Close the Barn Door

The Wall Street Journal last week visited the South Fork for a story about “a nation obsessed with supersizing” and places, particularly enclaves of wealth, that are “scrambling to curb mansion bloat.” East Hampton, in fact, led the narrative, with an advisory panel raising the idea of cutting the limit on house sizes from 20,000 to 10,000 square feet.

As Planning Director Jeremy Samuelson noted in the story, the current limit is actually larger than the town’s ban on big-box stores, which is just 15,000 square feet. Apparently, for some people, the idea of living in a Walmart would be unappealing, in part because it’s just a little too cramped.

The Journal points out that this region isn’t alone: “Towns from Aspen to Martha’s Vineyard are in a big-house brouhaha. Critics say mushrooming mansions cramp scenic vistas and local charm, consume excessive energy and inflate prices.

“The challenge? The horse — or rather, the thoroughbred — has already left the barn.”

But, of course, it’s a big barn, and there’s a parade of horses, with many more to come. To follow the analogy through: Closing the barn door now won’t recapture any of the lost steeds. But it might stem the seemingly endless flow still galloping this way.

At some point — books could be written about when — the South Fork lost its battle with greed and allowed its charm to be swallowed up by lustful suitors. Today, “quaint” still can be found here, but it’s much more of a recluse than it once was. It’s much easier to find evidence of grotesque affluence, the real estate equivalence of “manspreading” in a pair of silk shorts: tacky at any price, taking up space needlessly and offensively.

The conversation in East Hampton Town began moving toward limits, with the working group allowing a trial balloon to escape skyward — and the development community came back hard, objecting to restrictions on residential spread, falling back on the notion that private property and market pressures are all that really matter. Translation: Leave that barn door wide open, thank you very much.

Perspective matters here. At one Planning Board discussion on affordable housing, the notion of creating an entire town made up only of the wealthy and a permanent underclass that serves it was brought up as a cautionary tale — as if it weren’t already playing out in front of our eyes.

A “house in the Hamptons” has always been aspirational, and the growing income disparity has allowed more and more newly minted millionaires to find their way from Wall Street to Toilsome Lane. What’s different now? The address isn’t enough: It has to be the setting for vulgar, porcine edifices, blown out to whatever the edges are, a giant middle finger to neighbors and the world.

The town should move to stop that. It should encourage the creation of affordable housing with urgency, and not just for economic reasons. Modest homes on modest lots are not just workforce housing — they can be entry points for families with less ravenous appetites. People who actually make a community rather than a destination.

Is it too late? A pessimist would say that if you’re asking the question, you’ve already acknowledged that all is lost. An optimist, however, would point out that perfect can’t be the enemy of good — there are plenty of battlefields all around us to testify to the lost battles, but the war is yet to be won.

Town officials should gird for battle, recognize that excess is a cancer that kills, and begin the hard work of slamming shut the barn door, if only to preserve what barn is left.