Food Historic: Sites/Stuff

USA

Set way out on Long Island in today’s pricy/richfolk playground Montauk, Deep Hollow Ranch was a thriving entity, apparently, its oldest buildings restored, horses and cattle in abundance, and visitors welcomed to experience a little known slice of New York history dating from 1658—just over 100 miles from New York City.

Deep Hollow’s website ( dated 2000) states:

In the 1600s, ranching was a popular way of life in Montauk and the surrounding areas, known as the East End. The land was known for its lush, green pastures and cattle drives to Montauk from as far as 70 miles away were commonplace.

Ranchers would lease the land for grazing cattle from the Montauk Indians through officials at East Hampton, a nearby town. Since the end of Long Island is narrow, there was no need for fences; the Atlantic Ocean on the south and Block Island Sound to the north provided natural boundaries. For more than 250 years—from 1660 to 1914—each family with cattle had its own earmark registered with town clear, to help claim ownership at round-up time. During these golden years, 2000 to 6000 cattle, horses and sheep roamed the land.

The Dickinson/Leaver family ran Deep Hollow for years, finally selling off several acres of prime land for development, and then selling Deep Hollow itself to the CEO of J Crew, Mickey Drexler, at a major loss, in late 2010.  If the ranch had been in the middle of Montana, undoubtedly the pressure to divest would not have been as extreme.

When I called the Deep Hollow number to see what the latest was, I was put on hold for almost five minutes, and then hung up—I will try again, but imagine that those who kept the Deep Hollow dream heritage site going for so many years, even while monetarily compensated, are saddened at the outcome. Apparently they are allowed four more years on the site, and then, fini.