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[0:00] Jess Rothschild: I'm Jessi Rothschild, and this is Finding Fire Island Season 2, Episode 2, Heated Rivalries.

[0:13] Jess Rothschild: We're diving into the longstanding tension between the Pines and Cherry Grove, and asking a bigger question, how did the Pines become gay? To find out, I spoke with the niece of one of the area's earliest settlers, back when the Pines was just sand dunes and ocean.

[0:34] Lorraine Gengo: My Pines origin story is growing up there since maybe two years old. I'm 69, so I've been going out there for a really long time.

[0:43] Lorraine Gengo: My family history in the Pines goes back almost 100 years. My great aunt and uncle were one of the first inhabitants out there. They started going out. My great uncle was there in 1928, and my great aunt went out there in 1930, and they were campers. They used to pitch tents, and they would camp on the beach.

[1:06] Lorraine Gengo: Before boardwalks or even electricity, a group of friends were just hanging out here. Those friends included Lorraine's aunt and uncle, Alice and John Thorpe.

[1:16] Lorraine Gengo: They were hikers and campers, very bohemian. They were out there by themselves, so they saw no need to wear clothes. They were nudists, although my great aunt hated that word. She said, I'm not a nudist, darling. I'm a naturist. But she was a nudist. She didn't wear clothes.

[1:35] Lorraine Gengo: I inherited my Aunt Alice's diaries, documenting life on the island.

[1:41] Lorraine Gengo: She talked about getting out to Cherry Grove with her friends, because that was the only place where there was a ferry. As soon as they got off the boat, they walked east on the beach to where the Pines is today, which is where they really liked to camp, because there was a cranberry bog there. The cranberry bog always ensured that there was fresh water.

[2:03] Lorraine Gengo: Even in the hottest summers, they could always find fresh water in that cranberry bog. They used to bathe in it to get the salt off of them.

[2:13] Jess Rothschild: What about Cherry Grove back in 1930? What was going on there?

[2:18] Lorraine Gengo: Cherry Grove was a happening place. I mean, there was a grocery store and there were, you know, there was a post office. There was civilization, basically.

[2:28] Lorraine Gengo: As we covered extensively in Season 1, Cherry Grove began in the 1800s as a fishing village for Saville families across the Bay. In 1949, everything shifted. A theater opened, the Cherry Grove Community Theater, and word started to spread through the underground Broadway community. This was a place where you could perform and be openly gay at a time where saying the words, I'm gay, was unheard of. That's why Cherry Grove is the oldest gay and lesbian town in America.

[3:02] Lorraine Gengo: But then there came the 1938 hurricane, and that completely trashed Cherry Grove. I have pictures of that, too, of just total devastation. That changed my great aunt and uncle's days of camping in tents to building shacks, because now there was all this free lumber on the beach.

[3:23] Lorraine Gengo: The wood that blew over became the framework for their first makeshift homes. This hurricane devastated Cherry Grove, and with it, an early lesson. This place is fragile. Everything here can vanish in a single storm. Therefore, the friends learned how to protect what they had.

[3:42] Lorraine Gengo: They had a big whiskey barrel, and they would fill it with kerosene lamps, cutlery, plates, camping utensils, and then they would sink that whiskey barrel in the sand and cover it over, and they knew where to find it. That meant that even if the shack blew down during the winter storms, they'd come back, they'd find their whiskey barrel, and they'd dig out their stuff, and they'd start again.

[4:06] Lorraine Gengo: Cut to 1950. The Pines doesn't even have a name yet, though some call it Lone Hill after the old Coast Guard station. One day, Aunt Alice read the paper. A real estate company called Home Guardian has bought the land they'd been squatting on. They're selling them for real houses, at least twice the size of those in Cherry Grove. The price? $265. That's around $3,500 today. And just like that, Cherry Grove's younger, sexier sister is born. Her name? The Fire Island Pines.

[4:50] Bob “Rose” Levine: Yes, I arrived in July of 1955, and the first season I stayed in Cherry Grove. The next season, I already had a friend that rented a house in the Pines in 1956. The house is still there.

