In Westhampton, A Former Judge's Library Is Up For Adoption

A demolition permit has been approved for a house at the tip of Apaucuck Point in Westhampton—against the recommendation of the Southampton Town Landmarks and Historic Districts Board. The landmarks board recommended that the house, known as the “Library,” be relocated, preferably on Apaucuck Point in the area where the family of the original owner had resided.

Wayne Bruyn of O’Shea Marcincuk & Bruyn, the attorney for the present owner, Stephen Orr, can be contacted if anyone would like to adopt and move the house.

The Library was built in 1939 and sits on 2.5 acres of prime waterfront overlooking Moriches Bay. It once housed the actual library of Judge Harold Medina (1888-1990) and was just one of many structures on his 48-acre estate, which occupied the entire point on Apaucuck Neck.

Most recently a two-story residence, the Library was last sold in 2009 for $2.75 million and the demolition permit was approved in May, according to town records. In July, a new building permit was issued for the construction of a two-story, seven-bedroom home totaling 9,000 square feet.

As a child in the 1890s, Judge Medina vacationed at the Westhampton boardinghouse then known as “Apaucuck Point House.” Even at that age he appreciated the value of the land, and he promised himself that when he grew up he’d build his home there. In 1923 he did just that, purchasing the property when he was 35, according to a summary submitted to the landmarks board. In the following years, he constructed “To Windward,” the main residence on the estate, as well as a boathouse and six more homes for members of his family, including the former library that is scheduled to be demolished.

The hurricane of 1938 damaged many of the structures on the low-lying land, which is clearly vulnerable to flooding. According to Beatrice Rogers’s “Historical Sketch of the Incorporated Village of Westhampton Beach, N.Y.,” “Judge and Mrs. Medina have a sincere love for this community inasmuch as they were not deterred when the hurricane demolished their home and seriously damaged the judge’s valued library. Almost at once, plans were made and a new house built near the site of the first one, and at the same time the library was restored and a new wing added.” Judge Medina cleverly called the new house “Still to Windward.”

In recent years the original estate has been subdivided and gradually sold, according to the report on the property prepared by Stephanie Davis of the landmarks board. Just three members of the Medina family still reside on the point, but most of the other structures that the family built and occupied are still intact under different ownership.

Harold Medina was a lawyer in a successful private practice for several decades, before President Truman appointed him as a federal judge of the Southern District Court of New York in 1947, when Judge Medina was 59. Though the job required him to cut his pay by 85 percent to $15,000, Judge Medina was unfazed.

“I’ve made plenty of money, now I’d like to do something for my country,” he said to the New York Times at the time of his appointment. “I guess the best thing I have to contribute is law.”

In his first years in the position, Judge Medina presided over the trial of 11 members of the U.S. Communist Party in a plot to overthrow the U.S. government. All members were found guilty and Judge Medina gained national renown for his handling of the case.

He didn’t leave the bench until he was 92, making him, at the time of his death, the oldest federal judge in the history of the country. When he died in 1990, he was also the oldest Princeton alumni in the university’s history. Throughout his life and his career, Judge Medina “maintained an active interest in the management of the property and hosted large public fireworks displays every Fourth of July,” according to Ms. Davis’s report.

The landmarks board recommended against demolition on two counts: that the Library is of interest as part of the area’s history and that it is identified with a historic person. “Given its level of integrity and the amount of similar and intact historic resources nearby, the existing dwelling would certainly be a contributing resource in a historic district,” the board wrote.