CLOSE
Tags Posts tagged with "Patty Yantz"

Patty Yantz

by -
0 190
1 of 7
'Mellow Meadow' by Patricia Yantz
'The Sentinel' by Patricia Yantz
'Sundown Serenity' by Patricia Yantz
'Bluebird' by Patricia Yantz
'Autumn Ablaze' by Patricia Yantz
'Stony Brook Harbor, High Tide' by Patricia Yantz
'Fields of Avalon' by Patricia Yantz

By Irene Ruddock

Patricia Yantz

Patricia Yantz, a Three Village resident, is known for her acrylic and pastel landscape paintings. A former secondary art teacher at Sachem School District, she is also involved in many community organizations such as the Three Village Historical Society where she was a former president. 

Presently, she is a joint coordinator of the Candlelight House Tour, on the Steering Committee for the Long Island Museum, and member of the Three Village Garden Club. She belongs to art organizations such as the Setauket Artists, North Shore Art Guild, LIMarts, and Smithtown Township Art Council. She especially enjoys teaching acrylic and watercolor classes at Ward Melville High School’s Continuing Education Program.

W hen did you first become interested in art? 

At an early age I used to watch my father draw wood boats and create his own designs of boats he wanted to build. As I sat next to him, he gave me some drawing paper and I started to draw boats too!

Who were your other role models? 

Besides my father, Sister Lucy at Saint Mary’s High School in Manhasset inspired me to pursue art in college. Later in life, I was inspired by our local icon Joe Reboli. I watched as he took a common view, such as a road or mailbox, and transform it into a masterpiece! It was truly magical. Lastly, the person who helped me find my artistic niche was you! My involvement with the Setauket Artists along with your constant encouragement and faith in me has made all the difference.

It is kind of you to say that! Thank you. Why did you choose acrylics and pastels as your medium? 

I switched from oil many years ago for health and safety reasons. Also, after my cat walked across my freshly painted oil painting and then walked all over my new rug, I decided it was time for a change!

What feelings do you want to evoke when people see your paintings? 

The most important thing I want the people to come away with is a sense of peace. I think color changes the emotion and the feel of a painting, so I often work in warm colors to uplift the viewer.

Where do you like to paint and why?

 Living in this beautiful area is a constant source of inspiration to me. Painting it is a natural outgrowth of my environment. I am truly in awe by the stunning sunsets, meandering waterways and lavish landscapes that invoke a sense of place as well as a sense of peace. I am especially drawn to the creek at West Meadow, Avalon Nature Preserve, and Stony Brook Harbor.

How would you describe your work? 

I have learned so much about tonal aspects and value which I try to incorporate into my paintings. I try to harmonize or unify colors in terms of light and atmosphere. Yet, I do not use a limited palette, but instead look for atmosphere and temperature when creating.

You have won many awards. Tell us about an award that has meant a lot to you? 

I was recently given the incredible award of the 2021 Honored Artist voted on by the Setauket Artists. The artists gave me encouragement, faith, and support over the years which has been a vital part in motivating me to continue this artistic journey.

Why is art important in the world? 

I feel art is so important because imagination is the beginning of creating. This creativity engages the mind and enables alternative ways of thinking and seeing. With so much emphasis on critical thinking, creating art makes one think not only critically, but analytically which is often overlooked in today’s world. Art is a bridge where artists can, through their paintings, communicate universally to reach people around the world.

Where can we see your work?

 I am currently showing my work at the 41st annual Setauket Artists Exhibition at the Setauket Neighborhood House until November 14th. I will be part of “Celebrate the Season” exhibit at the Reboli Center in Stony Brook, “Deck the Halls” at Gallery North in Setauket, and the “2021 Atelier Invitational” at The Atelier at Flowerfield in St. James. To get in touch with me, you may contact setauketartists.com.

by -
0 174
'Feeling Blue,' acrylic, by Cheryl Cass-Zampiva Image courtesy of Mills Pond Gallery

Smithtown Township Arts Council’s Mills Pond Gallery highlights the talents of 67 of its artist members with its annual Member Artist Showcase exhibit of original fine art for sale from June 19 through July 18. Exhibiting artists hail from 40 communities across Long Island as well as New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina and Florida.

