point o woods yacht club

Point O'Woods

Fire Islands' Most Private Haven

Point O Woods feels like another century, and residents here guard their privacy. This stunning community borders Ocean Bay Park on the west and a stretch of open National Seashore to the east.

About Point O'Woods

The exquisite village of Point O’Woods is the oldest and most private of all Fire Island’s communities.

In 1899, Charles Hand and William Griffin, two devoted and farsighted planners, steered the Point O’Woods Association in a direction that has been maintained for over 100 years.

The Village

The careful planning of the community, its architecture and landscaping has created a graceful, old world feel. The number of homes has remained fairly constant with the 128 originally planned by the Association in the 1920’s. Sadly, some of these gems have been lost to storms.

The wooden boardwalks meander through the lush foliage under canopies of tall trees. The classic, cedar-shingled Victorian homes are nearly hidden from view, nestled in the wild roses.

Unique on Fire Island, part of the original railroad built by Captain Clock in the 1880’s, still transports residents from the ferry to the ocean.

Point O’Woods is informal, quiet, conservative, and tasteful. The lifestyle is relaxed, and entertaining at home is the norm.

The Point O’Woods Yacht Squadron is the oldest yacht club on Fire Island, and the oldest community organization. Sailing is a passion here, and the club competes island-wide in regattas with Saltaire and Dunewood .

Tennis is played at the the Club, a magnificent example of the cedar-shingled architecture of this town. There is also a grocery store, candy shop, nature center and post office.

A day camp welcomes the children. The ferry and parking lots in Bay Shore are private, and there are no public facilities.

This family oriented community requires its residents to have children. In order to purchase a home here, families must be recommended by a club member and interviewed by the real estate committee. After renting for a year, they are eligible to buy. The land is owned by the Association, and leased to householders for 99 years. The residents are friendly, but ask visitors to respect their privacy

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Point O’ Woods: Fire Island’s Hermit Community

Cloaked in lore and mystery, Point O’Woods remains elusive, even for many longtime Fire Islanders. Our recent glimpse into the reclusive community gives evidence of a Fire Island that is lush, green and feels forgotten by time. That said, it comes as little surprise that they were considered for state and national historic designation in 2021. Ultimately, they received an award of recognition by New York State for excellence in documenting their history, which is a well- earned achievement indeed. The Sunken Forest separates Point O’Woods from its eastern neighbor – Cherry Grove – two communities that could not be more different some say, but both communities evolved to pursue their own identities as they wish, which is in the true spirit of Fire Island itself.

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Point O’ Woods Fire Island

As Fire Island’s oldest community, Point O’ Woods is self-contained and offers a clubhouse, tennis courts, park, and market to homeowners. Point O’ Woods insular nature is exemplified by its massive fence that encloses the community. POW residents are preppies that treasure their private community and do their best to discourage visitors from passing through. This rustic neighborhood has a strong emphasis on family living and the look and feel of a bygone era burrowed in wooded terrain sit a collection of old houses and ancient bicycles.

Point O’ Woods has its roots as a Chautauqua retreat in 1894. While this forum for spiritual and self-enlightenment was a very popular concept at the time, the enterprise was a financial failure and dissolved within four years. Unsuccessful as the Chautauqua enterprise may have been, it gave birth to the organization of the first true residential community on Fire Island. Point O’ Woods operated on the premise of 99-year leases of the land which is held in common by the Point O’ Woods Association, while the houses themselves are privately owned. This has kept the appearance of Point O’ Woods relatively unspoiled by progress. Point O’ Woods also has an unusual demographic for Fire Island . Well-pedigreed families come from all corners of the country to summer at Point O’Woods, while many neighboring Fire Island communities are predominantly populated by New York City and greater Long Island summer residents. Point O’ Woods residents cherish their land and water sports almost as much as they value family, continuity in their way of life, and of course their privacy.

Like many of the western Fire Island communities, ferry service is out of Bay Shore, NY.

In fact Point O’ Woods pioneered Bay Shore as a launching spot for ferry service to Fire Island. Before that most ferry service to Fire Island originated out of Babylon, NY. Today the Point O’ Woods ferry line is the last remaining ferry line in Bay Shore that has not been absorbed by the conglomerate, Fire Island Ferries Inc.

