SELECTED NEWS 2022-2023
Forward Momentum: Updates for 8 Previously Listed 11 Most Endangered Historic Places
The Brooks-Park Art and Nature Center, Inc. is focused on the historic significance of the home and studios of American artists James Brooks and Charlotte Park, who lived and worked in Long Island’s Springs community of East Hampton, New York. Working closely with the Town of East Hampton, the Brooks-Park Arts and Nature Center is currently negotiating a licensing agreement for the usage and revitalization of the property. Our goal is to restore and/or reinterpret the existing structures for habitable use that will include diverse programming and a natural environment open to the public for quiet enjoyment.
A building conditions report developed in 2023 by the historic preservationists Jan Hird Pokorny Associates, Inc. was submitted to the Town Board of East Hampton. The report provides a summary of recommended interventions and outlines an estimated budget for the restoration of the house and studios. We anticipate the stabilization of the buildings as well as all necessary repairs and redesign to go forward with funding from multiple sources, both public and private. Once the licensing agreement is finalized, we will embark on a robust fundraising plan.
Brooks Park Pair by Fitzhugh Karol, commissioned by Preservation League of NYS
Brooks Park Pair, Fitzhugh Karol, carved cedar, 80 x 11 x 7 inches
PRESERVATION LEAGUE OF NYS
September 2023
Katy Peace
This pair of carvings by Fitzhugh Karol was inspired by the roofline of James Brooks’ studio. Together, these two carved cedars, cut from the forest in Springs, are representative of the collaborative creative life of James Brooks and Charlotte Park. Brooks and Park were both well known and well regarded Abstract Expressionist painters who settled in the East Hampton hamlet of Springs in the mid-20th Century. They were close with other local artists like Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner — but sadly their live/work spaces were not preserved like those of their more famous friends. Vacant and left to deteriorate since 2010, the James Brooks and Charlotte Park Home & Studios remains at risk — but the future is looking bright for this important historic site.
Brooks-Park Restoration Comes With $3 Million Price Tag, But Worth Saving
BEHIND THE HEDGES
March 2023
Taylor K. Vecsey
The message to the East Hampton Town Board was clear after a conditions report on the former home, studios and guest house of Abstract Expressionist artists James Brooks and Charlotte Park: Much can and should be saved.
The Springs property, owned by the town, has had historic designation for nearly 10 years, but little progress has been made in restoring or maintaining the four buildings, seen as important time capsules for the artistic movement. As they continued to deteriorate and have been subjected to vandalism over the years, questions on whether the town should invest what has grown to now an estimated $3 million have arisen.
“As a preservationist, please save these buildings,” Michael Devonshire, an architectural conservator with 40 years of experience in historic preservation, told the town board on Tuesday, March 21. His firm, Jan Hird Pokorny Associates (JHPA), which has also worked on the Nathaniel Rogers House in Bridgehampton, prepared a building conditions report, offering information on what interventions would be necessary to retain historic materials and keep the buildings as historically authentic as possible.
Dr. Klaus Ottmann Discusses Cover Art & Legacy of James Brooks
DAN'S PAPERS
January 2023
David Taylor
Following our unorthodox cover last week, the January 13, 2023 cover of Dan’s Papersfeatures a piece by late East End painter James Brooks (1906–1992).
The Missouri-born, Texas-raised and New York-settled painter is best remembered for his 1940 mural in the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia Airport, for his status as one of the Irascible 18 abstract expressionists who protested a 1950 modern art show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and for his home/studio in Springs, once shared with his artist wife Charlotte Park, that’s now considered one of America’s 11 most endangered historic places.
The art on this week’s cover, a 1982 painting titled “Eastern,” was provided to us by the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, long ahead of the painting’s inclusion in the upcoming exhibition James Brooks: A Painting Is a Real Thing, scheduled to debut at the museum on August 6.
Brooks House in Springs Makes America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places List
BEHIND THE HEDGES
May 2022
Taylor K. Vecsey
The Brooks-Park Home and Studios in East Hampton is one of 11 properties identified as the most endangered historic places in America, according to a new list from the National Trust of Historic Preservation.
“This year’s 11 sites include community anchors and sacred ground, sites of injustice and activism, and places of creative expression, with threats as varied as their types: neglect, inappropriate development, and climate change, just to name a few,” the announcement from the privately funded nonprofit organization states.
image: Brooks-Park residence in 2019, photo by T. E. McMorrow
‘Touch The Earth Lightly’: Brooks-Park House, Studios...Preservation, Or Demolition
27EAST
March 2022
Bryan Boyhan
Together, [Brooks] and Park created some of the art that helped define the nascent abstract expressionist movement in America and established Springs as an outpost of creative thought in the wilds of the East End.
