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Architect’s rendering of the proposed expansion of te modest 19th-century house at 25 Liberty Street, which received a positive response from the Historic Preservation and Architectural Review Board at a hearing on June 23. It will be continued at the board’s next meeting on July 14.
After years of discussions with village boards and officials, Ralph Raciti got a positive response from the Sag Harbor Village Historic Preservation and Architectural Review Board last week when he presented his latest plans for expanding the modest historic house at 25 Liberty Street.
Board member Steve Williams told Raciti he’d made “great strides” addressing the board’s past concerns about an addition that overwhelmed the house and a profile that appeared too massive for the neighborhood. The exchange took place at the board’s first in-person meeting in months on June 23, when the board opened a hearing on the Raciti’s application for a certificate of appropriateness.
“Everything is very positive,” said the acting chair, Bethany Deyermond, but the application was missing a landscape plan, she noted, and “we need the whole package.”
The board tabled the hearing until its next meeting on July 14. No one from the public commented on the plans, which originally met with some resistance in the neighborhood, Williams said last fall.
Raciti told the board that neighbors have not objected to the latest design and that they want to see it “moving forward.” The plans, for which Raciti said he had obtained necessary variances from the Zoning Board of Appeals, appeared to reflect the modifications he presented to the board in November 2021, after months of resistance from the panel. They included reducing the length of the proposed addition by 30 about feet and lowering its roofline.
Raciti said the variances granted by the Appeals Board allow for a porch in the front yard and a garage and shed on the Hempstead Street end of the long, narrow half-acre corner lot.
The hearing on James Peyton’s application to tear down the existing house at 26 Jermain Avenue and replace it with a larger structure was not resumed at the June 23 meeting, as expected, because no one appeared on behalf of the applicant. The board tabled the hearing until its next meeting on July 14.