A wide variety of media is represented including acrylic, digital art, ink etching, mixed media, oil, pastel, photography, plaster & found objects, silk dyes on silk, solar plate etching, torn paper collage, and watercolor.

‘Christmas Cactus’
Photograph
By Kathee Shaff Kelson, Stony Brook
Image courtesy of Mills Pond Gallery

“The Member Artist Showcase is an important show to me. We have such an abundance of talent in our membership,” said Allison Cruz, Executive Director of the Mills Pond Gallery. “I love to give artists the opportunity to choose a piece of their work to exhibit. I know artists are usually under many constraints of Juried Exhibits due to requirements of style or medium or size. It is great to give them an opportunity to show something that maybe they haven’t had the opportunity to exhibit due to those constraints or maybe something they have created using a new medium or style. I am always excited to see what they enter!”  

This year’s juror is freelance art consultant and curator Pam J. Brown, the Director and Curator of The Anthony Giordano Gallery at Dowling College for 16 years. Brown will choose four winning artists to participate in a future Winners Exhibit at the gallery.

Participating artists include Marsha Abrams, Lucia Alberti, Tina Anthony, Ross Barbera, Shain Bard, Ron Becker, Renee Blank, Kyle Blumenthal, Joyce Bressler, Alberto Jorge Carol, Cheryl Cass-Zampiva, Linda Ann Catucci, Carol Ceraso, Rocco Citeno, Donna Corvi, Teresa Cromwell, Tania Degen, Julie Doczi, Beth Drucker, JoAnne Dumas, Karin Dutra, Paul Edelson, Ellen Ferrigno, Donna Gabusi, Vivian Gattuso, Maureen Ginipro, Jan Guarino, Margaret Henning, David Herman, David Jaycox, Jr., Modern Fossils: Judith Marchand & David P. Horowitz, James Kelson, Kathee Shaff Kelson, Myungja Anna Koh, Susan Kozodoy Silkowitz, Ann Legere, Frank Loehr, Terence McManus, Paul Mele, Margaret Minardi, Karen George Mortimore, Annette Napolitano, Diane Oliva, Catherine Rezin, Robin Roberts, Robert Roehrig, Lori Scarlatos, Gia Schifano, Anita G. Schnirman, Joan Schwartzman, Kenneth Schwartzman, Hillary Serota Needle, Faith Skelos, Gisela Skoglund, Mike Stanko, Madeline Stare, John Taylor, Tracy Tekverk, Oxana Uryasev, Nicholas Valentino, Daniel van Benthuysen, Mary Ann Vetter, Pamela Waldroup, Don Weber, M. Ellen Winter, Patty Yantz, and Theodora Zavala.

“This show is about celebrating the talents of our artist members and I feel it does just that,” said Cruz.

The Mills Pond Gallery, 660 Route 25A, St. James presents its Member Artist Showcase from June 19 to July 18. The public is invited to an opening reception on Saturday, June 19 from noon to 2 p.m. or 2 to 4 p.m. (reservations are required) to meet the exhibiting artists and view their work. Admission to the gallery is always free. The gallery is open Wednesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed Mondays and  Tuesdays and July 3 and 4. Please call 631-862-6575 or visit www.millspondgallery.org for more information.

by -
0 109
'Love Spark' by Ron Becker

By Heidi Sutton

It’s time to celebrate the best of the best. This Saturday, the Smithtown Township Arts Council opens its annual Winner’s Fine Art Showcase at the Mills Pond Gallery in St. James. The show will highlight the talents of seven artists who were prize winners in the gallery’s 2019 and 2020 juried exhibitions. 

It is a show that Allison Cruz, Executive Director of the Mills Pond Gallery, looks forward to every year. 

“I always love the Winners Showcase! It gives us an opportunity to enjoy a larger body of work from these talented prize winning artists,” she said.

‘For My Mother’ by Caryn Coville

“For the artists, it is an excellent opportunity to share work with gallery visitors that they either haven’t shown or maybe was not selected in recent juried exhibitions. For me, this is an opportunity to find out more about the artists … maybe find out that they work in different mediums or styles other than those exhibited in our shows. It is always an adventure!”

