LongHouse Reserve Welcomes New Director and Unveils 2026 Season

LongHouse Reserve, East Hampton’s vital 16-acre sculpture garden and nature sanctuary, will open its 2026 season with a Spring Awakening celebration on April 18 – postponed one month due to the snow and cold temperatures, delaying the annual daffodil blooms. The gardens will boast new sculptures – by Renee Cox, William Kentridge, and Sean Scully – complements to its permanent collection and long-term loans by Willem de Kooning, Maren Hassinger, Fitzhugh Karol, Grace Knowlton, Sol LeWitt, Yoko Ono, Barbara Shawcroft, Toshiko Takaezu, among others. LongHouse welcomes newly appointed Executive Director, Lara Sweeney.

LongHouse President Louis Bradbury said, “We are very fortunate to have Lara Sweeney become our next Executive Director. A dedicated Board committee spent several months interviewing many exceptional candidates. Long House is at an important stage in its history. In the five years since our founder, Jack Lenor Larsen’s, death, we have stabilized our organizational structure, brought in significant artwork, and bolstered our programming. Lara’s exceptional abilities in financial and administrative management, as well as her broad programmatic experience, make her the perfect person to lead our bright future.”

“This is a full circle moment for me in many ways “, says Sweeney. “My husband and I were married at LongHouse Reserve in 2005. 20 years later, I have the opportunity to help carry out LongHouse’s mission at one of the East End’s most beloved spaces – it’s a dream come true. I am honored to work alongside the Board of Trustees on exciting projects – including opening the home of Jack Lenor Larsen to the public and ensuring that LongHouse continues to thrive. This is a community sanctuary where art and nature exist together in thoughtful dialogue.”

Sweeney has more than two decades of fundraising and non-profit management experience. She has held leadership positions with the Children’s Museum of the East End since 2012; initially joining as the Director of Development and stepping into the Co-President’s role in 2022. During her tenure, she helped to increase the operating budget, grow annual visits, and helped to launch a visiting artist program. Most recently, Sweeney led efforts to complete a multi-million dollar capital campaign. A Sag Harbor native, Sweeney is deeply invested in expanding access to the arts and East End conservation efforts. “Working alongside Lara as Co-President at The Children’s Museum of the East End has been an absolute privilege. With the installation of an innovative, 9,000 sq foot playground, Lara has left a permanent mark at CMEE that will inspire families across the East End for generations to come. I look forward to seeing her vision, creativity, and commitment make a similar impact as she steps into her role at LongHouse Reserve”, shared Liz Bard, Co-President, Children’s Museum of the East End.

“Transitions are the true measure of institutional health — and LongHouse is ready to move forward “, shared Carrie Rebora Barratt, LongHouse’s Former Executive Director and Current Curatorial Consultant. “It has been my great privilege to guide this gorgeous organization through a period of change and renewal. I look forward to seeing LongHouse continue to flourish in the spirit of Jack Lenor Larsen’s creative and innovative vision.”

This season LongHouse welcomes the world-renowned Irish American artist Sean Scully into the garden with his colored stack entitled 48 (2024), a piece that epitomizes his deliberate use of stripes and color, with gestures toward land, sea, and sky. Scullly transforms the rigid geometry of the stripe and the grid into a profound visual language of emotion, history, and light. Declared the “greatest living abstract painter,” Dublin-Born Scully moved from London to New York in 1975 then spent a summer in Montauk in 1982, shifting the paradigm in abstraction from minimalism to emotional abstraction. His work navigates the elemental relationships that comprise our world; embracing nature and life. LongHouse celebrates Sean as an explorer of the human spirit.

Standing regally to greet visitors to LongHouse is Renée Cox’s Soul Culture Statue (2025), the first public art commission by the NYC-based photographer. The seven-foot tall sculpture marks the continuation of the artist’s participation in the philosophies of Afrofuturism. Borrowing inspiration from West African funerary sculptures, Pre-Columbian imagery from Peru, and Dogū figures from Japan, creating a sculpture that is a life lesson. Soul Culture Statue is Cox’s first outdoor work, commissioned by KODA, premiering on Governor’s Island before coming to East Hampton.

