About six weeks ago, the North Sea Maritime Center delivered a payment of over $763,000 to the Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund, fulfilling the center’s stewardship commitment to help restore the historic Tupper Boathouse on North Sea Road.
“Briefly, the town had planned to to demolish it,” says Mark Matthews, president of the center’s board of directors, “but it was considered historical, and it was not demolished. Then it was clobbered during Sandy, but they found some money from New York State to make some repairs to it. Meanwhile, we developed a business plan to run and started a nonprofit corporation. In December it’ll be three years we signed a stewardship agreement with the town of Southampton.”
The effort kicks off what is anticipated to be a year-long renovation of the historic boathouse, which has a notably storied past in its own right. It was originally built nearly a century ago by Ned Tupper and used for constructing, selling and storing repaired wooden boats until it was sold in the late 1950s. Decades later, it became the Old Conscience Point Inn, where Manhattan publicist Lizzie Grubman infamously backed her car into a crowd of people. According to Matthews, the center was formed nearly a decade ago as a nonprofit to fundraise for the renovation of the boathouse, as well as help to plan and provide programming surrounding both a maritime and historical focus.
Programs run the gamut and will be available for both adults and children, including yoga classes, sailing instruction, history lectures, boat-building classes, winter movie series, tours, and harbor cruises.
For nearly a decade the North Sea Maritime Center’s board of directors has worked to not only renovate the Tupper Boathouse (which will include both museum spaces as well as spaces used for additional events) but to provide year-round programming for residents and visitors alike. (Rendering courtesy of Easton Architects; photos courtesy of North Sea Maritime Center)
About 250 donors, businesses and individuals helped to raise the funds necessary for the renovation, with the Southampton CPF paying the remaining $5.5 million to needed to complete the $6.4 million project.
“All that’s left is the shell,” Matthews says about the extent of the renovation project. “It needs a new roof, new windows, new siding, and it obviously will be a finished space, but it will again be a utilitarian building. There will be a boating facility, a lecture hall, classrooms. Equally important, one of the things we were able to do was convince the town and the CPF board that the old apartment that was on the south side will continue to be an apartment, with the thinking of providing housing for an executive director.”
Construction is expected to begin this month, with completion of the restored building and a ribbon-cutting celebration anticipated by summer 2027.
“We are absolutely increasing the accessibility of water sports and water activities and education about water,” Matthews says. “Everything from shellfish growing to fishing. We live in a wonderful, wonderful place. We do. Not enough people know how wonderful the water is. So, we’re we’re this is part of our mission.”
A groundbreaking ceremony will be on Thursday, July 23, at the 1976 North Sea Road location.
