William Scheerer

Lifelong East Hampton summer resident William Scheerer II of New York City died on November 4 at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. One of the last remaining early summer residents of the West End Road section of Georgica Beach, he was 85.

An avid tennis player and ocean swimmer, he used to exclaim that his little sliver of paradise, the broad beach in his front yard on the Atlantic Ocean, was “the best beach in the world” and that “we have the best house in East Hampton.” That sort of hyperbole was his charm, family members said last week.

Despite a successful career on Wall Street, he never felt the need to keep up with ever-changing East Hampton. Even as mega-houses went up all around, with high hedges, gates and security systems, his shingle “cottage” and simple country garden remained virtually unchanged from when his parents bought the property in the early 1940s.

Ever since he was a young man, Mr. Scheerer spent every summer on West End Road, and cherished every minute.

As an adult, he took tremendous pride in filling his East Hampton home with three generations of family and friends, and regaled guests at years of parties and celebrations with his breezy, improvisational jazz piano playing and dependable good cheer.

Born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1923, he attended the Hill School in West Orange, New Jersey, graduating in 1941, and Princeton University, graduating class of 1945. He served as a first lieutenant in the 78th Signal Heavy Construction Battalion in Totuska, Japan, during World War II.

After the war, he started work at his family’s dairy, the Newark Milk and Cream Company in Newark, New Jersey. Subsequently, he pursued a career on Wall Street, serving as a vice president at Fred Alger & Co. from 1967 to 1982 and eventually as an investment advisor at Legg Mason Wood Walker before retirement in the early 1990s.

As a teenager, Mr. Scheerer studied and played the piano. It remained a lifelong passion, and for a time in the 1980s and 1990s he performed at piano bars in New York after getting off work on Wall Street.

Enjoying travel and food, he relished a great meal at a good price and a bottle of Barolo for under $10, back when that was possible. Survivors said he would recall meals years later and describe them in detail to whoever would listen.

He was a lifelong member of the Maidstone Club in East Hampton and the Union Club in New York City.

He is survived by a son, Thomas Scheerer of New York City; three daughters and their husbands, Jane and Simon Parkes of New York City, Laura and James Whitney of California, and Idoline and Biddle Duke of Vermont; a brother, Joseph Scheerer and his wife Nancy of Amagansett; and four grandsons, Homer Parkes, Haley Parkes, August Whitney, and William Angier Duke; and two granddaughters, Sophie Whitney and Eleanor Duke.

Family and friends will gather in his honor on Friday, November 28, at 4 p.m. at his East Hampton home at 15 West End Road. He is also survived by his wife, Idoline Sheerer of New York, from whom he was separated.

In lieu of flowers, donations to The Hill Fund, 717 East High Street, Pottstown, PA 19464 would be appreciated by the family.