What is that? March 8, 2025

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Roger McKeon, back in stride as the What Is That? mystery solver par excellence, had no problem with last week’s photo (see below) writing: “Beach chairs lined up in front of the Pridwin, right?” Right.

Since 1927, The Pridwin Hotel has stood above Peconic Bay with Crescent Beach at its feet. Generations of Islanders have enjoyed having a front row seat on the setting sun during a late afternoon barbecue on the lawn.

2023 marked the end of the years-long construction phases and the start of ownership by Cape Resorts.

With both of their parents gone, Glenn Petry and his brother Gregg maintain the family’s ownership interest in The Pridwin. The hotel became a family project when their mother’s parents offered to buy the hotel in 1961 along with their father Dick Petry and Paul Mobius, Dick’s best friend from college, as long as Dick and Paul were willing to do the work of renovating and running it.

And work they did, according to Glenn, who was a child at the time. He remembers spending most of his summers fishing, often alongside his 2nd-grade teacher who was a frequent-fisher on the dock at the Peconic Lodge, catching mackerel, weakfish and flounder.

In the winters Glenn watched them work, awed by the skill that his father and Paul Mobius showed designing and building important additions and improvements to the hotel.