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Private Point O'Woods earns a public place in New York history

The Point O'Woods beach at Fire Island with some of the private community's homes in the distance. Credit: Getty Images/Atlantide Phototravel

Point O'Woods is the oldest of Fire Island’s 17 communities. It's also the most private.

The chain-link fence, unlocked only with a key, helps keep it that way.

Members and their guests only. No alcohol for sale inside. A strong preference for families, some of whom have summered there for six or seven generations.

A photograph from 1976 of a gate outside the entrance to Point O'Woods. Credit: Newsday/Don Norkett

In December, Point O’Woods got an award from New York State for the community's documentation of its history, which dates to the 19th century, casting a spotlight on one of Fire Island's most insular places.

Established in 1894 as a temperance resort destination by the Methodist-inspired Chautauqua movement, the deed to the land came with a prohibition on alcohol sales, according to a 2019 New York State Parks Recreation & Historic Preservation document evaluating the property for a national historic register.

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Though the Chautauqua connection officially ended with the Long Island Chautauqua Assembly Association’s bankruptcy in 1898, its legacy endures, albeit without the thousands of daily visitors of the past, according to the document.

"The other communities are more integrated with other communities," said Lesley Herrmann of neighboring Seaview. "Point O’Woods is not. … They kind of stick to themselves."

Point O’Woods now has about 133 residences, according to the state. The owners sign 99-year leases with the Point O'Woods Association. At any given time during the summer, there are about 500 people living in its beach cottages and shingled bungalows, said Janet Hurley, president of the association, which runs the community and owns the land and decides who lives there.

"They had this kind of 19th century utopian view of the world that you should have a healthy mind, a healthy spirit and a healthy body. And you came to the beach, and got out of the slums in the city, right? Or the bad airs of the city," Hurley said.

Luggage piled on a Point O'Woods dock in the summer of 1976 as passengers board a ferry bound for the mainland. Credit: Newsday/Dick Yarwood

A 'tight-knit' small town

There is sailing and tennis and church and camp; lectures (a past talk dealt with the history and ecology of ticks on Long Island) and book discussions ("Frankenstein"); a yacht club; and of course, the beach.

In June, then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office announced Point O’Woods’ nomination to the State and National Register of Historic Places.

The state subsequently granted the designation — which can make a recipient eligible for certain preservation programs, services, grants and tax credits.

Jennifer Betsworth, who is listed as staff on the 2019 document, didn't return a message seeking comment.

A sense of small-town tradition, built and maintained over more than a century, is at the heart of why Hurley and others see Point O’Woods as special, and a community worth protecting and preserving.

Members of a children's choir leave The Church at Point O'Woods after Sunday morning services in Aug. 1976. Credit: Newsday/Don Norkett

Neighbors host neighbors, husking corn and cutting lemons for lobster parties — one in July, another in August — that serve as fundraisers for the fire company, Hurley said.

"Part of the reason we are so tight-knit is because we have this long history with each other — that people have been there for generations. You know their parents. You know their cousins. It’s sort of the best of a small town because we all know each other," said Hurley, who is retired from finance and lives in Florida during the winter.

Most of the Point O'Woods homes are not winterized. And as on the rest of Fire Island — the 32-mile-long long, thin barrier off Long Island’s south shore — automobiles are banned except in rare cases. Commuting to and from Long Island’s mainland is done by ferry, and Point O'Woods, which is more than 150 acres, has one for its own use.

An absence of automobiles influences the architecture, Hurley said. The community lacks garages, gas stations and roads. Those in Point O’Woods get around on foot or by bicycle.

"When you have a car, you get in your car and you’re enclosed in a capsule," she said. "You pull into your garage, you close the door, you go into your house; there’s no interaction with people. It’s a very private way of existing. When you don’t have cars, when you’re riding your bicycle and walking, you interact with other people. You see other people. You say hello to them."

Suzy Lawrence Goldhirsch, who grew up in Point O’Woods during the 1950s and 1960s, described the community as "an entirely different world."

