Tour Homes, Gardens Next Weekend To Benefit East Hampton Historical Society

The 2013 East Hampton House & Garden Tour, to benefit the East Hampton Historical Society, helps kicks off the holiday season next week.

The self-guided tour showcases historic and modern architecture at five houses on Saturday afternoon from 1 to 4:30, and a kick-off cocktail party takes place on Friday at the home of Jack and LuAnn Grubman.

The exact locations are revealed only to ticket holders on the weekend of the event.

“Dust off your walking shoes and take a stroll along the coast, see private homes, contemplate a Japanese garden, admire a connoisseur’s art collection, and even enjoy a house with 500- year-old beams traced back to Anne Boleyn’s property in England. The East Hampton House & Garden Tour is the most wonderful fund-raiser of the holiday season,” Joseph Aversano, the event’s chairman, said.

“We believe it is the mix of architectural styles – from the turn of the century to today – that gives East Hampton its unique character and flavor,” Richard Barons, the executive director of the East Hampton Historical Society, said. “Our House Tour Committee has creatively selected five homes that uniquely express the spirit of living by the sea. Different yet complementary, these private homes invite the viewer to take a ramble along the coast to ‘look inside’ some of East Hampton’s most alluring homes,” he said.

The five houses, as described by the historical society, are:

• The first house is tucked away near the Village of East Hampton and has Japanese-inspired gardens, complete with a koi pond. In the spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright, the main house offers spaces that open out to larger terraces and lawns as well as intimate gardens, reflecting the owner’s desire to live within the landscape. There's even indoor and outdoor pools.

• For the romantic at heart, a barn-of-a-house overlooking Georgica Pond, with ocean views beyond, contains actual timbers from Anne Boleyn’s 500-year-old grain barn (Kent, England). The fields on which this house is set still possess the feeling of tilled land rolling down to the ocean, reminiscent of the days when East Hampton was a farming community. As a nod to the controversial queen’s martyrdom, the library paneling matches that of Hever Castle, her childhood home.

Tickets to the opening night cocktail party are $200, which includes entry to the tour, as well. Tickets to the self-guided 2013 East Hampton House & Garden Tour are $65 in advance and $75 on the day of the tour.

All ticket proceeds benefit the East Hampton Historical Society.

Tickets can be purchased at the historical society office at 101 Main Street in East Hampton, Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., through the website or at Clinton Academy on Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.