Amagansett Life-Saving Station
May 25, 2021
The Peconic Land Trust may not come to mind when you think about historical structures, but preserving our heritage has been a part of our mission from the beginning.
In December 2006, Joel & Isabel Carmichael donated the Amagansett Life-Saving Station to the Trust. The ultimate goal was to donate the historic building to the Town of East Hampton and move it back to its original location.
In 1902, the station was built on Atlantic Avenue as one of 30 life-saving stations along the South Shore of Long Island. It was manned by members of the U.S. Life-Saving Service and later the U.S. Coast Guard. They responded to ships in distress and were even involved in the discovery of Nazi agents during WWII.
After WWII, the Amagansett Life-Saving Station was abandoned and later auctioned off by the U.S. Coast Guard. Joel Carmichael purchased the station in 1966 and moved it to Bluff Road to be used as a summer residence. The Carmichaels reached out to the Trust in the early 2000s to discuss the preservation of the building.
In 2007, the station was relocated to Atlantic Avenue, and the Town of East Hampton began a multi-year restoration. Today, it's a public museum dedicated to the historical preservation of the building and to all who served there. You can visit the museum on summer weekends from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
