Kelsey Marechal, longtime resident of Sagaponack and Bridgehampton, died on December 1 at Southampton Hospital. He was 86.
Born in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. Marechal and his older brother, Greer, were perpetually intrigued by their neighbors, the Wright Brothers, and their flying machine. As a boy, he also often rode horseback with his mother, when not pursuing the Wrights with the hope they would teach him to fly. Horses rather than airplanes became a lifelong passion that culminated in his devotion to the Southampton Classic Horse Show—later to become the Hampton Classic, and his role as an official of the U.S. Equestrian Federation.
Mr. Marechal was a member of the Class of 1951 at Princeton University. After that, he moved to New York, living in Greenwich Village, working for the Council on Foreign Relations, and quickly becoming involved in local politics. He got to know a young aspiring politician named Ed Koch, who became a member of the New York City Council, then a U.S. Congressman and famously was mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989. Mr. Marechal supported Koch in his struggle to oust the political machine in his district, and the two became fast friends. After he moved to Sagaponack, Koch often visited him at his home on the beach, where they sat up nights talking politics and planning to reform the world, or at least New York City.
In the 1960s, Mr. Marechal was proprietor of the Limelight, a restaurant and pub on Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village that became immensely popular under his management. He held sway there nightly, dubbing himself the genial host and creating a welcoming and often electric atmosphere. The place became a favorite gathering spot for folk singers and civil rights activists. On her 21st birthday, Mary Travers of Peter, Paul & Mary celebrated at the Limelight, and Kelsey sent over her first legal alcoholic beverage, on the house. The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem made the place their headquarters. It was a center for joyous gatherings, informal concerts by patrons, and sitting all night over one beer without being ejected. When President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, the regulars congregated at the Limelight to grieve. On December 31 of that year, they came together again at the Limelight to hold hands at midnight, standing in a circle and singing “We Shall Overcome.”
He was also involved with Off-Broadway theatre in the 1960s, and with the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. He and Greer, who also lived in Greenwich Village and was a patent attorney, invested in the re-creation of the antique carousel that was the centerpiece of Carousel Park in the Fair’s amusement area. To their dismay, they lost money, but Kelsey kept one of the beautifully restored carousel horses for most of his life.
During those fast-paced years, Mr. Marechal began spending more and more time in the Hamptons. First he was an occasional weekend transient. Then he impulsively bought a cottage on the beach in Sagaponack, a no-frills beach camp on a no-name dirt track he called Potato Road. Truman Capote lived a few doors down.
By 1968, the beach camp had become a stylish house, designed by architect Gene Futterman with gorgeous views of the beach on one side and potato fields on the other. Mr. Marechal, the witty, brainy Greenwich Village denizen had fallen in love, but it wasn’t with a girl. It was the East End of Long Island, particularly Sagaponack, that held his interest, and he became a walking, talking encyclopedia of Little Known Facts about the area. Fifty years later, he still was.
As he put down roots in Sagaponack and Bridgehampton, he reclaimed his childhood love of horses. Discovering that Bud and Tinka Topping had just turned their potato farm into a riding center complete with horses and instructors, he plunged into the equestrian world. He bought a former race horse named MacGregor, became totally smitten with him, took up foxhunting with the Smithtown Hounds, and got deeply involved in the sport of eventing, a combination of tests for the all-around horse and rider. He became a technical delegate or TD for the U.S. Equestrian Federation, the official who makes sure that competition organizers, judges and riders are complying with federation rules. Anyone taking on this job must not only be a diplomat, they must love arcane facts and ordinances and be permanently welded to the federation’s rule book. Mr. Marechal was the very model of a perfect TD, and officiated all over the East Coast for decades.
From 1971, when the Southampton Horse Show was revived at Topping Riding Club, Mr. Marechal was part of the process that led to the show’s expansion, its moves to bigger venues and its rebirth as the Hampton Classic in 1977. He served on the Board of Directors and was one of the show’s biggest boosters. Even after retiring from the board, he could be found at the showgrounds every day of the Classic, camped out in the VIP section, always wearing his favorite blue cap with the fox ears. In this milieu as in others, he was the possessor of every interesting fact and figure about the show and its history.
“Kelsey was incisive and quick-witted, with a penetrating intelligence and a roguish, irreverent view of the world around him,” according to Michael Braverman, editor at large of Hamptons Magazine and Associate Broker at Douglas Elliman, Bridgehampton. “But he could be serious, at least sitting ringside watching a hunter or jumper competition at the Hampton Classic Horse Show.”
His lifelong interest in governance also led him to various involvements with the Southampton Town Planning Board and the Architectural Review Board in the 1970s and l980s. He also wrote a column for The Southampton Press, in which he portrayed himself as Sagaponack’s Premier Curmudgeon. He often included anecdotes about his Labrador retrievers and their escapades, as well as MacGregor’s equine adventures, as he continued converting himself into a consummate East Ender. He became a consultant to builders, architects and others who needed his encyclopedic knowledge of the voluminous official paperwork required when buying land, or building or renovating a property. A long-time friend and colleague, Ross Salt, says, “Kelsey knew everything about the history of every rule and regulation in the township.”
In the 1980s, Mr. Marechal started putting that knowledge to work in the real estate business. He came to work in the Bridgehampton office of Braverman Brokers, which later became Braverman Newbold Brennan Real Estate and was then sold to Sotheby’s in 1997. He was a valuable resource, thanks to his extensive knowledge of Bridgehampton—the people and the properties, the inner life of the town—and successful because he seemed to know everything. “He was a reliable, go-to source for both people established in the community and those just coming into the community, and sort of a resident expert within our office,” Michael Braverman recalls.
He joined Sotheby’s when it acquired Braverman Newbold Brennan Real Estate in 1997, and worked there until shortly before he died. He was by then a “Grand Old Expert” who rapidly became a resident guru for newer and younger staff—and older ones as well. The boy from Dayton and the young mover and shaker in Greenwich Village had morphed into the Man Who Knew Everything About The Hamptons.
In the coming months, an informal memorial gathering will be held to spread his ashes. Anyone who wishes to participate may contact Ann Forer at ann@annforer.com or call (908) 995-4632.
Memorial donations may be made to his favorite charity, the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, www.arfhamptons.org.
on Jan 11, 2016