History: Summer Art School Founded in Port Jeff Over Ninety Years Ago

In 1882, Century Magazine recounted the adventures of the Tile Club, a group of New York artists who had summered in Port Jefferson and discovered “a bewildering wealth” of sketch material in the surroundings.

Inspired by Port Jefferson’s beauty, the Tilers drew the village’s quaint old cottages, placid harbor, steamboat landing, fishing shacks, orchards, hilltops, sail loft, and residents, including a “jovial sea-dog.”

Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919), one of the Tiler’s founding members, painted Port Jefferson, a vibrant watercolor that depicts the village’s shipyards. Artist and author F. Hopkinson Smith (1838-1915) sketched The House of the Reckless Landlord, which shows a ramshackle Townsend House where the Tilers lodged while vacationing in Port Jefferson.

In addition to the Tilers, other artists documented the local scene. Edward Lange (1846-1912) painted a montage of California Grove, an amusement park once located on the west shore of Port Jefferson harbor in what is now Poquott, and drew a panorama of Port Jefferson from Cedar Hill.

The impressionist Reynolds Beal (1866-1951), best known for his powerful landscapes and seascapes, painted an evocative Port Jefferson, an oil on board that captures the salty atmosphere of the village’s waterfront, and sketched the brig John McDermott, one of the largest wooden vessels ever built in Port Jefferson.

Often described as Port Jefferson’s foremost painter, William M. Davis (1829-1920) recorded everyday life with scenes of Mt. Sinai, Setauket, and Miller Place, as well as genre views of what are now Belle Terre and Poquott. Davis’ Evening on Lower Main Street portrays his Port Jefferson studio on today’s East Main Street, while The Sharpie Race captures the energy of a spirited boat race on Port Jefferson harbor.

Considering the village’s artistic tradition, picturesque setting, easy access by rail and ferry, and proximity to the luxurious Belle Terre Club, talks began in early 1914 about establishing a summer art school in the area.

The Port Jefferson Business Men’s Association, the forerunner of today’s , supported the venture. During the nineteenth century, Port Jefferson led Suffolk County in wooden shipbuilding, but with the decline of this industry, the business community began promoting Belle Terre and Port Jefferson as summer destinations.

The idea of a summer art school was not new to Long Island. In 1891, the painter and teacher William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) had established America’s first formal outdoor art school, the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art, which he ran in Southampton Town until 1902.

Susan F. Bissell was among Chase’s first students in an art class he established in New York City in 1896. When the Chase School was renamed the New York School of Art in 1899, Bissell became its secretary/treasurer. She retained the position when the institution was reorganized again in 1909 as the New York School of Fine and Applied Art, known today as “Parsons The New School for Design.”

In 1914, with the energetic and personable Bissell spearheading the project, the New York School acquired land in Belle Terre and made plans to construct a summer school on the property.

The frame structure was built by contractors Bruce and L’Hommedieu and set deep in the woods on the east side of Cliff Road across from playwright and novelist George Bronson Howard’s home, a short distance from the Belle Terre Gatehouse.

The summer school opened on July 1, 1914, with 130 students from twenty-seven states, England, Canada, and Puerto Rico in attendance. Without on-site housing, pupils and teachers found accommodations in Belle Terre and Port Jefferson, providing a boon to the local economy.

The summer school offered courses in fine art, such as painting and drawing, as well as electives in applied art, including interior decoration and illustrative advertising. Credits earned during July/August could be applied toward a diploma from the New York School at its main “winter” campus in Manhattan.

Among the summer session’s talented instructors, the charismatic Frank Alvah Parsons, the New York School’s president, lectured on his revolutionary theories of design, opening the well-attended talks to the general public.

Jonas Lie, Howard Giles and Edmund Greacen, who had studied with Chase at Shinnecock Hills, taught the painting classes. The pupils worked outdoors, painting scenes of Belle Terre, Port Jefferson and neighboring villages. Most of these oils and watercolors were likely taken home by the students at school’s end, while some works may have remained locally, the extant paintings probably not recognized by the current owners for what they represent.

Besides class work, recreation was part of the summer experience. The exclusive Belle Terre Club, located only one-half mile from the art school, offered horseback riding, golf, tennis, and swimming. The pupils also enjoyed fishing, boating, camping, rail trips to the museums of New York City, and excursions on the ferries Park City and Elm City.

The New York School ran its summer classes in Belle Terre from 1914-16, each year charging a $40 tuition fee for the two-month session. Bissell ably administered the popular program during this period, even purchasing and then renovating a home on Port Jefferson’s Bleeker Street to be closer to work.

After the United States entered World War I, the New York School curtailed travel and conserved resources, holding its 1917 summer classes in Manhattan instead of on Long Island. Bissell later attempted to reopen the Belle Terre school, but unfortunately could not find suitable housing for the students. Between November 1917 and January 1919, the number of employees at the Bayles Shipyard defense plant in Port Jefferson had jumped from 250 to 1,022. The burgeoning population simply snapped up all available rentals in the immediate area.

Bissell died at her Port Jefferson home on September 14, 1920. The New York School continued to run its summer program in Manhattan until 1921 when classes were offered in Paris. The Belle Terre school itself was later moved to 55 Cliff Road in Belle Terre where the remodeled structure opened in 1926 as the Belle Terre Golf and Country Club, today the Vincent Bove Community Center.

Building on what Chase had started, the Belle Terre summer school brought artists to Long Island where they found inspiration in the surroundings. The school ran for only a few short years, but painters who have celebrated the local scene in their work, including Louise Brett, Robert Zoeller, Leon Foster Jones, and Louis Lehtonen, have kept its spirit alive.

Even today, the Night Heron Artists meet weekly at the where they paint watercolors, improve techniques, share ideas, and critique work, all in an atmosphere of community, culture and creativity, much like the artists who first gathered in Belle Terre over ninety years ago.