Ever wish you could go back in time? On Saturday, September 14, you can when you take a stroll through an earlier era on the North Fork.
After a 13-year hiatus, the Historic Jamesport House Tour is back. Sixteen homes will open their doors for the event, many of which are located in the South Jamesport Historic District. Focused on the 19th century, history buffs will time-travel via houses built in bygone days, getting a glimpse of the historical and architectural value of what’s behind the front doors and garden gates. The oldest public building on the East End of Long Island — the 293-year-old Jamesport Meeting House — is slotted as the tour’s highlight.
According to local historian and Jamesport Meeting House president Richard Wines, most of the homes on the tour went up in the 1830s, when the whaling port of Jamesport was created by James Tuthill. The grid he designed, which runs north from the shore of the Peconic Bay up to 4th Street still exists today and encompasses the Historic District.
“Where two grand bay front hotels once served vacationers in the 1880s, there are now newer homes and a town park,” says Wines. “And along South Jamesport Avenue are three of the oldest homes here.” Two hundred years ago, the standard plot size in Tuthill’s grid was 50′ x 100′. Some early homeowners bought a second, third or fourth plot to create ample back and side yards that give their homes more space, grass and trees.
When whaling died out, the one-whaling ship town was revitalized as a tourist destination, many traveling to Jamesport on the then-new Long Island Rail Road, which connected public transportation on eastern Long Island to the city when it launched here in 1834. The city dwellers mainly came from Brooklyn, stepping out to a station on the tracks in Jamesport that no longer exists, so charmed by the quaint town that they chose to build second homes here.
The tour includes some of the houses built in the new port from the 1830s, as well as those built later in the 19th century, as well as more recent residences that range in style from Victorian gothic to Greek revival and mid-century modern.
Wines notes that, along with raising funds to support the Jamesport Meeting House, the purpose of the tour is “to celebrate Jamesport and what a wonderful place it is.”
Peter Berley is opening his 4th Street home to the public for the first time for the tour.
“In 2009, my wife, Meggan, and I took an uninsulated cottage in disrepair and put a lot of personality in it,” Berley says. “It was a ton of work! We took out a wall and a staircase and shored up the porch floor.”
Berley is excited to show tour-goers his restored kitchen, which includes a wood-fired baker’s oven from France tiled with a blue, green and white mosaic created by his wife. He will also showcase his garage, which he has repurposed into a “man cave” and music studio.
Other homes on the tour are contemporary inside but traditional outside. “Many have the original layout, room design, floors and fireplaces. Some have the original first structure and the later additions,” says Wines, including a house on South Jamesport Avenue previously owned by Bethuel Hallock (1814-1961), who replicated his house from the homestead now maintained by the Hallockville Museum Farm.
Another restored home, the South Jamesport House, had fallen into decay and was declared condemned until local builder Jeff Hallock renovated it in 2005.
“Walls came down inside to create an open floor plan,” Wines says. “He kept the original exposed timbers. He also reused a lot of the old material.” The backyard is still home to the property’s original scallop and oyster shed.
“In those days, when huge numbers of shellfish were shipped to the city from Jamesport, you didn’t do the shucking in your house because of the smell,” adds Wines.
There’s also a former Methodist campground, accessed by walking down a narrow dirty path surrounded by trees and shrubs. The road leads to seven homes encircling a grassy, oak tree-dotted area where religious meetings were held in the early 19th century.
“I wanted to preserve its history so I did a lot of the work myself,” says Al Stromberg, who owns one of the 1897 homes. “It’s exactly the way it looked then, only the windows are new. There’s no wasted space here.” Upstairs are two small bedrooms, both with slanted pitched roof ceilings, common in many homes of the era.
Wines hopes this quaint section of town will always retain its historical charm and character. “It’s much harder now to have tear-downs in this community, thanks to the Historical District designation,” he says.
House tour tickets are $60 per person in advance, $75 on the tour day. Advance tickets are available for purchase at jamesportmeetinghouse.org. All proceeds benefit the Jamesport Meeting House. The tour runs from 10 a.m. to 4 pm; the first stop being the Jamesport Meeting House. The homes are all in or near South Jamesport, and tour patrons are encouraged to walk or bike the tour, as on-street parking is limited.