May 2nd opens Things that Look Like Magic: Cheryl R. Riley and Wharton Esherick, third in the series of “full circle” interpretations into LongHouse’s domestic space and collections, curated by curator-at-large Glenn Adamson and by curatorial consultant and former director Carrie Rebora Barratt. If Wharton Esherick (1887-1970) was the “alpha” figure of the studio craft movement, then Cheryl R. Riley is its “omega”, clearly the last great arrival into the arena as it was transitioning into a more interdisciplinary art and design scene. Founder Jack Lenor Larsen (1927-2020) knew both artists and actively and intentionally gathered artworks and artifacts from both and curated his spaces again and again. He wished for this practice of place-shifting to continue, thus inspiring an annual exhibition of rearrangements and reinvestigations, an act of relevance, not reverence. Through this cross-generational conversation, LongHouse will offer visitors a new lens into its important collections, while also creating a platform for this vital and proficient maker, with provocative connections to the counterpart of Esherick. This exhibition is generously underwritten by Barbara Tober and her Acronym Fund.

Two bronze sculptures by artist William Kentridge are also coming to LongHouse. Returning loans by Mark Mennin, Jill Platner, Kenny Scharf, and Vadis Turner welcome you back.

The recent collapse of the Fly’s Eye Dome (designed by visionary architect Buckminster Fuller, and produced by his student John Kuhtik) in a winter storm is heartbreaking and unexpected, inspiring staffand board to envision replacement of this icon of utopia and innovation. It stood not only as an architectural landmark, but as a gathering place, the site of talks, concerts, sound baths, and day camp — a reminder that art, design, nature, and human imagination can converge to shape a more thoughtful future.

LongHouse invites you to celebrate our Summer Benefit (June 27), themed Beautopia, honoring community champion Bruce Horten and artist Sean Scully. Guests will explore the extraordinary gardens, enjoy cocktails and live music, and bid in our signature Art Auction featuring works by leading and emerging artists from near and far. The night culminates with dinner —catered by Hamptons Aristocrat— and dancing at the afterparty under the stars.

Artist and author talks will be added throughout the season. Mark Mennin will talk about his new book, Observance, Jill Moser will launch her Talking Pictures, and James Salomon brings DayDreams, a continuation of his exploration of art and dreaming launched at the Berkshire Botanical Garden last summer. LongHouse appreciates a continued relationship with BookHampton for related talks throughout the season.

Alastair Gordon continues his popular architecture talks in the series Long Island Modern, this year highlighting the 25th anniversary of his influential book Weekend Utopia. We will explore garden design and the landscape with talks by landscape designers Julia Watson and Margie Ruddick, and Edwina von Gal and the Perfect Earth Project will return with Grounded Conversations, exploring our relationship with life on earth in all forms.

Performing arts will be an integral part of the season: the Neo-Political Cowgirls will perform Shakespeare; and on August 8th, the annual alfresco recital will again be performed by virtuoso pianist Llewellyn Sanchez-Werner in celebration of Jack Lenor Larsen’s birthday.

LongHouse is devoted to hands-on creativity. On weekends, visitors will find art-making materials in the pavilion and special projects in collaboration with The Shine Studio, while Friday Evening Painting classes with Barbara Thomas welcome all ages. The cutting edge Insider/Outsider talks, in collaboration with Jeremy Dennis of Ma’s House, return to press the boundaries of living with art in all forms, the LongHouse mission, with artists not only discussing their process but guiding a workshop.

Well-being offerings at LongHouse include monthly Sound Bathing with Adriana Barone and weekly Tai Chi with Katherine Henderson, as well as Kendama Meditation with Juan Yanez.

Garden tours on weekends are offered by docents and experts on trees, plants, flora and fauna. LongHouse is a sustainable landscape, chemical free and a haven for birds and pollinators–bees, birds, butterflies and more. Exploring plant life and its care, Matt Hartline of Bill Miller & Associates will host a workshop on the Art and Science of Pruning. Sharing a love for trees, Diana and Jason Payne of Under the Tiny Tree and artist Benjamin Keating will offer distinct opportunities to learn the living Art of Bonsai.

Come, Sit, Stay: Dog Days, a collaboration with ARF are monthly mornings for dogs and their families, and LongHouse welcomes all to join in the play with our canine companions for a frolicking good time.

A newly refreshed INstore Gift Shop welcomes visitors with an exciting collection of handcrafted works by regional and global artists. Discover striking glass by Hokanson Dix, inspired design jewelry from Eileen Schiller, and Liadain Smith’s signature white and matte black ceramics — a bold celebration of craftsmanship and contemporary design.