This year’s Winners Showcase features artists from Long Island as well as Idaho, Buffalo, Maine and New York City. 

“The out of town artists will show only a few works in this show … we could not expect them to pack and ship many pieces to the gallery,” explained Cruz. “We are grateful for their participation and the opportunity to see what artists across the country are creating! The public can explore a larger body of their work on our website.”

Participating artists and the juried exhibits they were in are: Ron Becker (Deer Park) “Celebrating Creativity”; Caryn Coville (Greenvale) “Hand Drawn”; Lupe Galván (Idaho) “Hand Drawn”; Yuke Li (New York) “Transformations: Figures of Our Other Selves”; Joseph A. Miller (Buffalo) “Contemporary Realism”; Holden Willard (Maine) “Transformations: Figures of Our Other Selves”; and Patty Yantz (Setauket)  “Water, Water Everywhere.”

Cruz invites the public to come see this amazing exhibit. “There is nothing like standing in front of these original works of art … seeing the brushstrokes … and feeling the passions and the messages in their pieces. Enjoy the exhibit and experience Art’s capacity to bring joy and hope in challenging times.”

Mills Pond Gallery, 660 Route 25A, St. James presents the Winners Fine Art Showcase from May 8 to June 6. Gallery hours are Wednesday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and weekends from noon to 4 p.m. Social distancing and the use of masks is required and limited numbers of visitors (25) are allowed in the gallery at one time (5 per gallery room). Admission to the gallery is always free. 

For more information, call 631-862-6575 or visit www.millspondgallery.org.

Images courtesy of Mills Pond Gallery

by -
0 78
Mort Rosen, pictured at last year’s Spirits Tour, will be bestowed the Gayle Becher Memorial Award. Photo by Anthony White

By Donna Newman

On Wednesday, March 27, the Three Village Historical Society will host its 42nd annual Awards Dinner honoring volunteers, local businesses, society members, area residents and youngsters who have made significant contributions helping to preserve the shared heritage within the Three Village area. 

After four decades, one might wonder if it is getting more difficult to find honorees, especially because a person may only be honored once in a given category. TVHS President Steve Healy said it wasn’t a problem. 

“You would think that,” Healy said, “but it’s not difficult to find honorees. The Three Village area is packed with people who help others and contribute to their community. We are truly blessed. The society has just over 450 members … and we run more than 30 events and functions per year that bring in new volunteers and first-time attendees. Our membership grows organically through these events.”

Steven Fontana is this year’s recipient of the R. Sherman Mills Young Historian Award. Photo by Anthony White

Nominations come from TVHS members as well as the general public. Awards are given in a variety of areas, from significant contributions to the preservation and conservation of our natural environment, to fostering interest in local history, to the advancement of quality of life and pride of place, to dedicated service and generosity of volunteer time.

Nearly 30 nominations were received, according to Janette Handley, co-chair of the Awards Committee. She noted that the Robert Cushman Murphy Memorial Award, inaugurated in 1987, has only been bestowed 10 times.  

“That’s the award that we find difficult to give out,” Handley said. “We’re very careful to whom we give that award.” 

As described on the awards dinner invitation, it is made “in recognition of significant contributions to the preservation and conservation of our natural environment and to the fostering of a personal identification with the natural heritage of the Three Villages.”

It will be awarded this year to the Setauket Harbor Task Force, formed with the goal of improving water quality in Setauket Harbor, and whose members have held three Setauket Harbor Days to raise awareness for that endeavor.  

TBR’s own Michael Tessler will receive the Kate Wheeler Strong Memorial Award for his creation – together with TBR News Media – of the film “One Life to Give.” This historical re-enactment of little known events during the American Revolution does much to publicize the important role played by area residents. Handley spoke of how pleased Tessler was to receive the notification email.

“Not having a current address, we emailed him,” Handley said. “He’s in California. We got a wonderful email back saying he’s very sorry he can’t come, but he would like to do a video ‘Thank You.’ That’s the first time we’ve had anything like that.” 

“Though I’m far away living in Los Angeles, the spirit of Setauket and its citizen spies remain a guiding compass on my own personal journey to preserve history through multiplatform storytelling,” said Tessler.

