The Little Building with a Big History
Human beings tend to be creatures of habit. When “locals” in East Hampton go out to complete their daily to-do lists, chances are that stops at the Post Office, CVS or the FedEx box are included. That’s 365 days a year. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, “seasonals” have their chance to develop their habits, 98 days in 2025. What they may not notice as they rush to their destinations, is the little white building at 34 Pantigo Road, called “The Hook Mill Building” (across from The Hook Mill itself). The structure has an amazingly complex history, as does the three-structure property on which it sits.
Imagine if you arrived at CVS, and it was the Plitt Ford Mercury Dealer and its Service Department, founded by Robert Plitt in 1962 at 38 Pantigo Road after he purchased the dealership from Nick Livingston’s “Willard Motors”, or Brooks Drugs, as it became later? Or that the Post Office was unrecognizable in its new building, torn down and replaced with a larger building by property owner and real estate attorney Lenny Ackerman? The only one of the three buildings there that has remained the same (built in the early 1900’s) is The Hook Mill Building, sold in August 1997 for $187,000, and again in June 1998 for approximately $1.325 million.
Although The Hook Mill Building has stayed structurally the same, the retail space and offices have not. The most famous in its iterations is likely to be the WEHM (East Hampton Music, so named by co-owner Michael Schulhof) Studio, whose operations were visible in the front window, enabling passers-by to witness the live broadcasts of their local radio station. Other investors in the station included minor stakes by Billy Joel, Christie Brinkley and others. WEHM began broadcasting from The Hook Mill Building first floor on its first air date in 1993. The “Sound Track of Your Life” was established by real estate visionary/attorney/property owner Lenny Ackerman and Michael P. “Mickey” Schulhof’, who was at the time Vice Chairman of Sony Corporation worldwide and Chairman of Sony Music Corporation, so mostly Sony Broadcast equipment was used for the electronics.
At the time, Lenny’s law offices were upstairs, on the second floor, but later moved to the Main Floor in 1995, when WEHM moved on to a house in Amagansett.
The retail spaces have had quite a variety of iterations over the years. Lenny reports that his late Wife Judy had a retail baby clothing and accessories shop. Jeff Plitt, son of Plitt Ford Mercury founder and dealer Robert Plitt, remembers Richard Ferrari’s Barber Shop as a tenant, operating as “Richard’s Barber Shop”, and working at “Tony Turi’s Antique Chair Restoration Shop” in the building. According to Jeff, Tony preferred working on wing chairs and the like.
East Hampton Village is used to changing storefronts, and the story of The Hook Mill Building is a unique one, with historic ties to The Good Old Days. Who knows what is next?
Photography by Richard Lewin