"There was one pay phone down at the post office, and somebody would answer the phone and take a message and ride it up to your house. I mean, it was very rustic, even into the ’60s," said Goldhirsch, president of the Fire Island Association.

Her family is in its sixth generation in the community, with four homes; her great-grandmother was one of the original residents.

"It’s a modern community now. They have their televisions, they have their game consoles. But it sort of has that aura from a long time ago of families enjoying outdoor sports and enjoying being at the beach," she said.

Hurley makes no apology for the fence, which she said stops nearby bar patrons from trespassing.

"We’re a private club. And we’re a gated community. And those things exist in the world. And that’s what we are," she said.

Reports of discrimination in the past

For much of the 20th century, Point O'Woods was reputed to exclude Blacks, Jews and Roman Catholics.

Protesters in Aug. 1969 demonstrate against allegations of racial and religious discrimination at Point O'Woods. Credit: Newsday/ del Toro

It was the site of a 1969 protest over the alleged exclusions: Demonstrators threw ethnic food, tied to handmade parachutes, over the fence — gefilte fish, bagels, black-eyed peas and cornbread, Newsday reported.

A New York Times account of the protest, which drew 200 people, described the demonstration as an "invasion" of a community "long regarded as a fortress of exclusiveness in this freewheeling vacation spot." Protest leaflets called it a "restricted, racist enclave" and an "oceanfront concentration camp."

Back then, the newspapers reported, there were some Catholics and two or three Jews among the owners, but no Black people, "except for maids and kitchen help," according to the New York Times.

Due to protests, the federal government wound up leaving the Point O'Woods post office after objections that it wasn't accessible to the public.

The Point O’Woods Association has long denied discriminating. Hurley said she's never seen evidence of overt discrimination in the community's past.

"The United States has for many years, for far too long, been a highly segregated country, and patterns that existed on Long Island also existed on Fire Island … People of similar races and religions tended to socialize together, and I would say that was true in Fire Island and in Point O’Woods," Hurley said. "But just as we’re seeing the larger society change, we see change … We see more interracial marrying. We see interreligious marrying. All of that goes on. We mirror the larger society."

Historically, among those in wealthy communities, explicitly discriminatory language and animus being written down tended to be less common and was considered to be déclassé — beneath their class status, said Professor Richard R.W. Brooks of New York University School of Law, author of "Saving the Neighborhood: Racially Restrictive Covenants, Law, and Social Norms."

"I think that it’s probably very, very common that they were not explicit in the wealthier neighborhoods. That it was a nod and a wink, because everyone understood it was sort of what was required to be a member, that you understood this," Brooks said in an interview.

Hurley declined to provide a current demographic breakdown, and the U.S. Census Bureau does not provide the statistic for Point O'Woods. But Hurley said that the community rejects discrimination and welcomes those regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation. She noted, for instance, that the community welcomes same-sex families.

"It’s been quite simple to respond to same-sex marriages because they’re marriages, so we have same-sex families," she said.

As for integrating the community, she said: "It’s happening slowly, but it’s happening, and we welcome it."

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.

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Point O'Woods

• 9 Point O'Woods Avenue. Point O'Woods, NY 11706
• Phone: 631-583-5660
• Email: [email protected]
• Employment Opportunities
• © 2024 Point O’Woods. Site by Clubessential

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Point O'Woods: 90 Years of Gentility and Privacy

By Diane Ketcham

• Aug. 28, 1988

POINT O'WOODS, Fire Island, is where you'll find sand in the church pews and Margaret Truman Daniel singing in the choir. It's where Carol Channing and the heads of the nation's top corporations go barefoot and where Sunday sermons are given by a bishop, John S. Spong, the Episcopal Bishop of Newark, but ''just another minister in residence here,'' according to one homeowner.

Point O'Woods is the place where tennis is so popular a drawing is held each morning to select the lucky ones who will play - tennis whites only - on the community's 9 clay and 2 hard-surface courts. And it's where all the Victorian buildings look the same: picturesque cottages of dark-gray cedar shingles.

''Point O'Woods is a place frozen in time,'' said Malcolm (Sandy) Stearns Jr., a resident for all of his 70 years.

