The Southampton Cottages of Gin Lane by Sally Spanburgh

Author:Sally Spanburgh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2012-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

By The Way, southwest, circa 1930. Courtesy of Eric Woodward.

The Barnes carriage house, northeast, 1897. Courtesy of the Southampton Historical Museum.

The Barnes carriage house, southwest, 1978. Courtesy of the New York State Historic Preservation Office.

By The Way, north elevation, present day.

Eleven years after Henry’s death, his brother-in-law, Dr. George Arthur Dixon Sr. (1857–1933), became the owner of the property. He was a prominent physician at the time, and his practice included many noted members of society, including J. Pierpont Morgan and William K. Vanderbilt. In addition to attending Charles T. Barney (the president of the Knickerbocker Trust Company) on the day of his suicide in 1907, he was also one of those who tended to President McKinley when he was shot.

The next owner, Henry Rogers Benjamin (1893–1967), was a nephew of Colonel H.H. Rogers Jr., the owner of Black Point at the east end of Gin Lane, and the one who, according to local legend, gave By The Way its name. During his ownership, he hired Henry Polhemus of Polhemus & Coffin to add the west wing, the garage and the columned portico on the front. His widow, Germaine deBaume (Benjamin) Cromwell was the subsequent owner. She was married to a judge, the Honorable James H.R. Cromwell. The Cromwells were such generous souls that they gave By The Way to Southampton Hospital, which then sold it for its benefit.

Mr. Burton B. Brous, a retail-merchandising president in New Jersey, owned the property prior to the current owners along with his wife, Susan McGuire Brous. At that time, the nine acres were subdivided into three parcels, each containing one structure. The Brouses wanted to build a second story onto the pool house made from the remains of Edgecomb, and demolish the spectacular carriage house. The application to tear down the carriage house was denied. Efforts to have it moved off the property were unsuccessful, which led to the sale of the property. The Brouses pocketed $6.7 million in the sale—not too shabby a consolation for their failed efforts and a small victory for historic preservation. The carriage house remains extant as possibly the only one surviving in Southampton Village that has not been adaptively reused. It is in fair condition, however, poorly maintained and used only for storage. It seems strange that the owners of By The Way since the 1960s haven’t also shown care for this incredibly large, architecturally sophisticated and distinctive carriage house.

The home is currently owned by Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Belfer. In the 1930s, Arthur B. Belfer (1907–1993) immigrated to America from Poland and, after working in the feather business, began a family oil dynasty in the 1950s. Years later, his son Robert, after attending Columbia and Harvard Universities, would become a director of Enron, the company that changed from one involved with generating energy into a complicated financial conglomerate that collapsed in 2001. Nonetheless, the Belfer family was left on solid ground thanks in part to solid real estate investments and the partial ownership of another oil and gas exploration company.

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