Freshly cut daffodils, rotisserie free-range chickens, freshly baked pains au chocolat—there’s something for everyone (well, everyone with a second home in one of the most expensive Zip Codes in the country) at the Sagaponack General Store. This piece of Long Island history has found new life thanks to a local billionaire, armed with a dream and unlimited resources.
Mindy Gray, the proprietor in question, has been spending her summers in Sagaponack since 2003. In addition to keeping shop, Gray is a philanthropist, and her husband, Jonathan Gray, is the chief operating officer of Blackstone, with a net worth of $8.5 billion. The Grays’ four daughters grew up going to the Sagaponack General Store for penny candy and ice cream. Now young women, they encouraged their mother to buy it when it was listed for sale in the fall of 2020. And so, for $3.8 million, she did.
Gray hired Sag Harbor architect Frank Greenwald, a favorite of Ina Garten’s and known for his historical sensitivity, to oversee the renovations, which included a new front porch and a glass addition with views of the surrounding farmland. Four years—and, some locals whispered, several million dollars—later, the store reopened last month. Business, it seems, is already booming.
Built as a post office in 1878, when eastern Long Island was dotted with weathered farmhouses and sprawling potato fields, the building was bought by Thomas Hildreth in 1898. A descendant of Southampton’s early Puritan settlers, Hildreth sold canned goods, snuff, and Gold Dust washing powder to the farmers and fishermen who rolled down Sagg Main Street in their horse-drawn wagons. He also served as postmaster, a role his nephew and great-nephew, eventual General Store proprietors, would later inherit.
Despite the rapid development of the area, the General Store stayed mostly true to its roots through the 2000s, offering both full-timers and summer visitors a place to stock up on firewood, deli sandwiches, and sunscreen. In 2016, perhaps as a signal that Sagaponack had passed the point of no return, the building became an outpost of Pierre’s, the pricey French bistro in Bridgehampton. It closed in 2020 due to the effects of the pandemic.
On a Wednesday afternoon in late April, Gray was found at her shop, chatting with customers and stocking shelves (made with salvaged wood) in her apron. General manager Gabby Green showed off local products such as parrot tulips from Stone’s Throw Farm, hot sauce from Springs Fireplace, and farm-fresh eggs from Sylvester Manor, on Shelter Island. (The revival of Dreamy Coffee cold brew will be especially welcome. It’s been very hard to come by since the closure of Sag Harbor store Modern General, where it was previously served.)
Buttered popcorn is one of 15 flavors of jelly beans that are among the “penny” candy, sold for $20 per pound. They fill a wall of antique P.O. boxes, which Gray found on the Live Auctioneers Web site. A native of Philadelphia, Gray grew up antiquing in Amish country with her father, whose photo, taken when he was 103, hangs in the store.
“He really taught me to appreciate antiques and old metalwork and old woodwork,” she says. “The whole idea always was to walk into the space and feel like you’re stepping back in time and really feeling the echoes of this rich history here.”
When Gray bought the property, its barn was filled with artifacts from the store’s previous life. Many of them now decorate its new interior. A sled once used to haul ice from Sagaponack Pond has been re-purposed as a flower display. It hangs near a dollhouse version of the store that belonged to the late Mary Hildreth, its longtime owner. Even the store’s rooster logo comes from a brand of animal feed it once stocked. The rooster is now printed on $35 baseball caps and housemade products like the raw honey produced by Gray’s bees. (Its cost: a mere $42.)
Sagaponack General Store continues to operate as the local post office. Given the town’s lack of mail-delivery service, Gray felt it was essential to maintain this function. (During construction, the village established a temporary post office in a trailer on nearby Hedges Lane.)
Gray romantically envisions her clientele as a mix of “farming families who’ve been here for centuries mingling with weekenders, mingling with artisans on their way to work, mingling with day-trippers,” she says. Open to suggestions, she hopes the new General Store will offer the “best of what everyone wants to see and what everyone needs.”
The apothecary section doesn’t stock Palmolive, but there is plenty of Flamingo Estate Roma Heirloom Tomato Dish Soap, which sells for $30 a bottle. This likely won’t trouble her customers. During a recent visit, Emily Weiss, the founder of Glossier, was sipping an iced coffee on the front porch. The writer (and AIR MAIL contributor) Amanda M. Fairbanks was seen shopping alongside a Norfolk terrier named Sally.
Asked about any well-known personalities who might have stopped in for a scone, Gray demurred, preferring to preserve the anonymity of her publicity-averse regulars. “To keep growing community,” after all, is her goal for the General Store’s next decade. She has the vision, and the means, to make it happen.
Carrie Monahan is a Brooklyn-based writer and producer
