SANS History: How Three Post-War Subdivisions Built the Black Hamptons

The Black Hamptons wasn't a discovery. It was a build.

Between 1947 and 1952, three Black-led development projects created Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, and Ninevah — three adjacent subdivisions on the bay side of Sag Harbor that gave Black families beachfront property ownership at a time when almost no one else would sell to them. What they built has been holding for 80 years.

Here's the history.

The context: what Black families were up against in 1947

Right after WWII, Black families with the resources to buy vacation property had almost no place to buy. Northeast beach resorts were formally or informally segregated. Getting a mortgage as a Black family required navigating redlining, restrictive covenants written into property deeds, and lenders who declined most applicants regardless of qualification.

Existing Black-established resort communities — Martha's Vineyard's Oak Bluffs, Highland Beach in Maryland, Idlewild in Michigan — were the exceptions, and they were far from New York City. The Northeast Black professional class based in NYC had no local beach option.

Enter Maude Terry.

Maude Terry and the founding of Azurest (1947)

Maude Terry was a schoolteacher from Brooklyn who summered in Sag Harbor and understood the demand. In 1947, she partnered with her sister Amaza Meredith (an architect) and other Black families to purchase land on the bay side of Sag Harbor and develop it into a subdivision specifically for Black families.

Azurest — named for the azure-blue water of the bay — became the first Black-planned subdivision in what would become SANS. Small lot sizes, modest but well-designed houses, and — critically — beach access. Ownership was open to Black families at a time when most Long Island beach communities were closed to them.

Amaza Meredith, an important early Black woman architect, designed several of the original Azurest homes. Her house, Azurest South, in Petersburg, Virginia, remains a significant piece of mid-century modern Black architecture; she brought that sensibility to Sag Harbor.

Sag Harbor Hills (1949)

Two years after Azurest, Sag Harbor Hills was developed as the second Black subdivision. Adjacent to Azurest, slightly inland, and developed to the same specifications — accessible pricing, Black ownership, walkable to Azurest's beach access.

The community grew organically. Word spread through Black professional networks in NYC, Boston, DC, and Philadelphia. Families who had known each other from Harlem, from Sugar Hill, from historically Black colleges, started buying adjacent lots. The community was small enough that everyone knew everyone.

Ninevah (1952)

The third and final piece of what would become SANS: Ninevah, developed 1952, southernmost of the three subdivisions, with direct access to what would become Ninevah Beach.

By the completion of Ninevah, the three subdivisions had roughly 200 homes between them. Small by Hamptons standards. Massive as a Black-owned beachfront community.

The names

The names of the subdivisions weren't neutral. "Azurest" evoked the water. "Sag Harbor Hills" placed the community geographically. And "Ninevah" — the ancient biblical city — was a name chosen with cultural intent: a reference to a place of prosperity, a place worth building.

The naming reflects the founders' seriousness. This wasn't a temporary refuge. This was a permanent community meant to be inherited across generations.

The who's-who era (1950s-70s)

By the 1960s, SANS had become the East Coast's second-most-important Black summer community after Oak Bluffs. The residents and regulars included:

• Lena Horne — the singer and actress, a SANS regular for decades
• Harry Belafonte — the singer and activist, summering in the community
• B. Smith — the model, restaurateur, and Lifestyle magnate whose Sag Harbor restaurant became an institution of the area
• Allan Houston — the New York Knicks guard
• Colson Whitehead — the Pulitzer-winning novelist, whose novel Sag Harbor (2009) is a semi-autobiographical account of growing up in the community
• Various federal judges, U.S. senators, professors, doctors, attorneys, businesspeople — the deep Black professional class of the Northeast, quietly owning summer homes

The famous names got the press. But the underlying story was the community — the block associations, the beach committees, the annual meetings that ran the neighborhood's civic life.

The preservation fight

By the 2000s, Sag Harbor as a whole had become one of the most expensive real estate markets in America. Original SANS homes — often modest 1950s ranches or small capes — sat on lots that were suddenly worth millions. Non-community buyers began buying original homes, tearing them down, and building large modern replacements that broke the visual and cultural character of the neighborhood.

SANS residents mobilized. Preservation efforts included:

• The historic district designation — Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, and Ninevah Beach Subdivisions Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 10, 2019.
• Zoning protections — the Village of Sag Harbor adopted special zoning to protect the community's character.
• Ongoing preservation work — the SANS Historic Survey, conducted by preservationist Allison McGovern, documents the neighborhood's history and buildings.
• Formal community organizations — Azurest, Sag Harbor Hills, and Ninevah each have property owner associations that steward the community.

The preservation work is ongoing. The tension between market pressure and cultural preservation is real.

The role SANS plays in Black American history

SANS is not just a summer community. It's a chapter in the larger story of Black wealth-building, Black property ownership, and Black civic organization in the 20th century.

Consider what SANS represents:

• Black families exercising property ownership at a time when most were shut out
• Black-led development — Maude Terry and her partners built this, not white developers who sold to Black buyers
• Multigenerational transfer — most SANS homes are still owned by families who bought or inherited them mid-century
• Institutional Black civic life — decades of block associations, community fundraisers, and shared governance
• The Northeast complement to Oak Bluffs — completing the "Black East Coast summer" geography

That's a lot for three small subdivisions to hold. They've held it.

Today

SANS in 2026 is a working community. Original families still summer here. New buyers, when they arrive, are increasingly Black professionals drawn by the community's history and cultural character.

The Hamptons Black Art Council (HBAC), founded to elevate Black arts on the East End, runs summer programming at the Eastville Heritage House Museum. The Eastville Community Historical Society stewards the community's broader Black + Indigenous history through walking tours and cultural preservation. And the SANS block associations continue the civic work.

Visiting the history

If you're visiting SANS and want to engage the history:

• Walk Azurest. Especially the original mid-century homes.
• Visit the Eastville Heritage House Museum. Small, meaningful, worth an hour.
• Do the Eastville walking tour. Docent-led when scheduled; self-guided otherwise.
• Read Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead. Even the fictionalized version puts you in the community.
• Learn the names. Terry. Meredith. Belafonte. Horne. Smith. Whitehead. Houston. And the hundreds of families who did the actual work.

The community exists because someone built it. And it continues because someone maintains it.

Related

• Sag Harbor's SANS 2026: The Complete Guide
• Ninevah Beach Guide
• Sag Harbor Black Arts + Culture Calendar 2026
• Getting to Sag Harbor + Where to Stay
• Martha's Vineyard Black Summer 2026 — the East Coast parallel

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1947. 1949. 1952. Three subdivisions. Eighty years. Still going.