Crowd Gathers to Fund Restoration of Amagansett Coast Guard Station

Photo: David Lys, Ben Krupinski, Isabel Carmichael, Bonnie Krupinski and Michael Cinque at the Clinton Academy.

On Friday night, friends of the Amagansett Life Saving and Coast Guard Station gathered at the opening of “June 13, 1942: Saboteurs Land in Amagansett,” a special exhibition at the Clinton Academy in East Hampton.

The East Hampton Historical Society curated the exhibition. Tickets and donations raised at Friday’s opening celebration benefitted the ongoing restoration of the Coast Guard Station on Atlantic Beach in Amagansett.

Included in the exhibition are news clippings, log books and artifacts that tell the story of four Nazi spies who disembarked from a submarine, on June 13, 1942, in a boat laden with explosives on a mission to destroy U.S. domestic targets. The exhibition will be on view at the Clinton Academy through October 13.

The Coast Guard Station was built on its current site at Atlantic Beach in 1902. After being de-commissioned in 1944, it sat abandoned on the beach until 1966, when Joel Carmichael decided to restore the station and make it his home. The structure was then moved to Carmichael’s property on Bluff Road, less than a mile away. The Carmichael family lived there until Joel Carmichael’s death in 2006.

In 2007, the Carmichael estate donated the structure to the Town of East Hampton and it was moved back to its original location, where it is today.

The Coast Guard Station has been undergoing renovation and restoration during the intervening years and 99 percent of the exterior work is complete said Amagansett Life-Saving Station and Coast Guard Station Society Chairman David Lys at the reception on Friday.

“It’s an ongoing effort,” Lys said, “and very much a part of East Hampton History. We want to finish the restoration by next spring.” Interior work remains to be funded and completed. The building will then serve as a meeting and exhibition space for community events as well as an administrative office for the Town of East Hampton Life Guards and their chief, John Ryan.

After Lys’ address to guests, a spiffy man with a Coast Guard pin and a military haircut made his way to the front of the crowd and introduced himself to David Lys.

“How can I help you?” a reporter overheard the mystery man say to Lys. “I’m a 30 year veteran of the Coast Guard.”

It turned out, that the volunteer was none other than Paul Gerecke, Ret. Commander of the U.S. Coast Guard, and a resident of Sag Harbor. Together, Lys and Gerecke hope to bring a decommissioned antique life-saving boat from Cape Hatteras to the Amagansett Coast Guard Station where it will become a permanent part of the building’s historical collection.