The oldest settlement on Fire Island, Point O'Woods is also the most insular. Not many people have had the opportunity to visit this pleasing but very private community.

This year, Point O'Woods is celebrating its 90th anniversary; so is the community's nondenominational church, known simply as the Church at Point O'Woods.

In honor of these dual anniversaries, the residents have opened their community for a celebration. An art exhibition is on display at the Casino community house and today at 4 P.M. residents and guests can attend a concert at the church.

''I scheduled the concert in between ferries,'' said the church's choir director, Mary Monroe. A 16-piece orchestra will play, the 25-member church choir will sing and the entire community will probably attend, for on Sundays the 300-seat church is always full, Miss Monroe said.

That may be partly because the tennis courts are kept closed until after the church service, but Point O'Woods is quite unlike any other Long Island resort town.

''We're a different type of crowd,'' said Donald Reich, president of the Point O'Woods Association. ''Everybody knows everybody here. We're very family and church oriented.''

At Point O'Woods, one will find more children and more churchgoers per sand dune then any other Fire Island community. During the day, parents and children swim, go boating and play tennis; at night, the adults socialize at cocktail parties and dances.

It's an idyllic life. That may be why at Point O'Woods one will also find ''the Fence.''

A six-foot-high chain-link fence with two feet of barbed wire across the top separates Point O'Woods from its bustling neighbors to the west, Ocean Bay Park and Ocean Beach. (To the east is the unpopulated Sunken Forest.) The fence has been there as long as Mr. Stearns can remember.

''When I was a boy, we used to call the other side of the fence Mexico,'' said Mr. Stearns, a tall, jovial man with white bushy eyebrows, the ends of which droop over his eyeglasses like windshield wipers.

Liquor cannot be sold in Point O'Woods, Mr. Stearns said, noting that the ban is in the original deed. And so he and his young friends would slip under ''the Fence'' and head across ''the border'' to Flynn's, a restaurant-hotel gathering place for singles just a few hundred feet away, or to Ocean Beach for ''a night of fun.''

For Mr. Stearns, ''the Fence'' served more to keep him and his friends in than to keep others out. Today, it stands not only for ''crowd control,'' as Mr. Stearns puts it, but as a symbol separating the two worlds of Fire Island.

For many, Fire Island is the ultimate swinging singles summer scene, a place for frolicking in the surf by day and partying the night away. But for others, the pearl-white sandy beaches and absence of automobiles make the island an ideal backdrop for quiet family vacations. And there is no more family-oriented group of Fire Islanders than the residents of Point O'Woods.

Children are so important to this community, they are required. ''You must have children,'' Mr. Stearns said. ''This is a place for kids. We encourage that.'' To buy a house at Point O'Woods, you must rent first, and you won't be approved as a renter by the association unless you have children, Mr. Stearns said.

Children are everywhere, riding bikes, taking swimming lessons, sailing sunfishes.

''We came here because of the children,'' said another Point O'Woods homeowner, Clifton Daniel, who was sitting by the ocean next to a visiting child from Florida.

With all the association-sponsored programs for young people, Mr. Daniel said, ''You can throw the children out the door in the morning and not see them again until evening.''

There are so many children living in the 128 homes in Point O'Woods that when Mr. Stearns recently was host to a birthday party for his 8-year-old granddaughter, ''Ten kids showed up,'' he said, ''and that with us keeping the numbers down.''

Point O'Woods is a private community. It is run by the Point O'Woods Association, which came into being in 1898. Before that, the area was owned by the Chautauqua Assembly, a society that held summer cultural and educational progams there.

''Point O'Wooders, 20 percent of whom are fifth generation,'' according to Mr. Stearns, go back such a long way, he said, that ''some remember when Cherry Grove was just a grove of cherries.'' (Cherry Grove also claims to be Fire Island's first. It was the site of the island's first hotel-restaurant.) The Point O'Woods Association owns all the property in the community, leasing back individual plots to the homeowners. There is a waiting list of 30 names.

The association closes the community by Columbus Day. The water and electricity are turned off, the ferry stops running and all is quiet until April.

