Grooming the Sand Beneath Your Feet

Few natural aspects of the East End define the region like the sand. Strolling along it, digging in it, feeling it between your toes. If you’ve been at a private beach recently and marveled at the sand’s pristine state, you may have unwittingly been admiring the handiwork of the Sandman.

“We operate wherever a beach is,” laughs Sandman owner Mark Elletson, who, armed with a “machine a bit like a Zamboni,” cleans beaches by tilling, lifting and removing embedded debris in the sand and then returning sanitized, aerated sand back to the beach. “The machine picks up everything from cigarette butts to a small nail, pieces of glass and, of course, garbage. It picks it up and then sorts it through a variety of filters and then puts back out the sand.”

The impetus for this unique occupation came “when I took a vacation to Europe and was amazed by how clean the beaches are there,” he recounts. “When I came back to Connecticut, I was disgusted by the beaches, so I found this device made in Italy that cleans beaches and got started on a business.”

As word started to spread from friends in Connecticut to homeowners on the East End of Long Island, so did Elletson’s business. “We took the machine on the Port Jefforson Ferry and headed over to Westhampton and cleaned a beach at a private condominium Dune Road.

“I really had never been to the Hamptons,” he continues, “but when I came out here to do the cleaning, I was stunned by not just the quality of the beaches and how beautiful the area is, but also how important and large the need is to clean debris on the beaches, especially private beaches, that have never been groomed.”

After some more research, Elletson realized the opportunity in the Hamptons to provide a service beyond that first Dune Road beach that brought him here. “Homeowners hire us, beach associations hire us—anybody with a beach. A typical client is a guy who owns a home on the ocean and wants his beach looking pristine for the weekend.”

For more information, visit the Sandman online at www.sandmanct.com or call 203-993-9990.