A Stay at the Manor

Dear Carl,
Just a card showing you what sort of a place I live in.
Write again,
Pal, Bob

Robert E. Hale sent this postcard in October 1944 from Montauk to his pal Carl, stationed on Manus Island off northern Papua New Guinea, during World War II, while both men were serving in the U.S. Navy.

Robert worked in the supply division at the Montauk Naval Torpedo Testing Range, also known as the Montauk Naval Sub Base. The naval base spanned nearly 45 acres, spreading from the end of Navy Road east to the Montauk Manor (pictured above), which was commandeered for headquarters and barracks.

The postcard, presumably printed at least a decade earlier, depicts the Manor in its original glory, as a “hospitable inn… with the enduring beauty of all distinguished things.” So boasted a promotional booklet published by the Montauk Beach Development Corporation in 1929, just two years after the Manor’s opening.

The 200 “light, airy guests’ rooms” housed servicemen during World War II. However, by this time, the once grand Tudor-style resort had weathered some damage and disrepair, as seen in an album of photographs taken by William Boone from 1943 to 1945, also in the library’s archival collection.

This was not the first time the resort served alternative purposes. Less than a decade earlier, the Manor provided a temporary refuge for residents of Montauk’s fishing village displaced by the Great New England Hurricane of 1938.

The property was closed in 1964 and sat in disrepair for nearly 20 years. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and was fully renovated into luxury condominiums in the mid-1980s.

Additional postcards from the 1920s to 1990s show the evolution of the Manor through its many versions and uses. Stay tuned as we digitize and catalog more postcards from our collection. More items will be revealed in upcoming posts and in a slideshow in the library’s Local History Exhibit Center coming this summer.