Decorators-Designers-Dealers Sale and Auction Is June 3

Ever since the Southampton Fresh Air Home’s summer camp season ended last year and the children returned home, the nonprofit has been collecting donated furniture, antiques, artworks, china sets, area rugs and more for the Decorators-Designers-Dealers Sale and Auction, happening this Saturday, June 3.

The annual one-day event is a favorite of its namesake local and visiting interior decorators and designers and antique dealers, and of homeowners seeking a great deal on new or gently used furnishings and home accessories. All of the proceeds make it possible for the Southampton Fresh Air Home, a camp for children with physical disabilities, to welcome campers regardless of their families’ ability to pay.

Each year, in September, the donated items begin pouring in and continue to be accepted through April or early May. Southampton Fresh Air Home also uses its staff or moving companies to pick up donations from as far away as Manhattan. Then in the weeks before the event, design and decoration committee volunteers, led by co-chairs Ann Grimm, Ann Yawney and Christl Meszkat, begin to arrange the bedroom sets, living room furniture, table settings, sculptures, paintings, prints and objets d’art in the camp’s bunkhouses, schoolhouse — arranged by longtime Decorators-Designers-Dealers volunteer Barbara Page Glatt — and other facilities.

“This being a camp, it basically empties out during the winter season, so we have space to store,” explained Grimm on Friday as she and Yawney offered a walk-through of the camp turned designer showroom.

Each room or building is designed around a different theme, with furniture ranging from new to midcentury modern to antique. The pieces are arranged just as they would be in a home, with living room areas with lamps and coffee tables, dining areas with full place settings laid out, and outdoor furniture set up for lounging and conversation.

Yawney noted that all of the money raised at Decorators-Designers-Dealers stays at the Southampton Fresh Air Home.

“It’s not distributed any other place, and it helps the underprivileged children,” she said.

Camp sessions begin on June 25, with a three-week session followed by a one-week session then another three-week session, wrapping up the season on August 19.

“It’s a vacation for the children, but it’s also a vacation for the parents,” Yawney said.

Though Decorators-Designers-Dealers, co-chaired by Marybeth Mullen and Isolde O’Hanlon, is in its 31st year, an annual sale to benefit the Southampton Fresh Air Home — which opened in 1902 — goes back many more decades. The predecessor event was held on a Thursday afternoon at the end of August at Southampton High School back when the high school was located in the building that is now Southampton Town Hall, Yawney pointed out. In 1960, The New York Times called it the “resort community’s end-of-season benefit rummage sale.”

Unlike its predecessor, Decorators-Designers-Dealers takes place at the beginning of the season, and “rummage sale” would not be an apt description as the sale predominantly includes high-end items in great condition. The June 3 benefit also includes a silent auction with gift certificates donated by local restaurants and other businesses as well as vacation packages, theater tickets and wine.

The doors to Decorators-Designers-Dealers at the Southampton Fresh Air Home, 36 Barkers Island Road, will open at 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 3, for benefactors, with admission prices starting at $750 per couple. General admission at 5 p.m. is $250 per person. For tickets and more information, visit sfah.org/ddd.

On Sunday, June 4, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. anything that is left over will be available at reduced price with no cost for admission.