Iconic 'Stargazer' Sculpture Returned to Former Glory

Standing at the base of the newly restored “Stargazer,” David Morris still can’t take a deep breath.

“I feel like I’m jumping the gun,” he said, noting an outstanding bill that needs to be paid and a dumpster area that needs to be cleared on the Eastport property where the iconic sculpture has stood as the unofficial gateway to the Hamptons since 1991.

“But for now, the sculpture, the construction part’s completed.”

After years of temporary fixes quite literally holding it together, the nearly 50-foot-tall abstract deer — which Morris built with artist Linda Scott, who died in 2015 — has been returned to its former glory, with its head tilted toward the sky, holding an antler in its mouth.

“It was much more difficult than I ever thought,” he said of the repairs. “It was much more difficult than the original, let’s put it that way.”

Initially intended for the entrance of the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons shelter facility, the iconic red deer was ultimately set along the side of County Road 111 with a 150-ton crane. At first, the steel frame, covered by a wood frame and plywood skin, which was stuccoed and painted over, held up. But the synthetic stucco proved to be tremendously flawed and incompatible with the plywood.

Then came the woodpeckers, which poked holes in the top of the sculpture and let water in, causing the plywood to deteriorate even quicker — compounded by damage from countless blizzards and hurricanes, with Tropical Storm Isaias casting the final blow in 2020, sweeping away half of the façade and exposing its skeletal frame.

It was then clear that “Stargazer” would need a complete rebuild from the ground up — to the tune of $100,000.

That call was answered last August by the Manes American Peace Prize Foundation, founded by philanthropist Dr. Harvey Manes, who provided the six-figure grant that allowed for the work to get underway. Additional funding for the project — which ran about $80,000 over budget, Morris reported — came from the FLAG Art Foundation and individual donations through the “Stargazer” GoFundMe campaign. Local businesses also provided pro bono services, including Leo’s Electric and Ed Quiros of Stucco of the Hamptons.

Even with their help, making the sculpture identical to the original was “a monster job,” Morris said.

“Working out there, I had patterns and one time I put plywood up, making tracings and everything, and the wind was so violent, it ripped the plywood right off the sculpture I had screwed on, and it was all over the field,” he recalled with a laugh. “So we had everything labeled, we had to lay everything out on the ground — and we had another little rainstorm, and it was blowing up in the air like a kite all over again.”

Once Morris stripped the sculpture down to the steel and finalized the shape, he made upgrades to the build — from new framing to additional flashing around the eye to prevent rotting — and to the stucco itself, hoping to ensure that “Stargazer” will stay put for decades to come.

“The last coat is synthetic stucco — it flexes,” Morris said. “So if there’s any movement, hairline cracks, it’ll cover that. It hasn’t been through any major, major, major storms, so we’ll see. It’s much more solid. Ed Quiros said it’ll last another 100 years, but it goes another 50, that’s great.”