[5:08] Bob “Rose” Levine: I walked over there in 1956. There were no houses around there. There were shacks just like there were in Cherry Grove. It was like a fishing village. And it was all straight people who lived in Sayville, and there was no electricity and no running water. Anyway, I came back to the Pines that season many times to visit, and I liked the Pines. And it was quiet because we had more activity in the Grove. So that's why I stayed there.

[6:03] Bob “Rose” Levine: I lived there because I could have bought a house. They were begging me to buy property in the Pines. I could have bought a piece of land for $1,000, but there was nothing there. So I got friendly with all the people as they were moving in through the years.

[6:25] Bob “Rose” Levine: Every year I went to the Pines, but I lived in the Grove because we had a theater there. And that's what I loved about Cherry Grove. And I loved living there.

[6:43] Jess Rothschild: As straight families began snapping up beach lots, one woman saw an opportunity in the Pines' pristine harbor. That woman was Peggy Fierce. Peggy was a Ziegfeld Follies girl turned Broadway producer, a chic lesbian, and already a familiar face in Cherry Grove.

[7:04] Jess Rothschild: But while the Grove was certainly mischievous fun, it didn't quite have an entrance. It just had a pier. The Pines had a harbor, wide, glamorous, and theatrical. So Peggy Fierce built a hotel and restaurant to surround the harbor, where she could entertain Broadway and Hollywood friends. She set the stage.

[7:28] Christopher Rawlins: I understand that her girlfriend, Teddy Thurman, named it the Botel originally.

[7:37] Christopher Rawlins: Teddy Thurman, she was fabulous too. I mean, they were both just glamorous lesbians. And Teddy Thurman was a weather girl for Monitor Radio. And she would go on to the radio and say things like, today's forecast will be sultry. But Teddy Thurman was the one who named it the Botel because people would just drive in with their boats, spend a few hours at the bar, maybe crash overnight and then be on their way.

[8:08] Jess Rothschild: Just two years later, the Botel burned to the ground in a Memorial Day fire. Peggy rebuilt it out of concrete cinder block, which explains a lot if you've ever spent the night there.

[8:19] Bob “Rose” Levine: So they all had a little more taste, New York taste. They were sophisticated. They were smart. They knew what to do for the future.

[8:32] Bob “Rose” Levine: The Lichtensteins, the Saulmans, these straight couples lived in New York. They had a lot of money, but they loved being in the Pines with the gay people because the activity was what they enjoyed. And yet they were straight. They had money. They donated. They built this. They built that. So eventually the houses were being built. They were large. Then pools came in. It's like Capri, you know, you go. People come from all over the world to go to all Fire Islands. But the Pines has a special kind of atmosphere that the other communities don't have. We love the Grove, but Pines is special.

[9:15] Bob “Rose” Levine: The Pines was special and drawing more Cherry Grovers who didn't want to be called blatant homosexuals. So while the Grove was playful and kitschy, the Pines appealed to those who wanted bigger houses, modern design, and above all, discretion, a place where you wouldn't be outed by your address. A little more elegant and higher end, more educated people. They went to the Pines. So if you felt comfortable, you went to the Pines. But if you didn't feel comfortable, you didn't go there.

[9:56] Bob “Rose” Levine: The divide quickly reinforced classism and body politics that still echo today. I felt comfortable. I had all friends there. I went to all the fashion shows. I went to dinner. I went to visit people. I met people out there. More of my friends were in the Pines than in the Grove. But I lived in the Grove because I bought a house already. But yes, everybody says, oh, the Pines is snob. They're snobs. Yes, they were because they had better taste. They built bigger houses. And now it's sort of leveled out because it's a different generation, two generations later. But there's still a stigma in the Pines. They're stuck up. They're this, they're that. But if you say it, then you feel like you don't belong.

[10:45] Bob “Rose” Levine: A lot of the early people in the Pines left Cherry Grove, and there could have been a certain kind of resentment there that these people went eastward to a new community and left their old community behind. We met Ron Martin last episode. He first visited the Pines just two days after moving to Manhattan.

