Who Is Here
Eugenia Bartell, Realtor
By Melissa Berman
In her own words, Eugenia Bartell wrote a story a few years back of her first visit to Montauk in 1968 with her husband Ed, “We came for dinner (to Gurney’s) and over time, we became part of another wonderful world.” Indeed Eugenia has made her life, and her mark on the community from her first visit to Gurneys, to a full-time life here which ironically now includes selling time-shares at the place that started her love affair with Montauk.
Eugenia and Ed Bartell came to Montauk to celebrate their second
anniversary overlooking the sea from the dining room at Gurney’s. Accustomed to the
calmer waters of the Long Island Sound near their home in Belle Terre, the couple
quickly made Montauk a regular vacation getaway. Her description continues, “How
often we sped along the telephone pole lined Napeague stretch to reach that magical
point…where we would feast and laugh and love and dance and sing and swim.”
Eugenia is what my mom used to call a “real go-getter.” Someone who
turns her day-to-day activities into adventures, her jobs into creative expressions.
She has her own way of approaching things and it comes from a genuine sense of
excitement and interest.
A second grade teacher for many years on the North Shore of
Long Island, when Eugenia moved to Montauk with her also
retired husband it wasn’t long before
she found herself with a new job at Guild Hall in East Hampton managing the gift
shoppe; a job she continues to this day. Of course, with her background (not
to mention her enthusiasm), Eugenia also ended up working with Serena Secat in
a dynamic children’s theatre program called Dramarama. “Teaching
was what I did best in my life.” she explains, describing how she used
to incorporate theatre and acting in her classroom, writing scripts for her students
from well-known fairy tales. “Doing plays was a way for every child to
find the part that made them a star, made them feel special.” At Guild
Hall, working as assistant to Secat, Regina recalls the excitement of the kids
when the workshops culminated with a performance on the stage.
Meanwhile, back in Montauk she was recruited by St. Therese
Pre-school to come and read to the children. In true Eugenia
form, she turned her weekly reading
sessions into much anticipated visits where children got more than story time.
As she recalls, “I was used to 7 and 8 year olds, these kids were 3 and
4, how was I going to keep them entertained for an hour?” Employing a technique
she used in her teaching days, Eugenia began each reading session with a ‘good
morning’ ritual. “I used to hate traditional roll call in school,
where the children shout out ‘here’. I thought it was much nicer
to say, ‘Good morning, Robert Brown’ and he would reply ‘good
morning, Mrs. Bartell.’ So she did this routine with the youngsters at
St. Therese and had them each come up as they received their good morning greeting. “Each
child got their moment. They came up one by one and I would compliment them; ‘what
a pretty dress you have,’ or something like that.” The children so
looked forward to her visits that they would dress up on the days she came to
tell her stories. After the introductions, she read them stories and later they
would act them out together. “Of course, what I’m remembered most
for is that I always brought them candy. For ten years, once a week, I came with
stories and candy.”
When she wasn’t making the little kids of Montauk smile, Eugenia was busy
building a new career in Real Estate. After her husband passed away she had decided
to give Real Estate a try at the suggestion of Nick Monte, a personal friend
from her days as a guest at Gurney’s. At that time Richard Monte’s
real estate office had a travel agency and dry cleaning service, which Eugenia
also helped run. While it was a far cry from her life as a teacher, Eugenia enjoyed
the challenge of learning the real estate business and the freedom of planning
her own days. “I was used to living by the clock, the school bell, 11:30
is lunch and that’s that.” When Richard Monte retired, she stayed
on and now runs the office under the same name but owned by Irene and John D’Agostino
of Martha Greene real estate. Aside from the regular line-up of real estate listings,
Eugenia made a niche for herself handling re-sales of Gurney’s time-shares,
which only seems fitting for her.
When she speaks of her life here in Montauk, Eugenia draws
in a deep breath, almost as if to transport herself back
to that first breath of sea air on that
day back in ‘68. She speaks of a place that offers something different
than anywhere else she’s been, of a non-judgmental community, a place where “you
see a shack and next to it a castle and it all works.” For her, Montauk
is liberation. “The people liberate you, the environment liberates.” Certainly
her generous spirit and spunk have helped make it that way.
If you’d like to recommend someone to be featured in this column, please
email melissaberman@aol.com.
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