But in the summer, the concrete walkways are full. Besides the 128 homeowners, there are the Club members. The Club, which overlooks the ocean, offers dining and sleeping accommodations. It is a members-only facility, but allows more access to Point O'Woods.

Day-trippers are not welcome at this Fire Island community. The well-maintained marina, yacht club, club on the ocean, Casino community house, church, post office, grocery store, candy store, gift shop known as ''Thriffany's,'' tennis complex and mini-railroad, which carries freight and luggage to the oceanfront clubhouse, are for residents and their guests only.

The association owns its own ferryboat and has a private parking lot at the ferry terminal in Bay Shore. If a stranger boards the vessel there, he usually will be greeted at the Point O'Woods dock by an association employee.

In Point O'Woods, the Victorian homes, hidden behind bountiful green foliage or standing like sentries at watch at the ocean's edge, look the same as they did 90 years ago. That's the way the residents want it. ''No modern all-glass houses for us,'' Mr. Reich said. Any architectural changes must be approved by the association's architectural board.

In 1983, the wooden houses caused Point O'Woods its greatest tragedy. A fire killed three people and destroyed four of the homes. Ever since, fire safety has been a top priority. The community maintains its own Fire Department, and there's no shortage of volunteers.

Over the years, outsiders have taken exception to Point O'Woods's private ways. For example, there was the post office incident.

Nonresidents complained that the community's Federal post office should be available to everyone. The local solution was to turn the Post office outlet into a private post office. According to a Federal postal official, the community gave up its ZIP code and now uses Bay Shore's. Each day the ferryboat captain transports the mail between Bay Shore and the post office on Point O'Woods. The resident postmistress is paid by the association. Then there was the demonstration. ''I guess it was in the 1960's,'' Mr. Stearns recalled. ''The people down the beach were calling us WASPy snobs, they decided to protest 'the Fence' and, I guess, us. So they marched down here along the beach, carrying banners and signs.

''We decided to ignore them. Everybody stayed in their houses. When the demonstrators reached the Club, no one confronted them. No one even met them.

''They stayed around for a while, walking down to the bay, and then they left. That was the end of the protest. They never came back.'' Today, Point O'Wooders seem happy in their isolation. ''This is Fantasy Island,'' said Bishop Spong. ''You couldn't ask for a nicer summer place.''

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Point O'Woods

Fire islands' most private community.

Point O Woods feels like another century, and residents here guard their privacy. This stunning community borders Ocean Bay Park on the west and a stretch of open National Seashore to the east. Private ferries leave from Bay Shore

About Point O’Woods

The exquisite village of Point O’Woods is the oldest and most private of all Fire Island’s communities. It is gated so people don’t just drop in uninvited.

In 1899, Charles Hand and William Griffin, two devoted and farsighted planners, steered the Point O’Woods Association in a direction that has been maintained for over 100 years.

The careful planning of the community, its architecture and landscaping has created a graceful, old world charm. The number of homes has remained fairly constant with the 128 originally planned by the Association in the 1920’s. Sadly, some of these gems have been lost in storms.

The Village

The wooden boardwalks meander through the lush foliage under canopies of tall trees. The classic, cedar-shingled Victorian homes are nearly hidden from view, nestled in the wild roses.

Unique on Fire Island, part of the original railroad built by Captain Clock in the 1880’s, still transports residents from the ferry to the ocean.

Point O’Woods is informal, quiet, conservative, and private. The lifestyle is relaxed, and entertaining at home is the norm.

The Point O’Woods Yacht Squadron is the oldest yacht club on Fire Island and the oldest community organization. Sailing is a passion here, and the club competes island-wide in regattas with Saltaire and Dunewood .

Tennis is played at the the Club, a magnificent example of the cedar-shingled architecture of this town. There is also a grocery store, candy shop, nature center and post office.

A day camp welcomes the children. The ferry and parking lots in Bay Shore are private, and there are no public facilities.

This family oriented community requires its residents to have children. In order to purchase a home here, families must be recommended by a club member and interviewed by the real estate committee. After renting for a year, they are eligible to buy. The land is owned by the Association, and leased to householders for 99 years. The residents are friendly, but ask visitors to respect their privacy.

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