According to the Awards Committee report, the TVHS Community Award, when bestowed, is “in appreciation of valuable contributions to the advancement of the quality of life in the Three Villages and the fostering of pride in the rich historical heritage of our homes and lands.” This year it will go to Leah Dunaief, publisher of TBR News Media, but Handley clarified that the recipient is the individual, apart from the position she holds. 

“Leah has received many awards on behalf of the paper, but this award is not for the paper. Leah is still there – and expanding,” said Handley. “She’s involved in so many things, and we feel very strongly that this award is for her.” 

The Maggie Gillie Memorial Award goes to a society member. This year Patty Yantz will be recognized for her many years of service. Yantz has held the offices of president and vice president, and has co-chaired the society’s biggest annual fundraiser – the Candlelight House Tour – for the last five years. 

The Gayle Becher Memorial Award goes to a volunteer. It will honor Morton Rosen for his generosity of spirit, taking part in many society events over the years, including the annual Spirits Tour, where he has enacted at least 11 historical figures. 

“The award is especially meaningful to me,” Rosen said, “because [my wife] Bernice and I worked with Gayle when she organized the Discovery Camp Days program of summer activities for children.”  

Steven Fontana, a sophomore at Ward Melville High School, is this year’s honoree for the R. Sherman Mills Young Historian Award, presented for contributions to the society by a young person. Steven has assisted with traffic flow at many society events over the past four years.

Four community award certificates will be handed out as well. 

The first, for repurposing a building used as a commercial structure in a way that contributes to the historic beauty of the area, will be awarded to The Reboli Center, 64 Main St., Stony Brook for the conversion of a historic bank building to a community center for the enjoyment of art and history. 

The second, for house restoration or renovation and preservation in keeping with original architectural integrity, will be awarded to Maura and Matthew Dunn for their home, The Holly Tree House, at 246 Christian Ave. in Stony Brook. 

The third award, the President’s Volunteer Certificate, goes to Marcia Seaman for her dedication to her volunteer bookkeeping position at the society for the past five years. 

The fourth, a Special Community Service Award, will go to David Prestia and his family, owners of Bagel Express and Express Catering in East Setauket, for their generous donations of food for many society events over the years. 

The Awards Dinner will be held at the Three Village Inn, 150 Main St., Stony Brook from 6 to 9 p.m. on March 27. A three-course dinner will be served, including a Caesar salad with rosemary focaccia croutons, choice of entree (pan-seared salmon with baby spinach and beurre blanc sauce, seared breast of free-range chicken with haricots verts and saffron potatoes or sliced Chateau steak with red wine sauce with Yukon Gold potato puree and baby carrots) and an apple crumb tartlet with whipped cream for dessert. The evening will feature a cash bar and eight raffle prizes. 

Please join TVHS in honoring these worthy awardees. Tickets are $65 per person, $60 members. To order, visit www.TVHS.org or call 631-751-3730.

 

by -
0 42
1 of 4

By Rita J. Egan

For four decades the Three Village Historical Society has been illuminating the way to the holiday season with its Candlelight House Tour, showcasing historic properties dressed in all their festive finery by a team of local decorators.

On Saturday, Dec. 1, ticket holders can take part in the society’s 40th annual Candlelight House Tour. Titled 40 Years Honoring a Sense of Place, the tour will include five homes in East Setauket, the grist mill at Frank Melville Memorial Park and the historical society’s headquarters on North Country Road.

This year’s tour is the seventh one organized by co-chairs Patty Cain, historical society vice president, and Patty Yantz, a former president. Yantz said the title of the tour is a natural fit for the society that offers various programs that educate residents about former residents and local history, which in turn gives them a sense of place.

“People can come and go, but that history still lives on and is hopefully appreciated by generations to come,” Yantz said.

One of the homes on the tour this year was featured during the first Candlelight House Tour and is owned by the same owner, Eva Glaser. Glaser was one of the first co-chairs of the event and came up with the idea to hold a candlelight tour to raise money for the refurbishment of The Setauket Neighborhood House, where the historical society was initially housed. “It’s a treat to have her home on it,” Cain said.

This year’s tour includes other homes from past tours, mostly from the event’s first decade, and even though the owners have changed, the historical aspect of the houses hasn’t, according to Yantz and Cain.

