Sag Harbor Resident Hopes Documentation Can Bring More Knowledge To Historic Preservation

Mia Grosjean is making it a mission to ensure that Sag Harbor officials know more about the village's historic district so they can better protect it.

The National Register of Historic Places keeps a list of all the 870 homes that contribute to Sag Harbor's historical designation. The 211-page document groups historic homes by street, identifies them by tax map number and notes when each was built and with what, as well as the architectural style and whether the house has been altered.

As the village grapples with a growing number of oversized homes—a moratorium is being considered to slow the trend—and considering that most of Sag Harbor's homes and buildings lie within the historic district Ms. Grosjean said it's critical that the members of the village's boards know that such information exists and can easily get ahold of it.

“This is an important resource—an incredibly important resource,” Ms. Grosjean said at her home on Howard Street, which dates back more than 100 years and itself is on the list. “It’s basically the template for our village.

Ms. Grosjean, who serves on the Board of Directors for Save Sag Harbor, learned about the National Register document in February while researching a historic home whose owners wanted to renovate and expand it. An employee at the John Jermain Library steered her to a book that provided what she was looking for, and after further research, Ms. Grosjean discovered another one that outlines standards for the treatment of historic properties as set by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

This information can also be found online through the New York State Cultural Resource Information System, or CRIS, at cris.parks.ny.gov. And at first Ms. Grosjean assumed that village officials knew it was available, especially because the village had to submit such information about its historic homes to the National Register back in the 1990s when Sag Harbor was expanding its historic district.

But that was not the case when Ms. Grosjean approached the Village Board shortly after finding the wealth of information at the library, and then on the CRIS website. "The Village Board was very confused about it. I was stunned,” she said.

The book she'd seen in the library was nowhere to be found in the Municipal Building. Apparently the village did not have a copy of the Secretary of the Interior guidelines, either.

Ms. Grosjean said she believes members of the village Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review, as well as the Zoning Board of Appeals, should have copies of both books as they review applications to make changes to homes. Board members could use the National Register's book to see if a home is considered historic, and if it is, it would be “a complete game-changer," Ms. Grosjean said.

She added that she would like to spread the word so that not only village officials, but residents as well, can learn more about Sag Harbor's historical structures. If the information cannot be posted on the village's website, she said, then perhaps a new site can be created for that purpose.

“Basically, I think that these two books are really just important because it reminds everybody that this is a National Registered historic district with 870 contributing houses and structures, and those need to be protected—or we will lose our designation,” she said.

Members of the Village Board told her they wanted to learn more to help ensure that historic homes are not torn down or radically altered. Ms. Grosjean pointed to several homes under construction now, including a massive one on Palmer Terrace and several on Madison Street, as examples where that information would have been helpful.

Such homes are what sparked Village Board members to consider a moratorium on new construction of homes more than 3,000 square feet, or on renovations that would increase the size of a house by more than 50 percent. A public hearing on the proposed law will begin at the board's meeting on Tuesday, July 14, at 6 p.m.

Officials have said a moratorium would allow time to reevaluate the residential zoning regulations as they pertain to the gross floor area of homes.

Sag Harbor Mayor Sandra Schroeder, who had cited historic preservation as an issue she is most passionate about during her mayoral campaign this spring, said that the U.S. Secretary of the Interior book will be particularly useful because it sets national standards that regulatory boards should abide by.

“It will definitely help, because there’s requirements that the boards need to follow and consider as they're doing their reviews and determinations," she said. “This is a very good thing. And we owe Mia and Save Sag Harbor a great big thank-you for this.”

"