Hamptons Problems: Parking, Rowdy Hall & Pickleball

The Village of North Haven is scheduled to discuss the pickleball problem at their next session. There needs to be rules and regulations. Pickleball, unlike its big brother tennis, is a noisy pastime. Bang. The paddle hits the ball. Ouch. An elderly person trips trying to reach a backhand slam and falls to the ground. Hey! Who’s next?

Here’s how the village might tackle the problem.

One: No pickleball court can be within 100 yards of an adjacent homeowner’s house, unless inside a fully insulated enclosure.

Two: Pickleball matches must be shorter. First person to get 10 points wins. In case of a tie, there shall be a five-point sudden death overtime. And if that doesn’t work, that’s it. A tie.

No hard liquor allowed within 80 yards of a pickleball court. Pickleball allowed only on weekdays from April 1 to October 31, except for July and August. No pickleball after 8 p.m. No overhead lighting. When ambulances arrive at a pickleball court, they must not use their horns or flashing lights until the pickleball victim is safely strapped in and the driver puts the vehicle in forward gear. That should do it.

The Village of Sag Harbor is in discussions with developer Adam Potter about Potter’s plan to develop a new mall that, if approved, will have affordable housing and retail shops north of Main Street near Baron’s Cove. The village has not yet approved that this kind of thing should be built at that location.

But months ago, Potter outfoxed the village. At that time, a huge vacant lot owned by National Grid in that area was being used, with National Grid’s permission, as an ad hoc parking lot. There’s parking there for about 100 cars. Now National Grid wanted not to have the liability of that, so they put the property up for auction.

There would be a 99-year lease. Well, the village made a bid but then Potter outbid them and won, getting control of the property for all the coming years. How could this have been allowed to happen? When Harborfest rolled around in September, Potter announced he would shut the gate to this parking lot for that weekend unless the village met with him to hear his demands.

Because that lot is so large, it would create a parking nightmare if shut. How could he do that? Well, he could. And the village caved and agreed to whatever it was.

Now whenever Potter has a problem with the village, the village has to see if he’s going to shut the lot if he doesn’t get his way. Potter’s made numerous development proposals. Some have been good. Some not. But none have gotten approved. Maybe now things will be different.

A very dramatic decision was made in East Hampton Town Hall last week about Rowdy Hall, the popular restaurant which is moving from its current home in the courtyard on Main Street near the Regal UA East Hampton movie theater to Main Street Amagansett.

Rowdy Hall is named that because of a rowdy incident that took place in 1880. Back then, no railroad was in place coming from Manhattan to East Hampton. Instead, some bohemian painters, actors and poets, curious to see what this place was like, came out to East Hampton by horse and carriage for a few weeks and, while here, lived in a boarding house, had parties every night and made fun of the local farmers by wearing the straw hats those folks favored in those years. They also rechristened their boarding house Rowdy Hall, perhaps with a Champagne bottle smashed against the front door, perhaps not.

After they left, Rowdy Hall became the name of their activities while here, if you were to ask a farmer about it. Anyway, Rowdy Hall, the restaurant, opened in the courtyard about 20 years ago and does a good business with a bar, burgers, fish and dinner. Now there’s this other trouble.

The dramatic behavior at Town Hall — the head of the architectural review board was near tears, according to one account — was because Rowdy Hall had applied to be allowed to paint the front façade of their new Amagansett home shiny black. Normally, this would not matter, but Rowdy Hall’s new home is in the historic district of that community and what color you paint facades is regulated.

I’m not sure why Rowdy Hall wanted black there. It isn’t painted black where it is now. But there it was, the application. After much discussion which included the information that no other façade in the district is black, the town board voted 3 to 1 to deny the request. Is there an appeal to this decision? We shall see. Perhaps the board could list the particular colors it would approve for a façade on Main Street. Pink might be one.

In East Hampton Village, the cultural center known as Guild Hall, after closing to allow for a thorough $30 million renovation for nearly two years, opened last July and is beautiful. However, the most dramatic part of the renovation, the 360-seat John Drew Theater named for a nationally known actor who lived here 100 years ago, has remained closed. Why?

When the renovation was announced, the theater was to become a state-of-the-art facility, with baffles and sound systems that would place it among some of the greatest small theaters in the world.

Such an announcement, however, brought much opposition from the general public. Built in 1931, the interior theater ceiling resembled a gloriously unique hatbox. Come into the theater, you were inside the hatbox. This new renovation would necessitate covering much of the ceiling with these panels, largely obliterating its charm.

With all that in mind, the powers that be last week announced that the state-of-the-art sound and visual system could go in, but nothing could obscure the hatbox ceiling. And it will be open for the season next spring.

Incidentally, there was a thorough cleaning done of the theater about 15 years ago in which everything was repaired, cleaned and shined up. We assigned a bright and bushy-tailed reporter to go there and write about it. She wasn’t from this area and filed a glowing report that inaccurately concluded that the hatbox and everything else was a brilliant change from what had been there before. Oh well.