Rowdy Hall Black Frontage ‘Sadly’ Denied by East Hampton Town Architectural Review Board

The East Hampton Town Architectural Review Board last week officially rejected the proposal by the owners of Rowdy Hall to paint the facade of their new Amagansett location black, saying their hands were tied by town code.

The application was denied by a 3-1 vote.

The board’s chairwoman, Kathleen Cunningham, who has shepherded the evolving and conflicted application through four months of discussions, offered an impassioned assessment of the her position on the proposal. She said she liked the look of the black facade with gold lettering that the pub’s owners have insisted is the lone look they want for their new location, but she felt dutybound to the aesthetic guidelines of the town code regarding the Amagansett historic district.

“We are bound by the code — not what we think looks nice or acceptable, or what we might want to do for our friends and family — to determine what is in harmony, by the language of the code,” she said. “The code directs us that the predominant colors should be white or wood or brick … It should go without saying that black is as far from white on the color spectrum as possible — black is the opposite of white.

“We are sympathetic to the applicant — we like this design,” she added, speaking extemporaneously for other board members. “We support this wonderful locally owned business. But unless the code is changed to reflect otherwise, this board does not have the power to issue a variance to the town code.”

Recommending the denial was personally disappointing, she said, her voice cracking. But approving it, she assessed, would “reduce this board to a purveyor of subjective whim.”

Another board member, Esperanza Leon, also expressed regret and frustration that the decision, which she agreed with, disappointed and angered so many people — the board room was filled with supporters of the Rowdy Hall business, each dressed in black in solidarity with the proposal — many of whom she’d grown up with.

The lone vote in favor of allowing the black facade was cast by Frank Guittard, who said that the black and gold scheme was the best of three submitted. Guittard said that he saw the board’s core challenge as deciding whether a certain color scheme that is different from its surroundings threatened the historical nature of the hamlet’s downtown. He said he thought that history meant evolution.

“The risk of going down the path of forcing buildings to closely resemble each other is that, over time, you revert to a means of land uniformity,” Guittard, who is an architect, said. “Villages must evolve over time to adopt to the changing needs of its residents. Boards should do their best to interpret zoning codes to allow for growth and change.”

He cited a letter submitted by renowned architecture critic Paul Goldberger, an Amagansett resident, in support of the proposal that said the role of ARBs in general should be to prevent “egregious mistakes” at the extremes of design that would “disrupt the equilibrium” of a street or neighborhood — which the Rowdy pitch does not do, in his estimation.

His stance drew applause from the crowd in the audience.

“Okay, so, Frank, you’re the hero,” Cunningham quipped. But she defended her stance against Goldberger and those of several architects and design professionals who submitted correspondence in favor of the design. “We are looking at the code. It’s a different assessment from people who are looking at the street and saying, ‘That isn’t so bad’ — and, truly, it’s not so bad.

“But the code … and I don’t know how to put this — it’s like trying to drive a car with four flat tires,” she said. “I can’t go against what the code is telling me to do. It’s really uncomfortable for me to do. I desperately feel like this is what I have to do.”

The attorney who has represented the Rowdy Hall owners, Jon Tarbet, had presented an extensive analysis of the history of commercial buildings on Amagansett’s Main Street, citing numerous instances of past storefronts — including the previous incarnations of the building that would be the new Rowdy Hall — that had designs far afield from the traditional white, wood and brick aesthetic detailed in the historic district’s palate.

But those businesses were mostly set apart by the color of their awnings or windows, not their full facades a solid wall of black, Cunningham countered.

Rowdy Hall owner Mark Smith said that he has been most frustrated by the ARB’s review process simply because even as the board’s members claimed to be constrained by the town code, there are no defined goal posts for an applicant to look at and understand what the range of variance in designs would be allowed.

“It seems to me that our town government would go a long way in developing some sort of code, not dissimilar to the code that applies to fences, the code that applies to signs,” he said. “I’d have no problem coming before you if the code said, ‘These are the 10 colors you can use on the exterior of your building.’ But the code does not say that, so it’s left up to subjective feelings. I feel bad for you. It’s not fair to you to have code that is so ambiguous that you have to enforce your opinion.”

Leon said that discussions of making the code more specific are underway, but that she guessed if such goal posts were already in place in Amagansett, the Rowdy Hall owners would likely be no less pleased.

Toni Ross, another of Rowdy Hall’s partners, said that she failed to see why the black was seen as being so out of harmony with the rest of Amagansett. “Black and white go together,” she said. “They are not contrary to each other but are harmonious, in my opinion.”

In the end, Leon, Cunningham and board member Chip Rae, voted against the proposal.

“Sadly, it is denied,” Cunningham told the owners of Rowdy Hall, which is closing its East Hampton location this week. “We look forward to your next submission.”