“Some of these houses are favorites of tour-goers and the community, so they do like to see them again,” Cain said.

Cain said in the past some recently built homes were included on the tour because they were situated on properties of historical significance, but this year all the houses are significant on their own merits. The co-chair said they all date back 100 years or more, and the owners have maintained the unique historical character for each.

Among the spots are one structure that belonged to a sea captain and a beach house that overlooks Conscience Bay. Cain said a Dutch Colonial home that is a familiar sight to locals will also be one of the stops giving ticket holders the opportunity to see what the new owner has done with it.

The theme of each house is different either depending on the décor or the architecture of the home, according to Yantz, and each spot highlights and honors the area.

“Not only do we get to see the houses but sometimes we get a glimmer or concept of who built the house,” she said. “We get the history. We get an idea of who came here before [us], which I think is a wonderful thing in the more of a transient world we live in. Sometimes it’s very nice to be very grounded.”

Cain said she thinks attendees will take away a lot from this year’s event.

“I hope what they get out of the tour this year is to really see a beautiful sampling of the historic homes that we have in the area and can appreciate the fact that each owner has really cherished the fact that it is a historic home, and they have maintained the bones of the house,” Cain said.

The 40th annual Candlelight House Tour will be held on Dec. 1 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (the Nov. 30 evening tour is sold out). Tickets are $50 per person, $45 members. An optional breakfast at the Old Field Club from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. is available for an additional $20. For more information or to order tickets, call 631-751-3730, email [email protected] or visit www.tvhs.org. Tickets may be picked up at the Three Village Historical Society located at 93 North Country Road, Setauket.

Photos by Rita J. Egan, 2017

by -
0 84
1 of 5
A home decorated for the holidays during last year’s tour. Photo from TVHS
Co-chairs of the event, from left, Patty Yantz and Patty Cain Photo from TVHS
A fireplace decorated for the holidays at last year’s event. Photo by Heidi Sutton
The Presepio at the St. James R.C. Church last year. Photo by Irene Ruddock
Above, one of the homes at last year's Candlelight House Tour

By Rita J. Egan

The folks at the Three Village Historical Society are busy getting ready for a holiday favorite, their annual Candlelight House Tour scheduled for Dec. 1 and 2. This year the theme will be Visions of East Setauket: Then & Now, and the tours will include five homes on Shore Road in East Setauket and Poquott as well as a stop at the St. James R.C. Church Parish Center. The event provides the opportunity for participants to explore historic homes and properties and enjoy stunning holiday décor.

Steve Healy, president of the historical society, said this will be the 39th year the society is hosting the event, and he looks forward to it every year. “We get a great response, the houses are all different, and it’s a very festive occasion,” he said.

This year’s tour is the sixth one organized by co-chairs Patty Cain, historical society vice president, and Patty Yantz, a former president. Yantz said when it came to this year’s theme the pair were inspired by the book published by the organization, “Then & Now: The Three Villages,” which includes photos of various locations in the area as they looked in the past and how they appear now.

“We always like to highlight our archives and what we’re about,” Yantz said. “We like to take historic areas and look at how it’s developed.”

The tour has been filled with historic homes since its beginnings when decorator Eva Glaser and Mary Lou Mills came up with a way to raise funds for the Setauket Neighborhood House, which was in disrepair at the time. The structure, located at 95 Main Street, was the original home of the Three Village Historical Society’s headquarters.

The major fundraiser for the society, both Cain and Yantz said over the years more and more homeowners have offered their houses to be put on display. While decorators work on each home, many homeowners contribute input when it comes to the decorating.

Cain said she is always looking for homes to include, and when residents offer up their houses for the event, she takes into consideration its historical importance and what other structures are already included. The co-chairs and decorators work for months to prepare for the weekend, and Cain said they always worry if they did enough and if there are an adequate number of volunteers. However, every year the first night proves all the hard work was worth it.

“When it’s 6 o’clock Friday night, and the candles are lit in the houses, and the first guests come in, to me that’s the best part,” Cain said.

