Summer 2012 Preview: Dan’s Favorites—Second & Third House

I have been asked, using my vast experience for the past 52 years with Dan’s Papers, to give you the very favorite things I enjoy out here. Don’t tell anybody about any of them. This is just for you.

Montauk, way ahead of its time, agreed to name every new building in that town with its own number beginning with one. There were no houses in the town when they decided this. First House was located across from Hither Hills State Park, but it burned down. Second House, built around 1710, still stands and is a museum at the entrance to town on the north side of the Montauk Highway, and Third House still stands and is the ranch house for the Theodore Roosevelt County Park. The entrance is out toward the Point.

The tradition of naming each house has continued to this day. And as houses get built all the time all at different places in Montauk, it has become quite a confusing crazy quilt of numbers. But the Montauk Fire Department has a huge map of all the houses in the town all with their numbers so if someone calls in to say that 814 House is on fire, they know where to go.