was leveled by enslaved people. "It was backbreaking work."

After Congress passed the 13th Amendment that essentially abolished slavery in 1865, freed Black and Native Americans worked in the whaling trade for decades, sometimes on the docks, and sometimes away for extended periods of time on ships. As the whaling industry began to die off due to overfishing the whales, the men would be away for longer.

"They had to go farther out," said Butler. "Some men were gone for years."

Women augmented their family's income by small land farming and sewing, mainly for those in large estates. Some earned money in other ways. Butler's painting, "Mary Parker Heads to Town," depicts Mary Parker, who supported herself by making candy at home and selling it downtown.

After the whaling business died down, many residents worked at the town's Bulova Watch factory, built in 1881. The building is now renovated condominiums, currently listed for $1.5 million to $3.29 million.

Generations of history in plain sight

The buildings keep the history. When people come in and tear it down, to me, it's like a hole... We are stewards of what we are acquiring.

— Michael Butler, artist and historian

It makes sense for homeowners to add to a home to update for more important needs — more closet space for one.

However, changes can obliterate history.

"It has racially and ethnically changed," he said. "There are fewer Indigenous and Black families here now. I think when they completely knock down an old structure, a lot of history is gone forever, and it erases the early economic culture and history of the building."

Built in 1776, Ivy Cottage is one of Eastville's most famous homes. When it sold in April 2022 for $1.85 million, original features like wide plank flooring, walls and windows were intact.

"It is believed that it was the boardinghouse Herman Melville referred to [in his novel] 'Moby Dick,' " said Michael Daly, associate broker for Douglas Elliman, who sold the home in 2022.

Ivy Cottage was also once a place for Black visitors to spend a weekend or more. As he marketed the Hampton Street home, Daly said several Eastville residents came to see it, telling stories of family and friends who stayed there over the years.

"The sellers hoped the buyers would appreciate the historical significance of it," Daly said. "That romanticism is not always shared by the buyers."

Many Eastville families have passed homes down for generations, maintaining some of the diversity of the neighborhood. Butler bought his house in 2005, but he spent his childhood in his uncle's Hempstead Avenue house, which has been in the family for 85 years, he said.

But, as the original owners and descendants moved away, many of the old cottages are being knocked down and replaced with large modern homes.

"The buildings keep the history," Butler said. "When people come in and tear it down, to me, it's like a hole... We are stewards of what we are acquiring."