Sunday, September 4, 2022
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What began as a fascination of his house became a mild infatuation with a man and his wife for half my life. On a random drive 30 years ago, like a mirage, I saw an ancient, nor’easter-battered ivy covered stucco mansion that had seen better times, a veritable and welcome slice of my hometown Miami, on the most unlikely slim ribbon of sand on Long Island’s north shore, Asharoken, a peninsula hosting largely contemporary beach houses of particle board and T1-11. I immediately became obsessed with one day owning and saving it. Over the intervening years I visited Mr. Sarser to remind him that should he ever wish to sell I was interested, but ultimately found him even more fascinating - to this day I can imagine the concerts he held on that rooftop in the ‘40s. I last saw him in his garage archiving his vast collection of Manhattan studio recordings for posterity. Between chemotherapy and the summer heat I was too ill to suggest helping but did suggest that perhaps an intern from a local college could help. The last time I visited the property was on November 11, 2015, my last day in the area as I was within weeks leaving New York forever. I dropped by to say goodbye but he and his wife were not home, so I took a few photos of the place as a remembrance. Only today, 9/4/22, do I know why the Sarsers didn’t answer their door. I’m deeply saddened to learn that he had died two years before that final visit, and his house, today presumably deteriorated beyond reclamation, is now an afterthought, to be irrevocably razed. I feel I’ve failed not only in my mission to save his home but as a neighbor to have learned of his passing so late. Now I can only express my condolences to his family at the loss of this great man; I now know, albeit at too high a price, the early history of his house “Solana,” as grand as I’ve imagined it thanks to its recent listing and sale. I’m now 60 and beyond the point of wishing to renovate any property, but at least I will always remember Mr. Sarser and his home; with luck for at least the next third of my life, should I outlive my contemporaries as he had, long after he and it are lost from the collective consciousness. This man’s home was his castle.
