Southampton Arts Center (SAC)

The Southampton Arts Center, began its life in this building in 1898 as the Art Museum at Southampton. It was conceived two years earlier when Samuel Longstreth Parrish was in Italy adding to his collection of Italian Renaissance art and classical reproductions. A New Yorker who became a member of the Southampton summer colony, he had fallen in love with the village. He eventually had a hand in almost every village project—the hospital, the library, even the paving of roads. But his art museum was to be his crowning legacy. He bought this land on Jobs Lane, which also had access to Main Street, and commissioned architect Grosvenor Atterbury, another summer colony member, for the design. It was built in wood on three acres. Initially, the structure was the central section only, which was completed in 1897 and opened its doors to the public in 1898. A large new hall was added in 1902 funded by Samuel’s brother James. The striking Italianate facade was another addition, likely also funded in part by James. In a 1980s interview one of Samuel’s grandnieces explained that “James had all the money and Sam had the ideas.” The museum was soon filled — in the accepted museum style of the day—with Samuel Parrish’s treasures.: his favorite paintings—mostly well executed reproductions—marble, bronze and plaster reproductions of Roman, Greek and Renaissance sculpture, and an auto-type copy of the Bayeux Tapestry. Marble reproductions of the busts of Roman Emperors were also displayed inside the museum before moving outside. Money to maintain the museum disappeared in the Depression and the village took ownership. In the 1950s, Rebecca Bolling Littlejohn presided over a minor revolution at the museum, hanging the works of American artists on its walls. In 2012, the Parrish Art Museum (its present name) moved to Water Mill and the Southampton Arts Center recently celebrated its 10th anniversary in the space, keeping the arts—the fine arts and the fun arts—alive in Southampton.