For many who participate in the tour, it’s an event that kicks off the holiday season; something Yantz agrees with. “I’m always amazed at how beautifully decorated the homes are,” she said. “That to me is why I just can’t wait to see them. For me personally, it just sets off the whole holiday feeling and brings back childhood memories. It’s inspiring to me,” she said.

Cain said they try to mix older and newer homes on the tour; however, the newer ones must be on historic properties to be included.

Among the homes decorated for this year’s tour will be one on the land known as Tinker Bluff, which is named after the first homeowner Henry Champlin Tinker, who built a summer home overlooking Port Jefferson Harbor in the late 19th century. Another home’s west end is its original mid-1800s structure, while one house sits on a land parcel where its dock attracted Joseph Elberson, proprietor of the once local rubber factory, to buy the property to use it for a transportation line.

“There’s a lot of history here,” Cain said. “The land is history, so you may have new homes on historic land that was once a huge farm or huge shipbuilding company. It’s historic in that respect, and we’re able to bring that history to people that might not know about it.”

Visitors to St. James R.C. Church Parish Center on Route 25A will discover the church’s presepio, a tableau of life in Bethlehem at the time of Christ’s birth. A unique Italian art form, the scene goes beyond the traditional nativity and fills an entire room.

The Dec. 1 tour includes wine and hors d’oeuvres at each home from 6 to 9 p.m. and ends with a buffet and wine reception at the parish center catered by Express Catering — a branch of Setauket’s Bagel Express — from 9 to 11 p.m. Saturday includes two options of an early breakfast at the Old Field Club in East Setauket and tour or tour only. The Saturday tour ends at 4 p.m.

Tickets for Friday night and the breakfast and tour are sold out, but plenty were available for the Saturday tour at press time. Ticket prices range from $45 to $110 per person. For more information, call 631-751-3730, email [email protected] or visit www.tvhs.org. Tickets may be picked up at the Three Village Historical Society, which is located at 93 North Country Road, Setauket.

by -
0 123
Visitors wait to enter one of the homes on the tour. Photo by Heidi Sutton

By Patty Yantz and Patty Cain

The Three Village Historical Society hosted its 38th annual Candlelight House Tour last weekend. Titled Visions of Historic Setauket: A Look Back in Time, the event attracted over 1,000 visitors to our little hamlet.

This year’s tour was dedicated to four members who passed away this year, Blanche Tyler Davis, Chuck Glaser, Bruce McCauley and Elaine Stow, each of whom played a vital role within the society.

A living room is decorated for the holidays. Photo by Heidi Sutton
A living room is decorated for the holidays. Photo by Heidi Sutton

Four of the five homes featured in this year’s tour were originally owned by members of the Wells family. The tour served as a history lesson of life as it was around the pond. The ticket contains much history of the area and is a keepsake in itself. We are honored to have the kindness of the wonderful homeowners who opened up their beautiful homes decked out in holiday decor.

Gallery North and the Three Village Historical Society history center added more historical interest to the tour. We are so thankful for our generous sponsors and restaurants, and the numerous volunteers who served as decorators, house chairs, committee chairs, traffic people and docents and our staff who worked hard to make this event come to life. Without their support and generosity the tour would not be possible.

Visitors wait to enter one of the homes on the tour. Photo by Heidi Sutton
Visitors wait to enter one of the homes on the tour. Photo by Heidi Sutton

The Candlelight House Tour is the biggest fundraising event held by the society. The proceeds enable the society to continue to preserve local photographs with proceeds benefiting the society’s educational programs.

This year the Friday night tour with a reception at the Old Field Club was in such high demand that for the first time we opened a few tickets to the Friday night tour without the reception. This too proved to be successful. On Saturday people could start the tour with breakfast at the Old Field Club. The food and the views at the site set the tone for a wonderful day. The weather was perfect, the homes were perfect, the location was perfect and everyone who supported this event was perfect!

On behalf of the society, a deep heartfelt THANK YOU for all who helped make this year’s tour the success that it was. It is events like this that makes the Three Village area a wonderful place to live!

