Historical Societies Bring Hearthside Cheer

By Gianna Volpe

When dashing through the snow on the East End this holiday season, there is no shortage of local historical society events that one can laugh all the way to and through.

Whether on the North Fork, the South Fork, or somewhere in between, there is a place — and an event — for everyone looking to get into the spirit, and it all starts on the Friday afternoon after Thanksgiving, November 24, when the Southold Historical Society holds its annual tour and candlelit tree lighting at the Maple Lane complex on Main Road.

“It’s really a great tradition,” director Deanna Witte-Walker said of the free event, which brings hundreds of people flocking to the North Fork each year.

A candlelit countdown to the tree lighting takes place at 5 p.m. with brief guided tours, blacksmithing, print shop and other activities, as well as Santa Claus in the 1700s Reichert barn starting at 3 p.m.

“We look forward to this every year,” Witte-Walker said, adding that not only do volunteers dress up but each of the 10 buildings is decorated based on period. “Our Thomas Moore House is colonial, so it’s got all fresh greens — holly branches and pine boughs that are set out around the hearth. It’s just beautiful.”

Shortly after the tree is lit in Southold, the 38th annual House and Garden Tour fundraiser for the East Hampton Historical Society kicks off with a cocktail party at the Maidstone Club between 6 and 8 p.m.

Executive Director Steven Long said this year’s event will be dedicated to the tour’s longtime chair, Joseph Aversano, whom Long said has been dearly missed since he died suddenly last June.

“He was just amazing,” he said of Aversano. “He was always working the house tour. If he met anybody, he would ask, ‘Where do you live? What house are you in now?’ He knew everybody and essentially had lined up all of the houses but had not told me, so we had to reconstruct some of the tour after he passed away.”

Long believes this year’s selections — including Grey Gardens, the home of Charlie and Mary Jane Brock, and the late Dina Merrill’s home, occupied by widower Ted Hartley, on West Dune — not only will honor Aversano’s memory but electrify spectators as well.

“I think the two houses in the Devon Colony [Windy Dune and the Procter House] are going to be knockouts, but there’s not really any house that is an add-on,” he said. “People are going to be blown away by all of the houses this year. The lineup is just phenomenal.”

And while the historical Dominy Shops will also be open that Saturday in East Hampton, so too will the 1743 Havens House store on Shelter Island, which will have expanded its inventory into the entirety of the Shelter Island Historical Society’s space for a two-day holiday market to run Friday, November 24, and Saturday, November 25, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., featuring items made by roughly 50 island- and East End-based artisans.

Havens Store manager Serge Pierro said folks can find anything from ceramic ware to jewelry, puzzles, postcards, photographs, art, embroidered pillows and towels, and books by local authors, as well as objects of all kinds embossed with the identifiable Shelter Island outline logo. Sales will benefit such programming as the “Magical History Tours” to historical spots throughout town.

While on the grounds, visitors will also be able to peek at the “As Time Goes By” exhibit, featuring period clothing through the ages being shown in the 1743 Havens House, as well as the collection of photographs and items from Dr. Pettit’s summer camps, displayed in the multimillion-dollar expansion imagined for the Shelter Island Historical Society by architect Bill Patterson in 2019.

December kicks off at Southampton History Museum’s Gilded Age home base, where the museum manager, Laurie Collins, said community members are annually welcomed into Rogers Mansion for a bit of Hearthside Cheer.

“It’s not a high-end fundraiser,” Collins said. “We try to keep it more affordable and offer something that just gets you in the mood and warms you up at the beginning of the season.”

Hearthside Cheer features a designer tree auction of roughly two dozen designer trees, wreaths, and centerpieces or mantel pieces that the special events director, Liana Mizzi, said are great for sourcing unique, locally made decorations.

“The best part of the auction is getting to see each designer’s unique idea of what the essence of Southampton looks like to them,” Mizzi said. “Bidders have a chance to take their tree home the night of Hearthside Cheer, so they can enjoy it during the holiday season.”

Another chance for cheer — and crossing off names on one’s holiday shopping list — starts at 9 a.m. the following morning, December 2, at Southold’s Town Recreation Center in Peconic, where Southold Historical Society runs a free annual holiday fair featuring more than 20 mostly local sellers, a raffle with baskets curated by community members and local businesses, as well as a visit from Santa.

The same evening, December 2, the Sag Harbor Historical Museum’s candlelit stroll will come down to Long Wharf from the 1760 Annie Cooper Boyd House, alongside the Dickens Carolers, to watch the lighting of the windmill by the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce — something Executive Director Nancy French Achenbach hopes to make an annual tradition.

“We just take up the sidewalk and sing as we parade down to the windmill,” she said. “The first time we did it, we had about 80 people, but we really need a leader.”

That leader looks to be Bonnie Grice of Boots on the Ground Theater and WLNG radio, whose dressed-up Dickens Carolers will lead the stroll.

“I guess I can quote Charles Dickens himself when he said he wanted to write ‘A Christmas Carol’ to ‘raise the ghost of an idea,’” said Grice of starting the Dickens Carolers with the “ghost of an idea to celebrate the 19th century tradition of costumed singers from the days of Dickens here on the East End, to bring to life those ghosts of carolers past and to spark some Christmas joy.”

She added that “since we started, we’ve been a part of the Port Jefferson Dickens Festival, the Hampton Bays Tree Lighting, East Hampton Food Pantry Benefit and featured on News 12. We’re so excited to join the festivities in Sag Harbor, my hometown, this season.”

While Santa Claus will be delivered via fire truck into Grice’s hometown on December 9, he’s making a special stop with Mrs. Claus at Rogers Mansion in Southampton Village on December 19 to visit those who have continued to believe well into their golden years.

The free senior sing-along catered by Elegant Eating’s Ellen Greaves and Shinnecock bakers Ana Cause and Michael Cause Jr., of A Taste of Home Bakery, is co-sponsored by the village and very well-attended, according to the staff at Southampton History Museum. Last year, there was a full house on hand singing “Jingle Bells” alongside the holiday calendar’s celebrity couple, with nearly two dozen folks already signed up for this season’s event by the start of October.