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A guest room at the recently renovated Sound View in Greenport. (Credit: Read Mckendree/SOUND VIEW COURTESY)

The much anticipated renovation of the Sound View inn and the Halyard restaurant in Greenport has finally been unveiled, with a restaurant grand opening set for Thursday, Aug. 17.

One of the North Fork’s largest and most striking commercial Soundfront properties, the restaurant, as well as the hotel’s public spaces and 55 guest rooms, has been redesigned by the Brooklyn-based firm Studio Tack. The bar in the dining room’s center was halved and moved against a wall, along with reupholstered swivel bar stools. New oak flooring has been installed and the walls and ceiling painted white. Original touches in one section have been retained and reborn as a piano bar, while a nautical-themed library is available for private events. Expect a poolside bar dubbed “Jack’s Shack,” a nod to the property’s former owner Jack Levin who opened a beachfront concession stand by the same name in 1935, to open by the season’s end.

“We came into the opportunity with the promise we were going to embrace and enhance what we purchased,” said Erik Warner, co-founder of the hotel investment firm Eagle Point Hotel Partners, which purchased the property in 2016. “And that’s exactly what we did.”

The business, which opened as the 10-room motel Sound Shore in 1953, was owned and operated by the Levin family until they sold to Eagle Point last year. The hotel had expanded over the years but the most noticeable feature has remained unchanged — the backdrop of sweeping Long Island Sound views which makes guests feel as if they are dining at sea.

The piano bar at Sound View in Greenprt. (Credit: Read McKenderr/Sound View courtesy)

“It was super important to me to recreate a space that would become, over time, a foundation or a pillar of the community,” Warner said.

Now, James Beard Award-winning chef Galen Zamarra will oversee the 100-seat main dining room and accompanying 40-seat deck, as well as the lounge where hotel guests are treated to breakfast.

Zamarra, who met his wife Katie in Greenport while working with his friend Stefan and Albert Trummer at the former Trummer Home in Greenport, is the owner of Manhattan’s Mas (farmhouse) restaurant which reopened in July after a fire. The acclaimed chef will oversee the Halyard year-round while continuing to operate Mas. Chef Bruce Miller will oversee day-to-day operations at The Halyard, Zamarra said.

“The important thing is I have a strong team in both places,” he said.

The menu is described as “New England-style seafood with a mix of American classics” with other unique dishes. Zamarra estimates that more than half of the menu is currently sourced from North Fork ingredients.

The Halyard dining room. (Read McKendree/Sound View courtesy)

He emphasized a focus on local produce and seafood, some bought direct from fishermen. Look for dishes with bluefish and porgy on the menu.

“I have fisherman that go out and the come right back to me with a cooler and say ‘here is 50 pounds of bluefish,’” he said. “I want to be a part of the movement to bring these things back to the American public.”

The Halyard will open for dinner on Thursday, Aug. 17. It will begin serving brunch and lunch the following week.

Visit thehalyardgreenport.com or soundviewgreenport.com for more information.

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