By GREGORY ZELLER //
At the intersection of continuing education, workforce development, Hamptons hospitality, residential real estate and history, there is the Canoe Place Inn.
And centered on the Canoe Place Inn & Cottages – a once-and-future diamond near the banks of the Shinnecock Canal, in the relative roughs of the western South Fork – there is The Hospitality Academy at Hampton Bays, an innovative industrial twist on a comprehensive public-private partnership.
On Wednesday, the inn – which dates back to 1656 and claims the title of “America’s oldest inn” – hosted an open-house sign-up for the second cohort of The Hospitality Academy, an intensive 10-session program designed to develop skills and knowledge among adults looking to enter the hospitality industries or “level up from within,” according to Hampton Bays Public Schools Superintendent Lars Clemensen.
The academy is a decidedly 21st Century use for the storied 17th Century hotel, which wallowed in empty decay for decades before Rechler Equity Partners – the Plainview-based king of Long Island commercial real estate – acquired swaths of land straddling the Shinnecock Canal in 2005, including the site of the rapidly rotting hostel.
Then: “America’s first inn,” back in the day.
Once targeted for demolition, the Canoe Place Inn reopened to much fanfare in 2022. And the academy – which leverages funding from the Suffolk County Department of Labor and the Long Island chapter of the Albany-based Workforce Development Institute – rides the vibes of that rebirth, meeting regularly at the storied hotel to prep adult learners for “fulfilling careers in our neighborhood,” according to Clemensen.
“The Hospitality Academy at Hampton Bays is a component of our larger adult-education program,” the superintendent told Innovate Long Island. “Hampton Bays Public Schools are grateful for our partnership with Rechler Equity, the Canoe Place Inn, St. Joseph’s (University) and Inspirato.”
Those last two Hospitality Academy partners – Patchogue-based St. Joe’s and Colorado-based luxury vacation club Inspirato – add innovative intrigue to the multidimensional plot, which stalled in 2005, after Rechler Equity acquired its Hampton Bays property.
The developer’s original plan involved razing the abandoned Canoe Place Inn and raising a luxury extended-stay hotel – a strategy ferociously opposed by local residents, who rallied to save the historic, if derelict, inn.
“Their plan was to demolish and build new,” noted Rechler Equities advisor Jim Morgo, the former Suffolk County deputy executive now managing an eponymous private consulting firm. “But the inn had incredible nostalgic value to the people of Hampton Bays and beyond.”
Now: The reanimated Canoe Place Inn.
A years-long stalemate before the Town of Southampton Zoning Board ensued, until plans emerged to redevelop Rechler land on the east side of the canal, while renovating the historical inn to the west – an idea supported in Zoning Board hearings by expert testimony from representatives of St. Joseph’s Hospitality and Tourism Management Program.
It checked off a lot of boxes, but the solution was not universally approved. Opponents now decried a loss of public access to the Shinnecock Canal – though that “never existed in the first place,” according to Morgo – and popular local restaurants Tiderunners and 1 North Steakhouse, essentially Rechler Equity tenants situated on the eastern bank, would be displaced. (Tiderunners bellied up; 1 North relocated to Montauk Highway.)
Outflanked by the creation of a Maritime Planned Development District, opponents ultimately fell short and the zoning change was finally granted in 2015. Essentially, the special zoning allowance – deemed “maritime” because of the canal’s proximity – changed the relevant zoning from hospitality-focused commercial to residential; in lieu of a luxury hotel to the west of the canal, the Rechlers would build townhomes to the east.
But their penchant for commercial development, and the spirit of the property’s original zoning, would hold sway.
Not only would the developers refurbish the 20-room Canoe Place Inn – and five surrounding cottages, perfect for guests attending your dream destination wedding – but the townhomes would not be run-of-the-mill McMansions, packing kids into local schools and otherwise consuming municipal resources.
Thanks to a timely outreach from Inspirato, they’d exist exclusively as vacation rentals, tied intrinsically to the born-again inn – adding zero burden to local schools but still “generating real estate taxes for the school district,” according to Morgo, while boosting East End tourism.
Inspirato offered to rent all 37 of the one- and two-bedroom “Boathouses at Canoe Place” (most are now built, with a few still under construction) and add them to its global portfolio of 1,200-plus luxury accommodations – a good get for regional socioeconomics, Morgo noted, and an exciting foray for a brand already jet-setting across Europe and the Caribbean.
Jim Morgo: The Rechlers read the room.
“They’re in places you’d expect them to be, like Aspen and Malibu,” the general counsel added. “But Inspirato didn’t have anything in the Hamptons.”
Though the original Rechler vision for a hospitality hotspot never materialized, a different hospitality hotspot did – the revitalized Canoe Place Inn & Cottages and its sister Boathouses at Canoe Place require all manners of hospitality services, from housekeeping to waitstaff to front-office professionals.
Leveraging $55,000 in Suffolk County and WDI funds, The Hospitality Academy at Hampton Bays answers that call, partly by bringing local schools into the mix.
“It’s part of Rechler’s credo to contribute to whatever community they’re in,” Morgo noted. “But the Hospitality Academy is really driven by the school district.”
At Wednesday night’s Canoe Place open house, many of the servers delivering drinks and hors d’oeuvres were graduates of first Hospitality Academy cohort, including students from Hampton Bays High School and St. Joseph’s University. The second round aims to educate up to 60 adult learners – and from there, according to Clemensen, the sky’s the limit.
“The Hospitality Academy will continue to reach out to the community at large and its higher education partners … to cultivate individuals interested in succeeding and growing in the hospitality sector,” the superintendent noted. “The hospitality and tourism industry on the East End makes our region a world-renowned destination.
“Our belief is that it can provide a pathway to a successful career and life on the East End for its workforce, which should come from our community.”
