More Driveway Options

Stones have no bounds.

And in today’s market, East End homeowners have more options than they ever did for their driveways.

“The sky is the limit, really,” Tammy Kneski, vice president of Kneski & Sons in Westhampton, explained during a recent telephone interview. “You can go on the internet and if you’re willing to have it trucked to you, or trained, we’ll put down whatever you want. We used to have a pink stone, a green stone, we had a lot. Really, it’s unbelievable, and it’s all natural. It’s not man-made.”

Currently, the business carries about half a dozen driveway stones—from heavy-duty bluestone and river rock to decorative stones, such as burgundy and crystal spar, which are typically 30 percent more expensive, Ms. Kneski reported, though all are less to install than asphalt.

Grit, which comes in pebble or crushed form, is the most popular driveway choice in the Hamptons because its beige color is reminiscent of the beach, as opposed to crystal spar, which is “very sparkley white, pure white,” she said.

“The decorative stones, you either love them or you hate them,” she said. “They’re more just because they’re not local. These stones are trucked here from New Jersey or Pennsylvania and the quarries don’t make it that frequently. They also have different weight laws. Also, they’re softer stones so they break down quicker. The more expensive doesn’t mean it’s better quality. It costs more to be delivered to us.”

If a homeowner is looking for durability, bluestone and river rock are solid bets. The former, when packed into the road, has a faded asphalt color, Ms. Kneski said, and the latter is flat and smooth with a charcoal grey color, which is popular among architects.

“There is no better quality. At that point, you’re looking at personal preference,” she said. “It could be as simple as them matching your house.”

Year-rounders on the East End, if they are free from any environmental regulations, typically pave their driveways to avoid difficulty during the winter, Ms. Kneski said. But if a homeowner does elect stones, the key is exercising some caution with snow removal.

“It’s a lot easier to plow asphalt or pavers,” Eric Striffler, owner of Hamptons Masonry Design in Hampton Bays, said during a recent telephone interview. “You can still plow a gravel driveway. We just leave the plow blade up a little bit when we plow it.”

Otherwise, the homeowner could lose a significant chunk of driveway.

“We find that if we have a bad year with snow, in the springtime, we’re doing a lot of replacing of stone,” Ms. Kneski said. “And we see a lot of stone on the sides of the road. They hire anybody to come plow them out and they scrape up all the snow and pile it on the side of the road. In the springtime, you have a pile of bluestone there instead.”