Love on the Rock: Teenage Sweethearts
If you frequent the Historical Society’s Havens Farmers Market on Shelter Island during the summer, you have likely stumbled upon Kim Curko’s By Way of the Farm tent with the scent of her handmade candles filling the air.
Her husband Erik sets up the tent and their young sons bounce around with a pickle on a stick or a homemade ice pop.
Kim and Erik began managing the Havens Farmers Market just last season, but they have been navigating their Island life as a couple since they were teenagers.
As Erik tells it, “I grew up with my friends in a pack of a dozen or so kids on the Island. There wasn’t much to do here so we spent most of our time out in nature — Sachem’s Woods or Mashomack. We would just show up at each other’s houses and head out on our bikes.”
Erik and his friends went shotgun and bowhunting for deer, and fished all year long. “We all had boats at Coecles or West Neck as teenagers. We’d head out first thing in the morning and stay out until dark. We all grew up raising animals like pigs and chickens. We processed the meat and cleaned the fish ourselves. It was a different time,” Erik recalled.
Kim grew up in Garden City and began coming out to the Island with her family when she was a baby. Her paternal grandmother’s cousin was Edith Daniels (née Sherman). Kim has fond memories of visiting Edith’s “big yellow house on Sunshine Road where she was always working in her garden,” she remembers.
On her dad’s side, Kim has relatives with ties to the Havens family, one of the Island’s originals. She loved staying at the Pridwin Cottages with her family back when they were “classic, simple and bare bones,” Kim added. “Shelter Island felt more like home than Garden City, and I felt a pull to want to be out here with my friends whenever I could,” she said.
When asked how they met, Erik perked up: “I got this! It was simple. Two of my best friends, Tom Peterson and Andy Crittenden, said, ‘We know this girl Kim. You two have to meet. You two are gonna be magnets and fall in love.’ And we did!”
It was the fall of 2003 and Kim and Erik were in high school. “Kim snuck out of the house one night and some of her friends came out with me and my friends. She jumped in my buddy’s Ford Explorer and we headed to the beach at Starlands,” Erik recalled.
“There was an immediate strong connection between us. We were friends first and were too young for anything serious. It was a little scary to feel so connected to someone at such a young age, but it was definitely there,” Kim said.
Kim and Erik began dating two years later. “I was sort of a wild kid so it took some time for Kim’s parents to be cool with me, but eventually they were,” Erik said. The two dated for five years and got engaged in July 2010.
“Our families and friends were getting together at the Pridwin for the fireworks, so I planned to ask her that night,” Erik recalled. “He was acting weird,” Kim added. “It was really hot out and he was wearing a jacket, which was so not like him.”
“We walked out to the Pridwin dock and Kim hugged me with a full pat-down to see what was in my pockets,” Erik laughed. After shooing away an annoying little kid, Erik got down on one knee and popped the question. Kim immediately said, “Yes.”
“Nobody on the Pridwin dock really noticed, which is kind of the story of us…low key, just Kim and me. It was pretty perfect,” Erik reflected. A year later, Kim and Erik were married at Christ Church in Garden City and celebrated at Three Villages Inn in Stony Brook with family and friends.
Erik had his own landscaping company, then decided to pivot and found a job at South Ferry. “I pulled up to the ferry and Nick Morehead was standing on deck with a big smile. He yelled, ‘Go on in and fill out an application.’ And so I did and it was the best decision,” Erik said.
Erik earned his captain’s license and moved into full-time work at South Ferry. “There is a whole family vibe working for Cliff and Tish. They are the best,” Erik added.
After graduating from Stony Brook University in 2010, Kim managed the American Eagle store in Bridgehampton and later worked at Serena & Lily in Wainscott. News that Kim was expecting a baby had the couple looking to buy a home. “It was tough for young people to buy a home on the Island, even then,” Erik said. The couple looked on the North Fork, where homes were more affordable, but the taxes were high.
“We ultimately bought a muddy parcel of land that had been sitting on the market, so we had to bring in yards of fill. With help from Bobby Marcello, Darrin Binder, John Parry and Sean Murphy the group unloaded thousands of yards of soil. We have even dug up some old bricks from the soil moved here from Havens House at the Historical Society. Anthony and Lindsay Rando hooked us up with a lender, and Jimmy Olinkiewicz made all the construction happen. We couldn’t have built this house without them,” Erik said.
Kim and Erik share the home they love with sons Peyton, 9 and Miles, 6, and 18 chickens pecking out back. “We always wanted a simple, calm life on Shelter Island, and we think we have found it,” Kim said.
The couple homeschools the boys using a Waldorf School curriculum. “We get the kids outside as much as possible and a lot of their learning is hands-on. We grow vegetables from seed and hatch chickens,” Erik said. “We aren’t sure we will homeschool forever, but for now it works really well for us,” Kim added.
According to Erik, “Shelter Island is the best place in the world, but you have to show your kids other places too. We like to travel all over the East Coast, from Vermont to Florida, but nothing beats coming home to the Island.”
Kim and Erik have planned a special Holiday Farmers Market at the Historical Society on Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. , including vendors, a food truck, handmade gifts, live music and storytime and crafts for the little ones … something for everyone.
