A Lesson in Rain Gardens and Legacy: Family Landscaping Business Lasts Generations

​It’s been a long road for the Historic Tupper Boathouse on North Sea Harbor, but the dream of restoring the building to its former glory is finally coming to fruition thanks to a successful fundraising campaign.

The North Sea Maritime Center held its first Boathouse Bash at the end of September and is one step closer to meeting its $1 million goal in order to break ground. The total cost of renovating the nearly 6,800-square-foot structure is estimated to be $7 million and, if all goes to plan, it will be completed by spring 2027.

In the meantime, the nonprofit continues to host community events, such as “Rain Gardens: Natives and Pollinators,” a recent talk by Mark Antilety, vice president of the North Sea Maritime Center board of directors, at the Southampton Cultural Center.

“We’ve had two years of programming. We don’t have a home yet,” Vice President of Development Ted Anderson said while introducing Antilety. “The Tupper Boathouse, once it’s restored, will be our home.”

As for Antilety, Anderson called him “a renaissance man,” a third-generation Southampton landscaper and owner of Jacob Antilety Landscaping. Once on stage, Antilety flashed a police mug shot of his grandfather — the aforementioned Jacob — taken in 1933 after he was involved in an altercation, abducted and brought to an isolated cabin in North Sea, his grandson reported.

“During the Prohibition era, the East End and especially North Sea and Noyac — with all its hidden coves — was a plethora of bootleg activity,” Antilety said.

A year later, in 1934, Jacob Antilety started his business. As part of the “Polish mafia,” he cut pretty much every lawn in town — and that hasn’t changed over the last 91 years.

Mark Antilety’s father, Bill, who died in 2022, became known as an excellent grader and acted as the driving force behind the company.

“My father grew it to another level,” he said, adding, “As for me, I really didn’t have a chance. Most young kids got race cars or rocket ships. I got a dump truck. My fate was sealed.”

Growing up, Mark Antilety helped his great aunts in the greenhouse, seeding cut flowers, like marigolds, snapdragons and zinnias, into little wooden flats. “The beauty of that is there was not one plastic pot,” he said.

He officially joined the family business in 1974. “We mowed 165 lawns in the Village of Southampton, none of them north of the highway,” he said. “We literally went up and down the estate areas cutting grass.”

“What a time we had,” he continued. “To be able to work with your dad for four decades shoulder to shoulder, creating projects together, was just a gift you just can’t explain.”

At the time, his father was working with Ed Bye — “the most influential landscape architect of the 20th century,” according to Mark Antilety.

The first of 12 projects that Bye and the Antiletys would eventually collaborate on was the home of George and Annaliese Soros on Halsey Neck Lane in Southampton. “Annaliese sadly just passed away,” Mark Antilety said. “She was an absolute class act and we will miss her severely.”

The property would go on to win a national award for grading, Antilety said, showing a photo of the undulating topography in winter. “Ed used to call my father and say ‘Bill, is the snow receding into the hollows?’” Mark Antilety said, mimicking Bye’s drawn-out tone.

“He was big on shadow,” he continued. “When people were planting English gardens and thinking about planting trees, he was thinking in three dimensions.”

The plan was as utilitarian as it was beautiful, thanks to Bye’s knowledge of the local ecology. As a rain garden, it reduced the amount of runoff into the ocean.

Mark Antilety also created a rain garden for children at the Southampton Fresh Air Home, a summer camp for children with physical disabilities that provides an environment where they can play, socialize, mature and develop physically, emotionally and psychologically.

“It has to be the most special project I’ve ever been involved in,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking to see, but also inspiring.”

The sensory garden includes a touch garden with soft lamb’s ear and prickly pear, a pond with a waterfall, a fire pit, a living tepee, windchimes and a large diversity of plants and flowers to absorb water. Some of his favorites include Penstemon “Dark Towers,” Lobelia cardinalis, Carex stricta, Solidago sempervirens and more.

“I plant what I like, I go with what works,” Mark Antilety said.

Bye taught him not to be scared to plant haphazardly. “In nature, birds move things around. Not everything stays stagnant in one spot,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to mix and intermingle plants.

“The whole idea is to not see dirt,” he continued. “You want it thick. You want it full. This is the best chance you have of keeping out weeds.”

The family business has expanded to four generations, Mark Antilety said. Joining him now is his son Alex — the “nuts and bolts,” he said — and his other son Zach, was married on a property where the Antiletys have cut the grass for 91 years.

Whether his grandson, Ben, will eventually bring the business into the fifth generation remains to be seen. “He loves being out in the dirt and loves working,” he said, adding, “If there’s one thing the Antiletys like to do other than work, it was party.”

And party they did. Janet and Robert Postma hosted the inaugural Boathouse Bash at their home in Water Mill, where a rock band lured people onto a dance floor set up in their backyard and servers passed around mini lobster rolls, barbecue pork buns and sliders.

“To me, the boathouse is not a charity,” Antilety said between musical sets, a week after his talk. “It is an investment in our community.”