[11:08] Bob “Rose” Levine: Because there were so many people in those days in the Pines who were in the fashion, creative design world. And I think the ones who left wanted to build new houses that were bigger, that more reflected their style of living. And they couldn't do it in Cherry Grove because the lots were very small. The houses are right next to each other. And yes, they were probably more affluent, the ones that left and built the big new and hired architects to design homes for them and that kind of thing. And so there could have been a little bit of resentment there towards those who left. And maybe those who left kind of said, well, we've moved on and moved on up to something better.

[11:58] Bob “Rose” Levine: Were your friends in the Grove? Like, why are you going over there? Yes. I had. Oh, Rosalyn, she's a snob. Someone would call me a lounge lizard because I have a house with a pool and I sit around the pool. So I'm a lounge lizard. But that's what they did in the Pines because they didn't have a pool. I was the second person in the Grove to put a pool in my house in 1977.

[12:38] Bob Howard: As Cherry Grovers moved in, the developers grew alarmed. Realtors were told to screen buyers in the Pines. There was even a large sign planted in the harbor. It read Welcome to Fire Island Pines, a family community, clean morally and physically. Exhibitionism is below the level of human behavior. It also notes how gays might bring unfavorable publicity, a reference to the raids which were already happening in Cherry Grove and gay bars in Manhattan. The intent was clear. Define the Pines as heterosexual and discourage gay residents and renters. But that sign caused mischief, with gays stealing and hiding it repeatedly.

[13:18] Jess Rothschild: I asked Rose Levine about a rumored deal between the Seville Police and FOPOA, the Property Owners Association, to keep raids out of the Pines.

[13:28] Bob “Rose” Levine: I never heard that. They did have raids in the Pines because my friend Jack had to bail out a few people.

[13:33] Bob Howard: The people who came to bail out the gay people who got arrested for man dancing with men or men having supposedly sex with each other were straight people who owned businesses here. Jack Lichtenstein was especially important in that regard. I know they had raids there. Not as many as in the Grove, but they did have raids.

[13:55] Jess Rothschild: Perhaps the gay takeover was inevitable. Hetero families sold their homes with

[14:01] Chris Lovito: Most queer men were happy to take off their hands. Enter John White, a handsome model and entrepreneur who buys the properties along the harbor from Peggy Fears. A few years later, he'll begin tea dance at the Blue Whale. John White is the most influential figure in Pine's history. Would we describe him as a very picky gay?

[14:42] Chris Lovito: Chris Levito was John White's employee and confidant for over a decade. He had a good relationship, but John was very strong. He had a lot of opinions. John's attitude was that men should dress as men and be gay men, not gay men in their mother's clothes. When people asked me years ago, describe the difference between the Pines and the Grove, the Grove is Soho. It's downtown. Everything goes. It's bohemian. It's artsy. It's neighborhood. The Pines was Park and Madison. Bigger houses, bigger show. Everybody's in shape. You want to feel out of shape, come to the Pines. Bigger, better, beautiful type of attitude. John was that person. He was very strict and he was very careful. He didn't want drag queens.

That's how the invasion started, but that's another story. In the 50s already, we had parties. The parties were a hat party, a high heel party, a cowboy party, a jewelry party. It wasn't drag, but it was a suggestion. You wore earrings. Everyone wore earrings. You wore a high heel. That was the beginning. It was at different houses. Every Saturday, someone else would make a party and the whole community. There were 60 people, 100 people that we knew. That's how it started. Rules were in place as police raids increased in Cherry Grove. Men were handcuffed, taken to Sayville and booked. Even though John personally bailed the men out of jail, front page headlines appeared in the New York Post, ending marriages and careers.

[16:42] Chris Lovito: I remember in the 70s, he still considered himself part of that fashion world, the models. They brought out all the high-end designers, Giorgio, San Angelo, Bill Blass. They had runway shows every few weeks. People would come there, the models, and they'd bring an actor from Broadway. Elizabeth Taylor came there, Noel Coward, Rock Hudson. I saw them all sitting on the deck at the motel. I was there. Roddy McDowall. It was all a mix of just higher-level people who understood the gay life. Listen, when he would tell me, he says, you know, the crown is heavy. I run this town. There's very few places in the world that you can be king or queen, and I'm the king. This place bounces to my rhythm. It beats to my drum.

