Town Officials Move Into New Town Hall Complex

Last week, East Hampton Town officials picked up their boxes and walked 100 yards from the old town hall over to the new East Hampton Town Hall complex. The multi-million project that included moving gifted 17th and 18th structures to the Pantigo Road property, refurbishing them, and connecting them by a glass atrium to make them one building is finally, more than three years later, complete.

"It's a wonderful place," said Supervisor Bill Wilkinson. The Hand House and the Hedges House, two cedar-shingled historic houses, and two historic barns were linked with a glass atrium. In addition to a meeting room, the complex houses the town board offices, the town attorneys, the purchasing department, controller's office, and soon the town clerk's office where residents can buy permits and get licenses.

"It's starting to feel a little bit more like home," he said from his new, light-filled office on the east side of the complex. The supervisor, who took office in January 2010, had to wrap-up the construction project while grappling with the nearly $30 million deficit left from former supervisor Bill McGintee's reign.

Before it was known publicly that the town was in financial trouble, the plan to connect the historic structures and turn them into a town hall complex was formed. In April 2007, Adelaid De Menil, the heiress to the Schlumberger oil-field services fortune, and her husband, Edmund Carpenter, donated the historic houses and barns that they had brought to their Further Lane property and restored over the years. Given the town hall and the Pantigo Place annex didn't have the space for every town official, many employees, like the town attorneys, were being housed in trailers in the parking lot behind the old town hall.

Supervisor Wilkinson has made no qualms about the fact that he, and many others in town, were disappointed that a project the town bonded $6.5 million for would only lead to housing 26 town employees. While De Menil paid for the structures to be moved -- a multi-million dollar effort itself -- to the front of town property and donated $2 million for their upkeep, the town had to pay for to convert the space into offices and a meeting room. Heating, plumbing, and lighting also had to be modernized.

With a little reworking of space, the town hall will now fit about 32 employees. Instead of using one of the historic barns as a conference room, it will soon house the town clerk's office. Fred Overton and his staff will move in as soon as a counter is built, Wilkinson said. "The way it's set up, it will attract more people to town hall. We're also setting it up for things we never did before, like hosting the Food Pantry, a collection, one Saturday in November."

After the financial problems came to light, the town even fell short on the bond. Even the $500,000 that had been earmarked for office furniture wasn't available, Wilkinson said. Instead, he asked the carpenters to make desktops out of wooden boards to match the floors with simple, modern steel legs. "We had to get creative," he said.

He is also trying to be creative when it comes to what to do with the vacated office spaces. The trailers were auctioned off for a nominal price and will be carted away within the next two week, Wilkinson said.

As for the old town hall space, "I'd like to find somebody with a million dollars," he said. "Seriously, I'd love to find somebody who would give us money to repair the roof, fix the interior, shingle the outside so it matches this." His idea would be then to move the enforcement departments, like the fire marshal and building inspector, tax receiver, and tax appraiser's office out of the offices in the Pantigo Place annex and into the old town hall. He would then sell those offices.

The supervisor is finding his office comfortable and likes that "There's a lot of people flowing through the building," he said. "People stop and ask me, 'Is it okay if I look around?' I tell them, 'It's your town hall. Go anywhere you want in here.'"