Patty Yantz and Patty Cain are the tour co-chairs of this year’s Candlelight Tour.

by -
0 208
A scene from a previous TVHS Candlelight House Tour

By Melissa Arnold

It’s hard to live in the Three Village area without noticing the beautiful neighborhoods around us. And it’s easy to fantasize about the ornate period homes. Each year, local residents team up with the Three Village Historical Society to offer visitors from across Long Island a rare, festive peek at a few of them with a Candlelight House Tour. This wonderful event, which will be held on Dec. 2 and 3 this year, has been a mainstay of the North Shore’s holiday season for almost 40 years. But it began as just a simple fundraiser.

 

A scene from last year's Candlelight House Tour. Photo form TVHS
A scene from last year’s Candlelight House Tour. Photo form TVHS

At the end of the 1970s, the Three Village Historical Society was meeting in the Setauket Neighborhood House on Main Street. The building wasn’t in the best shape, however, and members of the society starting brainstorming on ways to repair it. It was Eva Glaser who came up with a unique idea: What if they charged a small fee to take visitors inside the area’s historic homes? Elaborate holiday decorations would make the tours even more interesting, she thought. Those first tours of 1979 were a great success, and the event is now one of the historical society’s biggest annual fundraisers. Proceeds will benefit community and in-school educational programs.

“A lot of people use [the tour] as a kickoff for the holiday season since it’s always the first weekend in December,” said tour co-chair Patty Yantz. “It’s wonderful seeing families all come out together, and then go out to dinner or start their shopping for the holidays. We see people from all generations come together.” The tour features different homes every year, so you’ll never get the same experience twice. The event is so popular that Three Village homeowners are often the first to approach the society to get involved. “People are so generous in their willingness to open up their homes and be a part of the tour. We take time looking at each house on the tour and then look at the elements that they might have in common that could lead to a theme,” Yantz explained.

A scene from a previous Candlelight House Tour. Image from TVHS
A scene from a previous Candlelight House Tour. Photo from TVHS

This year’s theme, Visions of Historic Setauket: A Look Back in Time, will feature five decorated homes. Gallery North and the historical society’s building will be decorated as well. “Setauket has a perfect little historic enclave near the [Frank Melville Memorial] park, and we have a tremendous amount of photos and documents from the area in our archives,” said Patty Cain, also a tour co-chair. “The houses in the tour all circle around the [park’s] pond, which makes it possible for us to have a walking tour this year. We were very lucky.”

The participating homeowners work with volunteer professional decorators to deck the halls for the tour. Afterward, they can keep those decorations to use for years to come, Cain said. She added that Eva Glaser, the inspiration behind the original house tours, will be participating this year. Tour participants have three different times to choose from, each offering a unique experience.

Visitors enjoy a previous Candelight House tour. Image from TVHS
Visitors enjoy a previous Candelight House tour. Photo from TVHS

The darkness of Friday evening makes the lights and luminarias on the tour especially pretty. At each stop, hors d’oeuvres and wine will be served courtesy of local restaurants, followed by a reception at the Old Field Club in Setauket. Those hoping for an early start can take a Saturday morning tour that begins with breakfast at the club. There’s also an option for the tour alone in the afternoon. Each tour allows visitors the freedom to park wherever they’d like, and to visit the homes in any order.

Guides will greet visitors at each home and take them through in small groups to keep the experience intimate. Once inside, there’s a specific path to follow, where guides will explain the special elements of each room. In addition, the tour admission ticket is actually a historical booklet full of information and photos. Yantz said that many families keep these booklets over the years as both a historical record and memento. Admission to the house tour also includes access to SPIES!, an interactive exhibit about the Culper Spy Ring, and the Chicken Hill: A Community Lost in Time exhibit at the historical society, as well as admission to the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook, Yantz said. “I think the best part about it is hearing all the wonderful comments from people that come out. There’s never been a complaint on the weekend of the tours, and the joy on people’s faces, seeing people come together, is very special. It’s such a positive force in the community,” she said.

The Three Village Historical Society’s 38th annual Candlelight House Tour will be held the evening of Friday, Dec. 2, and the morning and afternoon of Saturday, Dec. 3. Depending on the option you choose, tickets range from $40 to $100 per person. For more information, please call 631-751-3730, email [email protected] or visit www.tvhs.org.

Prev12Page 2 of 2
TBR News Media is your local news and entertainment website.
We provide you with the latest breaking news and information for your community.
Contact us: [email protected]

Most Viewed

©