I turn the town on. I turn the town off. He wanted to protect things. He was super protective. He always had a vision of what he wanted the Pines to be, in terms of the commercial district downtown. He did exert a great deal of control over, in some ways, the style of the Pines. And from what I remember, John was not a fan of guys in drag. He didn't want the Pines to become that, and he always saw the Pines as different from the Grove that way. And so, I mean, that was the origin of the invasion story, is that he really didn't want guys in drag coming into his businesses and changing the feeling of the place.

[18:39] Chris Lovito: He was a complex individual. He came from the Midwest. He was a model. He was gay. His father was not happy about it. He was down in the Grove. He came to the Pines. He understood that there was a place for sale. He was looking at the cultured elephant to buy. He met the ladies that were owning the Blue Whale and partnered up with them, and then eventually bought them out. He was a visionary. He was a renaissance guy. He was an amazing human being. He taught me a lot. Even when he would go to places and he would say to me, I know the people don't like me. There's a group there that don't like me, but I'm going to be polite no matter what. And, you know, I miss him. He was an exceptional person.

He was difficult. He was absolutely difficult, but he would listen. All the tension between the two communities boiled over in 1976, when John famously refused service to a Cherry Grove resident in drag. The result, the annual invasion of the Pines, a clear rejection of the transphobic respectability politics at play. And so a pattern emerged, let loose in Cherry Grove, button up back home in the Pines.

[19:55] Chris Lovito: But while social life revolved around the tea dance, Friday and Saturday nights were still reigning over in Cherry Grove at the Ice Palace and the Monster. And just like John White, many of the people you'll hear from began in Cherry Grove, living, performing and figuring themselves out there first.

[20:15] Kyle Merker: So in 1981, I had a really sucky job. I worked for an insurance company and I hated every minute of it. And a friend of mine said, let's go to Fire Island for a week. And of course, we were both gay. And we were like, let's go to Cherry Grove. This is Kyle Merker, a Pines firefighter for over 30 years. And actually, the truth is, I never left. I called in, I quit my job. I got a job on Fire Island. Hey, I was 19. You know, it was like, it was, it's okay to be that spontaneous when you're 19. In fact, 19 year olds should be that spontaneous. And I ended up in Cherry Grove. So there I am. I'm 19 years old, and I go up and I asked them if they would give me a job and they say yes. And I had no idea what I was getting into whatsoever.

I had never been in a gay environment, that gay of an environment before. I didn't quite know what to make of it. I was very, I was shy. You know, everybody in the Monster had a drag name, whether you wanted one or not. So like everyone had these names, you know, there was Lady E. I loved Lady E. She was great. There's Lady Fair. You know, everybody had these names. And they, because I was so innocent, they called me Kyleen Cranshaw from Keatuck, Iowa, which isn't true because I'm from Queens. But so that was kind of my girl name while I was there. And the place was hopping. It was one of the most exciting places I have ever worked in my life. As a matter of fact, there we would do a couple of hundred dinners on a Saturday night. People would come from all over to eat at the Monster. It was that good.

[21:58] Varun Rampersad: Historian Varun Rampersad. The most spectacular thing they provide is the underwear party. That is a massive draw for the boys in the Pines. And no matter what they tried in the Pines, they could never break the stranglehold that the Ice Palace has on the underwear party on a Friday night.

[22:22] Varun Rampersad: So why can't the Pines break that stranglehold? Because like everything on Fire Island, it's a ritual. Just as everyone drops everything for tea at six, Friday night means one thing. You go to Cherry Grove and you're mentally prepared to leave your clothes at the door. It's got everything that they want there. There's a process the boys all go through for how they prepare to leave the house and they get there, whether they're going, they're walking or if they're taking the water taxi, whether they're going to leave their clothes in the bag or they're going to go essentially ready to party. The back room at the Ice Palace is, I don't want to say notorious, but people go there, the Pines boys go there to behave badly. I know a couple who go there together to have sex with other people while one gets plowed, the other one's holding his hand, which is kind of weird. They go there to behave badly. They're not there for the music, trust me.