But today, those buildings — the house, two studios and another outbuilding used as guest quarters — are boarded up, some with tarps on their roofs to keep out the rain and snow. Parts are in danger of collapsing in on themselves. When the Town of East Hampton acquired the 11 acres as open space back in 2013, the intention was to simply knock down the buildings that stood there.
That was until the Town Board learned of the history and provenance, and the legacy left by Brooks and Park, who died in 1992 and 2010, respectively. The town decided to preserve the buildings, recognizing the compound as a historic landmark, and dedicated $850,000 to their restoration.
In the ensuing years, neglect and vandalism have plagued the buildings to the point where the town is again considering their demolition.
SELECTed NEWS 2014-2021
Long-stalled Plans to Preserve Expressionists' Historic Home Splattered in Uncertainty
Long-stalled Plans to Preserve Expressionists' Historic Home Splattered in Uncertainty
Long-stalled Plans to Preserve Expressionists' Historic Home Splattered in Uncertainty
DAN'S PAPERS
March 2021
Timothy Bolger
Not since Hurricane Carol destroyed late abstract expressionists James Brooks’ and Charlotte Park’s beachfront studio nearly 70 years, prompting the couple to barge their cottage across Napeague Bay from Montauk to Springs, has the historic structure’s future been so cloudy.
That’s because the Town of East Hampton, which bought the 11-acre property where the house sits on Neck Path for $1.1 million in 2013, last month unexpectedly revoked its contract with Peconic Historic Preservation, Inc., a not-for-profit organization that was hired four years ago to help restore, maintain, and host programming at what is now known as Brooks Park—a move that has sparked as many interpretations as one of his surreal paintings.
Parrish Art Museum Receives James Brooks and Charlotte Park Collection
Long-stalled Plans to Preserve Expressionists' Historic Home Splattered in Uncertainty
Long-stalled Plans to Preserve Expressionists' Historic Home Splattered in Uncertainty
27EAST / THE PRESS
September 2017
The East End has long attracted legions of artists who have been drawn to the area not only for its famous light, but also for the artistic camaraderie that developed as a natural outgrowth of the large number of creative figures who set up shop here.
Among them were James Brooks and Charlotte Park.
Mr. Brooks and Ms. Park were key figures in the abstract expressionist movement beginning in the 1940s and they were also contemporaries of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner. Married in 1947, they spent their first summer on the East End that same year, in a tiny shack perched on the Montauk Bluffs. By 1957, they had moved to Springs full-time and had become active members of the artistic community.
Now, much of the artwork Mr. Brooks and Ms. Park produced during their lifetimes is coming back to the East End thanks to a unique partnership between the James and Charlotte Brooks Foundation and the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill.
East Hampton Rekindles Legacy of Two Springs Artists
Should We Preserve the Art Studios of James Brooks and Charlotte Park?
Should We Preserve the Art Studios of James Brooks and Charlotte Park?
EAST END BEACON
July 2014
Beth Young
The artists James Brooks and Charlotte Park were among the earliest notable participants in the Abstract Expressionist movement, but when their 11-acre property and studios in Springs was purchased by East Hampton Town last year, the original plan was to knock down their work spaces and turn the property into a preserve.
But artists in East Hampton, many of whom knew the couple and were intimately familiar with their work, launched a campaign not long after the town purchased the property to see their studios restored.
Last week, East Hampton Town took the first step in that process by designating the buildings a historic landmark, and the town board is planning to hold a second public hearing Aug. 7 to change the purpose of their purchase, through the Community Preservation Fund, from open space preservation to historic preservation.
Should We Preserve the Art Studios of James Brooks and Charlotte Park?
Should We Preserve the Art Studios of James Brooks and Charlotte Park?
Should We Preserve the Art Studios of James Brooks and Charlotte Park?
DAN'S PAPERS
February 2014
Dan Rattiner
The news that the home and studios of James Brooks and his wife, the painter Charlotte Park, have been left abandoned since her death, in the woods in Springs, has sparked some interest in saving what’s left of this historically important community. I say what is left because, for some reason, the Town of East Hampton placed such difficult restrictions on the creation of separate art studios, including that they be demolished after six months if not in use, that the importance of this community, particularly during the half-century it was in its heyday, may soon be gone forever, without a trace (with the single exception of the art studio and home of Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner).