A registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization chartered by the New York State Board of Regents and incorporated under the New York State Education Department.
Our mission is preservation and education: We preserve and educate about local history and culture through our unique historic sites, archives, collections, and public programs.
Sayre Barn
17 Meeting House Lane, Southampton, NY 11968
The Sayre Barn (ca. 1825) is one of Southampton's rare surviving early agricultural buildings. Its square-rule timber framing features oak posts and hand-riven Atlantic White Cedar shingles, representing innovative construction techniques for the time and Southampton's agrarian heritage. Wheat was threshed on the barn's center plank floor, hay filled the mows, and cattle and horses occupied the side bays.
The barn originally stood at the busy intersection of Main Street and Hampton Road, on land once owned by the Huntting and Sayre families, successful whalers and farmers. It was likely built for Captain Isaac Sayre (1789-1753), who bought the property around 1825 from the heirs of Colonel Benjamin Huntting (1753-1807). After Isaac Sayre's descendants left the area in the 1870s, the barn stood largely empty until the 1880s. Traveling circuses began using its walls as a billboard to advertise their spectacular shows. The Frank A. Robbins Circus, Gentry Brothers, and Christy Brothers once plastered its walls with vibrant lithographed posters of wild animals and death-defying acrobats. The barn became so synonymous with these vibrant advertisements that everyone simply called it "the Billboard Barn." The name stuck for the next 70 years.
Around 1931, the barn was used as an antiques shop. In the early 1950s, it was donated to the Southampton History Museum and moved to its current location on Meeting House Lane. The building was carefully restored in 2013-2014 with funding support from community members, the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, the Preservation League of New York State, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
In 2024-2026, the barn hosted the Nowedonah boat-building project led by James “Keith” Phillips, a member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, with help from Andrew "Gumbo" Hurley and other local volunteers. The boat is named in honor of Princess Nowedonah, also known as Lois Marie Hunter (1904-1975), who was an educator, advocate, and historian of the Shinnecock community. She was a direct descendent of Chief Nowedonah, the Shinnecock leader who first met the English settlers when they came ashore at Conscience Point in 1640. When finished, the Nowedonah will belong exclusively to the women of the Shinnecock Nation, in honor of Princess Nowedonah and the community's maritime heritage.