[23:26] Bob Howard: Pines real estate broker, Bob Howard. And that's how I feel about Cherry Grove. It's like getting out of town. That's all. I mean, it's nice. It's great. It's busy. You come back to the Pines and it's a sleepy little village at 11 or 12 o'clock at night. And thank God for the Grove, you know, because the Grove is fun. The Grove is fun. The Pines is also fun, but it's a different kind of fun. It's quiet fun. We just had all these characters and I had never been exposed to that before. You know, there was this guy we called Lady Aaron. He was about 700 years old. He had a beard that would put ZZ Top to shame. He looked like he just woke up in the gutter and he was all water boy. It was amazing.

And it was amazing for me as a kid just coming out to be submerged in that culture. And we worked hard. 12 hour day was a short day for us because we showed up, we set up the restaurant, we got everything ready, we whipped the butter, we whipped the cream, served the tables, and then we cleaned up and then we did all the laundry at night. So we were there for a long time. We made a lot of money. I went to NYU. I made a third of my tuition in three months. It was great. So every time I go to the Grove, I say the Grove put me through college, the Monster put me through college, and I wish they would open it again.

[24:39] Bob Howard: What was your first impression of the Pines boys at the Monster? I remember everyone called them the Pine clones instead of the Pine cones because they all had the mustaches and the shirt and that was the thing at the time and I never really understood any of that. But the Pines residents would of course come to the restaurant all the time and they were handsome. They were handsome. So you kind of knew everybody, everybody fit in their mold in those days. So the Grove to me, all of a sudden I was just thrown in the gay pool and I had to figure it out. I wasn't one to have a lot of sex and I think that saved my life because the next summer everybody started dying. So I basically, I'm alive from that period. There's only, I know of one other person, oh no, I know of two other people who's alive from that first summer or my whole time at the Monster. So, you know, we went through a lot, you know, together.

[25:47] Christopher Rawlins: The Pines was quickly drawing affluent and talented New Yorkers, Broadway show folk, painters, photographers, and one pivotal arrival, architect Horace Gifford. And Horace Gifford knew exactly what his clients wanted. He really loathed painted surfaces and clipped lawns and all of the brute force that basically went into a typical maintenance of a suburban house.

[26:24] Christopher Rawlins: Architect and historian Christopher Rawlins. And so the beach houses were rebelling against that kind of suburban nuclear family norm. So they're very natural. They're maintenance free. They're meant to be easy. They're literally without closets. In many cases, they're very communal. They're not about the acquisition of stuff. They're about the theater of life that goes on within them. And in some cases, too, they have a deliberately voyeuristic quality.

[26:54] Christopher Rawlins: Gifford's work really captured the Pines appeal over Cherry Grove, how it was a place where men could disappear and hide behind the harbor's glitz. And as the Pines became more and more gay, let's say towards the late 60s, the houses literally open up to the outside, to the boardwalk. And it's all about that kind of come hither stare where the houses literally become glass walls that invite prurience, invite curiosity, invite community friendliness and sort of chance encounters.

[27:29] Christopher Rawlins: And so that's really, you know, a lot of what makes for a Barbie's dream house in the Pines. I just started knocking on doors of the houses I liked the most, about a dozen houses that really just spoke to me. And people were incredibly welcoming. You know, when you're a twink architect, they just say, come on in. The whole house is at your disposal. So I started knocking on doors and I said, who designed your house? And they all said, Horace Gifford. And I said, who? And they said, oh, my God, I've got stories about you.

[28:02] Unknown speaker: First, they would talk about how talented he was. But very quickly, it would segue into very naughty stories about how he was gorgeous. He was blonde. He was tall. He was muscular. He was tan. He had a swimmer's build. And he got his first clients the old-fashioned way by sleeping with them. And so, as you can see, there's just sort of this great melange of talent and cunning and ambition and salaciousness that made him an irresistible way for me to illuminate the history of the Pines. I wondered which homes have the best stories. He immediately said Arthur Erikson's Right on the Ocean. It's nicknamed Lincoln Center in the Pines with a retractable roof over the living area and a retractable ocean-facing wall in the back.

