Suffolk Closeup - Gardiner's Island An Ecological And Historical Jewel

By Karl Grossman

I’ve been to beautiful islands—Bora Bora, and Moorea in the South Pacific; the Greek islands of Paros, Mykonos and Santorini; the New England islands of Cuttyhunk and Nantucket; Virgin Gorda and Tobago in the Caribbean. But just off Long Island’s shores is a gem, splendorous, an exquisite island that rivals any. It’s been aptly called a paradise.

Gardiner’s Island—an ecological and historical jewel. What will its future be?

The 3,300-acre island is home to hundreds of bird species, freshwater ponds and lagoons, meadows, and the 1,000-acre Bostwick Forest that is the largest stand of White Oak in the Northeast. It was the oldest English settlement in what’s now New York State. Among its structures: a windmill, brilliant white, built in 1795, by Nathaniel Dominy 5^th  which is on the National Historic Register, and a carpenter’s shed that’s the oldest wood-frame building in New York. 

Gardiner’s Island, its nature, its historic buildings —breathtaking. 

I first went to Gardiner’s Island nearly 50 years ago. 

Robert David Lion Gardiner, the “16^th Lord of the Manor” of the island, purchased from the Montaukett Indians in 1639 and privately held by the Gardiner family since, welcomed a big camp-out of Boy Scouts to it in 1971. I covered the camp-out and interviewed Mr. Gardiner. The next year, I got to know him pretty well when he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in the lst C.D. on the Conservative Party ticket against Democratic incumbent Otis Pike in protest to Mr. Pike’s effort to make Gardiner’s Island a federally preserved National Monument.  

In 1974, I wrote and presented a 10-part, five-hour television series aired on WLIW/21 on Long Island and WPIX/11 in New York City titled “Can Suffolk Be Saved?” It was about the eastward tide of development on Long Island and whether all of Suffolk County could avoid being enveloped in sprawl. I started it on Gardiner’s Island declaring it a “time capsule” for Long Island. I interviewed Mr. Gardiner for the series and afterwards again on TV and for print.

Mr. Gardiner, who died in 2004 at 93, was an excellent steward of Gardiner’s Island. 

The island is now owned by Mr. Gardiner’s niece, Alexandra Gardiner Creel, who has also been a superb steward of Gardiner’s Island. She is a strong environmentalist with a master’s degree from the Yale School of Forestry. A great environmentalist, too, was her late husband, Robert Goelet (he died last year), former president of the American Museum of Natural History, New York Zoological Society and the New York Historical Society, too.

After Mr. Gardiner’s death, a conservation easement covering more than 95% of the island was arranged in 2005 with the Town of East Hampton. It is for 20 years—expiring in less than five years. It bars development on the island which earlier was upzoned to five-acre zoning.

Lee Koppelman, the former long-time Suffolk County planner, has described Gardiner’s Island as “perhaps the most important offshore island on the entire Atlantic seashore from Maine to Florida.” Among his recommendations for preserving it has been having “development rights” purchased by government—the basis of the Suffolk County Farmland Preservation Program. He has emphasized: “The overriding concern is for the long-term future.”

The Goelet family—there is a son and a daughter—are committed to preserving the island and keeping it within the family. They want it “preserved…in perpetuity.”

The Goelet family has enormous wealth with ownership of significant real estate in New York City. It has the bucks to keep Gardiner’s Island preserved privately.

But Gardiner’s Island has not had a financially seamless history. During the Depression, the Gardiner family was unable to pay a mortgage taken out on the island. In 1937 it was announced that Gardiner’s Island would be put up for sale. One account stated that there was “’widespread interest’ by ‘out-of-town parties,’ one of which, for example, ambitiously proposed to convert the island into an American Monte Carlo with a casino, hotel and race track.” The auction didn’t happen. Mr. Gardiner’s aunt, Sarah Diodati Gardiner, came to the rescue and purchased it from executors. 

A wise future course to insure this exquisite and highly important island, ecologically and historically, would be Dr. Koppelman’s suggestion of sale of development rights.

Even for the very wealthy, over the long-term—over centuries—there are financial ups and downs. With development rights purchase, the Goelets and their descendants would retain full ownership and full control of the island. The only change would be—as it works with Suffolk’s Farmland Preservation Program—a covenant legally requiring the island have no development in perpetuity. There would be, in effect, a permanent conservation easement for Gardiner’s Island. 

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.