For 300 years, Sag Harbor has been a prism reflecting facets of American history, from its heyday as a whaling port worthy of mention in Moby-Dick, to a factory town shipping out
Bulova watches to its latest reincarnation, as an alternative retreat to the exclusive Hamptons. Stephen Longmire explores its many stories in Keeping Time in Sag Harbor.
Sag Harbor’s architecture encompasses buildings from the American Revolution to the present, including the stately eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mansions lining “Captains Row” and
public buildings such as the early Custom House. The work to protect this architecture in the face of booming real estate development is at the heart of Longmire’s account. Archival
images and Longmire’s own color photographs are interspersed with interviews with new and old residents, and together they reveal the evolving character of the village, as the book
charts how Sag Harbor has struggled to retain its identity while learning to sustain itself on tourism. Keeping Time in Sag Harbor is an intimate portrait of a historic
American village that stands as an example of the challenge facing American communities from Santa Fe to South Beach.