One of the most legendary parties was had there. For his housewarming party in 1977, he filled the double-height living room with silver and gold balloons. The entertainment was Roberta Flack, as one does. And at the stroke of midnight, a button was pressed and the ceiling automatically retracted and the silver and gold balloons fled into a starlit sky. They really had a knack for spectacle. And that's another one of those houses where you look at it and it is wildly impractical in many ways. But to me, that's a feature, not a bug. Because so much of living out in the Pines was just getting away from all the conventions that were sort of forced upon us. And part of that is just being whimsical and a little bit glamorous and a bit camp even at times.

[30:04] Unknown speaker: There's one place on the island everyone knows, a little house on the bay called Reflections. Think a dynasty meets Miami Vice Porn Lodge. Well, it's interesting architecturally for its sort of Alice in Wonderland batshit craziness. I mean, originally it was built out of redwood, but the owners, Gloria Duman and her husband, had the whole place slathered in a shade of paint that I call cocaine white, and filled it with these giant white ceramic palm trees. And giant camels outside that were modeled after the Shah of Iran's villa. It just screams sort of 80s excess in a way that I'm sure at some point people would call dated and rolled their eyes at. But enough time has passed where it's just like a wonderful campy adventure.

And all of the parties that keep going on there just keep that madness alive. And I can definitely tell you that some of my craziest times in the pines, which if we were drinking cocktails, I might get into more detail about, have happened in that house. As well as my social peak when I got to dance to Cher's Do You Believe in Life After Love with Bjork. It's been all downhill since.

[31:27] Unknown speaker: Throughout the 80s, around the world, there's been a lot of crazy stuff going on. Throughout the 80s, original owners, Gloria Duman and her husband, threw lavish parties at Reflections. Parties that mirrored them perfectly. About Gloria Duman, I mean, she was plucked right out of central casting and fit perfectly with that house. She kind of looked like Liz Taylor at her most eyelinered and big haired moment. And that just fit the whole vibe of the house perfectly. The tradition continues today with Amber Martin recreating Bette Midler at the Continental Baths. So my idea was just to have a party where you recreate a bathhouse vibe. I wasn't even thinking that far ahead as far as checking your clothes and getting a towel, steam the room, dark lights, and then a DJ that plays like 70s bathhouse disco. So you're really transported to a time and a place. And then I pop up and do a Bette set. Short and sweet. Leave the stage.

[32:32] Unknown speaker: The show quickly evolved into Bette, Bathhouse and Beyond, produced by nightlife empresario Daniel Nardiccio, king of the underwear party. No phones allowed. There were no phones at the Continental Baths. We want to transport you to a vintage time. And it worked. And people lost their shit. And it was great. Like, you know, it was a sexually charged party. You know, you put a bunch of gays in towels. Well, they're coming off eventually, right? It's almost more of a tribute to the Continental Baths than it is Bette. Amber agreed that Reflections really sets the scene. And it was really the best place ever to do it. Because history, there's some ghosts in there. If the walls could talk, you know, people could be in the pool and be in the jacuzzi.

There's a back dark room that people could go into. And then we would also make the lights dark in the main room. And there was this big white coffee table, circular coffee table, probably still there, that I would dance, I would do the little show on. So I just like jump up on this coffee table and do the set. You know, and there's a white grand piano, everything's white in the whole house. You know, it almost seems like Halston could have summered there or something.

[33:53] Unknown speaker: The party is another example of different generations mixing together in the pines. I've had old men come up to me in a towel at the party and say, thank you so much for doing this. We need this. No one, no one does this, you know. And then I've had young kids, they'll come up to me and be like, I didn't even know what this was. And some people have even said, like, I didn't know anything about Bette or, you know, and I'm like, you need to get your homework kid, you know, that you learn. But it really blew people's minds. And I had people cry, actually, and be like, thank you. It was amazing. It was profound, actually, what this party did. One of the most popular homes in the pines is simply known as the Calvin Klein House.

The Calvin Klein House has a really incredible and layered history. What a lot of people don't know is that it was originally built for a straight couple with several children. Even though on the surface, they presented as, you know, nuclear family, they were quite countercultural in many ways. I'm told that the wife, for example, loved to sit on her lazy Susan lounge with a hit of angel dust. They did not last very long. They divorced, sold the house to Calvin Klein in 1977.

