Anonymous Guerilla Art Installation at Dune Road House

[caption id="attachment_57080" align="alignnone" width="562"] The art left by a guerilla art installation left at a Dune Road, Bridgehampton home last week.[/caption]

Two local artists anonymously mounted an art installation on October 24 at 77 Dune Road in Bridgehampton.

On the exterior walls and railings of the outwardly abandoned house on the ocean, textile and ceramic works were temporarily mounted. The pieces conjure what the artists call “our childhood memories, during the 1970s, of these now vanishing timber-frame houses.”

They wanted to showcase “the inherent beauty of a small footprint created in tandem with the natural landscape,” and invited 40 friends to view the installation and join them at a party on the public beach near the house.

“We realize what we did was not particularly legal, but it was important to us to honor this beautiful house and spotlight the unsound trend of tearing down these shingle beach houses to build gigantic ones in their place.  And we were willing to risk being caught to do so,” they said in an anonymous statement sent to members of the press.

The female artists who live and work year-round in Sag Harbor and Shelter Island were not caught, and left two of the pieces at the house.

“We hope that our message will be heard by realtors and potential buyers, that this house and the land it sits on, is worth saving.  A completely new house, with an expanded architectural footprint into an extremely ecologically sensitive area, is dangerous and unnecessary,” they added.

Prior to the 1980’s, oceanfront houses on Dune Road were getaways that were carefully and minimally maintained, the primary attraction being the environment rather than the house itself.

The residence at 77 Dune Road was built in 1956 and maintained until the mid-1990s, but has had essentially no occupants since then.  Over the last 18 months, the house has been bought and sold twice and is currently listed at $8.9 million with Sotheby’s. There are plans to demolish the house and build a one four times its size in its place.

To go forward, the future buyer will need to obtain several variances. The dunes that surround the house are home to many indigenous species of plants and wildlife including beach rose, various beach grasses, bayberry, pitch pine, and goldenrod that used to grow plentifully all along Dune Road.