Dermatology Practice Forced Out of Wainscott, Reopens in Southampton

The South Fork office of Hennessey Dermatology is now up and running at 234 Hampton Road in Southampton, several weeks after its July 31 eviction from the Wainscott Professional Center, where it had operated since 2002.

“Within the last two years, Hennessey Dermatology has been a subtenant of Meeting House Lane (now owned by Stony Brook University),” Dr. N. Patrick Hennessey wrote in a letter to patients. It goes on to say that a letter from Dr. John Reilly of Meeting House Lane Medical Practice notified his office that “our sublease was being called in by Stony Brook University and that we were to be fully vacated by July 31, 2024.”

That letter came at the end of June, he said, giving Hennessey Dermatology one month to find a new location and vacate the Wainscott Professional Center, despite bookings “well into September,” Hennessey’s letter to patients said.

Hennessey wrote that attempts to arrange a discussion with Stony Brook University officials were unsuccessful. “Each of my two phone calls with Dr. Reilly were ended by his reinforcing that we had nothing to discuss and appropriate measures would immediately be instituted if the premises were not vacant by July 31,” he wrote.

“They were totally unwilling to negotiate anything — staying an extra month, working out some arrangement where I could continue … there were a lot of possibilities that could have happened when your landlord is a university where I’ve been on staff over 20 years,” Hennessey told The Express News Group last week. “I’ve been on staff at New York University for 50 years, I’ve been affiliated with universities and medical centers in Boston and Michigan, and I’ve never dealt with anyone like Stony Brook,” which he described as “unprofessional” and “totally about their bottom line.”

Hennessey, who is in his mid-70s, said that a standard 10-year lease was unrealistic for him, but his practice was operating under a sublease arrangement with Meeting House Lane Medical Practice. “But there was a little clause stuck in there,” he said, authorizing his landlord to cancel the lease at any time with 40 days’ notice. “That’s what they did by sending a letter. No email, no call,” he said.

The eviction “is definitely having an impact on a lot of my patients,” said Hennessey, whose practice also has offices in Manhattan. In his letter, he complained that “If it was a ‘medical BUSINESS priority’ to eliminate a non-Meeting House Lane practice from the area, there could potentially have been discussions relative to Hennessey Dermatology joining Meeting House Lane. There were NEVER any such discussions.” (The all-caps emphasis appeared in the original letter.)

Hennessey said in his letter that another Meeting House Lane official suggested a potential sublease at nearby Wainscott Walk-In Medical Care, but the rent would have been almost four times what the practice paid at the Professional Center “to hold a sublease from the people who had just evicted me.”

Unable to secure a suitable or affordable alternative location, Hennessey wrote that he contacted a junk removal company, which removed exam tables and medical equipment on July 29. “There has been absolutely no movement in there since I left,” Hennessey said, “which, again, is typical of their unwillingness to work with people.”

In a statement provided to The Express News Group on September 10, Todd R. Griffin, vice dean for clinical affairs and vice president for clinical services at Stony Brook Medicine, said, “We have a tremendous amount of respect for Dr. Hennessey and would like to continue to work with him. The decision to end Dr. Hennessey’s prior month-to-month sublease was driven by Meeting House Lane’s space needs to support its primary care providers and enhance patient access and experience. Per the sublease agreement, Dr. Hennessey was provided with the required notice.

“Dr. Hennessey was offered the opportunity to relocate his practice to another nearby Wainscott location. He never gave us the opportunity to discuss rent at the new location.”

Hennessey said that the experience has left “a very bad taste in my mouth for that institution.”

After 25 years on the East End, “I am not particularly optimistic … that anything is happening from a medical standpoint that is beneficial to the community. The exact opposite is happening.” Independent practices “are being absorbed by the Meeting House Lane-Stony Brook mega-machine,” he said, “the same as is happening in many other places in the country. Or they’re just folding, closing up shop.”