[35:00] Unknown speaker: This was at the height of his nothing comes between me and my Calvin's fame. Andy Warhol even details one weekend hanging with Calvin and David Geffen in his diaries. He then bought the lot behind it and brought Horace Gifford back in the original designer to design a pool, a gym and quarters for the quote pool boy. You know, the pines was traditionally a very public place to enjoy private architecture. But Calvin Klein being the celebrity that he was had to start worrying about his security. And it was real for him because in 1978, his daughter Marcy was actually kidnapped. And so it does take on a much more enclosed vibe than most houses that one would find out there at the time. Fast forward about six years, 1985, Hurricane Gloria hits and basically rips off the entire front of the house.

Calvin rebuilt it, but very soon afterwards sells it to David Geffen, the record producer. And not only that, but he left the pines. He married a woman and went to the Hamptons, which I don't have any confirmations, but you can imagine that that would be a logical action for someone running a billion dollar company, watching gay colleagues die all around him and thinking, perhaps I should present a more heterosexual face to the world if I'm running this big company and wanted to succeed.

[37:10] Unknown speaker: The house has been sold several times over, but it will forever be known as the Calvin Klein house. It was so fun to be around people who were obviously having so much fun. But then there were things like you'd get up in the morning and then you'd be walking down the main boardwalk and there'd be poppers all over the place. And it would be like, hmm, I wonder what that's for. And then you find out what that's for, you know, and, you know, it was totally different lifestyle than the one I led. And yeah, as a kid, when we would go walk in the areas that were undeveloped, you know, to get to the bay or something like that, yeah, we'd run into men having sex in the woods. And it just didn't phase me as a kid.

It really didn't. And my parents weren't particularly worried about us kids being exposed to that. They just weren't. I guess they figured that when we were ready to ask them questions about it, we would. And I did. But it really blew people's minds. And I had people cry, actually, and be like, thank you. It was amazing. It was profound, actually, what this party did.

[39:11] Unknown speaker: In the end, the story of how the Pines became gay starts the way we began this episode, with Lorraine's aunt and uncle, Alice and John Thorpe. They saw what was happening and didn't resist it. They embraced it, helping the Pines become a place by gays, for gays. My great-uncle John was the first president of FOPOA. And then Alice was on the board. She was elected to the board. And the thing I think that triggered her involvement or being more vocal, because there was a big push not to rent or sell to gay people. But I think what triggered it for Alice was, there was a questionnaire that they wanted to circulate. And it was for renters and for buyers that was basically asking things like, what's your religion?

You know, they wanted their phone numbers of their employers. It was way too intrusive. And Alice, I think that was the line in the sand for her. She stood up at a meeting, a board meeting. And she said, my great-aunt was a schoolteacher, an English teacher. And she had perfect diction. And she had this very stentorian way of speaking, like everything she said was for publication, you know, she was a serious force. And she stood up at this meeting, and she said, what kind of community do we want to be? Are we really, are we not going to sell to homosexuals? Because that would be the word she used. Gay wasn't in parlance at the time. And if we're not going to sell to homosexuals, she said, who's next? Will it be the Christians? Will it be the Jews? Will it be Asians? Who are we going to exclude from this community? What kind of community do we want to be?

[40:44] Unknown speaker: Aunt Alice lived in the pines until her death at 101 years old. And that really resonated with people. It was after that, Gil Parker told me this story, actually, at Alice's memorial. He was the literary agent to Tennessee Williams and many, many other playwrights. And he was very, very good friends with Alice. He told me it was at that, that galvanized things. He came up to me and he said, he told me exactly what I just said to you. And he said, it was at that point that the tide shifted for the LGBT community, that speech that she gave.

[41:26] Jess Rothschild: Thanks for listening to Finding Fire Island. Finding Fire Island is created, executive produced and narrated by Jess Rothschild. Watch all episodes on YouTube. And if you're enjoying the series, don't miss season one. This series is co-produced with the Pines Historical Society. Sound design by Caitlin White. Video editing by Evelyn Darr. With special thanks to the Pines Historical Society. The Pines Foundation and SAGE.