Part 3 - The Surf Hotel

While it is hard to miss the landmark Fire Island Lighthouse as the ferry arrives across the Great South Bay for the start of the Cross Bay Swim, there was another significant historical landmark located at this site that was not as lucky. It was the mid 1800s and a hotel owner from New York City named David S. S. Sammis, who had acquired the lease to 120 acres of property between the Fire Island Lighthouse and what is today Saltaire, was looking to take advantage of the expanding railroad on Long Island to build a summer resort by the beach. Other resorts in Saratoga Springs New York and Far Rockaway had attracted much attention and Mr. Sammis was ambitious enough to build a resort in this place that was well off the beaten path at that time in Long Island History. In 1855 a chowder house was constructed on the beach to the east of the Fire Island Lighthouse and met with enough success to convince Mr. Sammis to expand for the 1856 season. A 100 foot structure was constructed and the Surf Hotel was born. In order to reach the Surf Hotel travelers needed to travel to Deer Park by rail or carriage and be transported to the Babylon Dock on the Great South Bay. Transport to the Surf Hotel was by chartered ferry to the location of the current dock we arrive at today for the Cross Bay Swim. It is incredible to imagine that this quiet location was once an active ferry terminal transferring visitors to and from a popular seaside resort. What might be considered a day at the beach to many now was a journey that warranted a stay of a week or more at the Surf Hotel. Mr. Sammis’s resort got off to a strong start in 1856 but that was soon followed by difficult financial times and the Civil War which slowed business and almost put an end to the Surf. Mr. Sammis persevered through this period which included a bankruptcy petition as well as a period of time where the hotel was closed while the Civil War was raging in America. As the Surf struggled to survive a new lighthouse was being constructed just to the West to replace the existing smaller beacon The new lighthouse was activated as an aid to navigation on November 1, 1858.

The period following the Civil War until 1892 was the golden era for the Surf Hotel which was made much more accessible due to the railroad expansion to Babylon. Visitors to the resort enjoyed bathing in both the ocean waters as well as the more docile waters of the Great South Bay. Guests also took advantage of the close location to the Fire Island Inlet and went on fishing excursions into the Atlantic Ocean on catboats to catch the plentiful bluefish. The resort also provided many other activities such as tennis, bowling and billiards. As the hotel boomed along with the gilded age it became a popular stopping point for many of the famous yachts that frequented the waters. Yachting was a very popular sport on the south shore in the late 1800s and many famous races were held between the Fire Island inlet and Sandy Hook near the entrance to New York Harbor. These yachts would frequently anchor at the Surf as they moved in and out of the Fire Island inlet. The surf Hotel also had many famous guests during its existence on Fire Island with names such as Astor and many other well know gilded age socialites coming to enjoy the ocean air, good food, and relaxing atmosphere. Visitors traveled from as far and wide to visit the Surf Hotel with many coming from as far away as London England to enjoy the beach setting.

By 1892 the Surf Hotel had started to decline and David S. S. Sammis, who was 74 years old, was looking to sell. It is late August, 1892 and a raging cholera epidemic in Europe threatens to infect American shores through stricken steerage passengers emigrating from Hamburg, Germany. Incoming ocean liners are quarantined and steerage passengers are offloaded to quarantine hospitals on Hoffman and Swinburne Islands in Lower New York Bay. When all else fails, the dead are transferred to the Swinburne crematory. Most of the more affluent travelers in first and second-class cabins are not infected, but under the quarantine they are not allowed into the country for 20 days. When so-called Asian cholera -- an acute infectious disease spread by contaminated food and water -- quickly breaks out among stokers tending the steam boilers, however, panic sets in. Cabin passengers want off the ship. What to do with them during the duration of their quarantine? State health authorities have an idea. Out on the southern coast of Long Island is a sandy, virtually uninhabited barrier beach called Fire Island, where dwell only shorebirds, deer, ticks, occasional day trippers and the master of the Fire Island Lighthouse. But at Democrat Point, at the western end of the island, there is a rundown old hotel called the Surf, which, in better days, played host to revelers and sun worshippers from far and wide. Why not buy the hotel and its surrounding 120 acres of sand, ship the quarantined passengers out to the Surf Hotel and let them live out their short captivity in ease and isolation? Democratic Governor Roswell P. Flower loves the idea and orders it done. He even ponies up $50,000 of his own money as a down payment to get things moving. Not in our neighborhood, cry Babylon and Islip Town residents. And baymen, claiming their livelihood is threatened, scream bloody murder. Fire Island is on the verge of becoming a battleground. The State of New York won out and purchased the property to carry out the quarantine which was done peacefully.

Following this incident the State attempted to reopen the Surf but its time had passed. By 1908 the storm damage property was dismantled and turned into the first State Park in New York. The Fire Island Parks Commission (Later the Long Island Parks Commission headed by Robert Moses) was created to administer the property as a park to be enjoyed by the public. It is now part of Robert Moses State Park although the land to the East of the lighthouse is not accessible to the public.

As you pull up to the dock at the next Cross Bay swim take a look up to your left and think of the great Surf Hotel, the events that occurred there many years ago and the echoes that resonate through to today.

If you would like to learn more about the Surf Hotel you may want to consider purchasing the book “Fire Island’s Surf Hotel and other Hostelries on Fire Island Beaches in the Nineteenth Century” by Harry W. Havemeyer