James Lane Post has partnered with Saunders & Associates to create the series “The Saunders Stewardship Impact,” which shines a light on the organizations that are close to the hearts of its agents.
Sarah Minardi will tell you, without much prompting, that East Hampton is not for sale. Not really. What changes hands in this village — for numbers that would make a hedge fund manager blink — are structures, acreage, a certain quality of light on Georgica Pond at six in the evening. The place itself, the thing that actually makes the real estate worth anything, isn’t a line item on a listing sheet. It’s the trees someone planted 40 years ago. It’s the pond someone fought to keep public. It’s the fact that the woman who sold you your kitchen table might also be the woman who taught your kid third grade.
Minardi would know. She’s spent her career on one side of that equation, as a broker moving some of the most coveted real estate on the East End. But she’s spent nearly as much time on the other side of it — chairing the Student Awards Committee for the Ladies Village Improvement Society since 2019, an unpaid post that has quietly steered more than $1.5 million in scholarships to upwards of 200 local kids.
You’re a lifelong East Hampton local, and your family’s roots here go back generations. What does stewardship of a place like East Hampton mean to you personally?
Because my family has been part of East Hampton for generations, I don’t think of ownership as simply possession. I have custody of a piece of this place for a while. I get to enjoy it, but I also have a responsibility to leave it better than I found it.
East Hampton is a limited commodity. We are not creating more land, and there is no expanding building on the ocean or the bay. At least not yet. That scarcity is part of what makes property here such an extraordinary long-term asset, but it also makes stewardship essential.
East Hampton is not special because the real estate is valuable. The real estate is valuable because East Hampton is special. The beaches, the light, the open spaces, the architecture, the history, and the people who have cared for all of it created that value. I feel a responsibility to protect what cannot be replaced.
What first drew you to the Ladies Village Improvement Society, and what made you want to become involved beyond simply being a member?
I grew up with LVIS as part of the landscape of East Hampton. My mother has been a member since I was born, and I would see her helping with or chairing the annual Fair, which I have always loved. Then there are the shops, the trees, the historic property and, of course, the sales. Everybody loves the sales. There is something deeply satisfying about finding a fantastic table, buying it for practically nothing and discovering that the money is helping send a local student to college. I consider that guilt-free shopping at its finest.
But what really drew me in was the women. LVIS is filled with women who do not spend a lot of time announcing that they get things done. They just get things done. They preserve buildings, plant trees, care for public spaces, raise money, and invest in local students. I admired that combination of purpose and practicality.
I am also constitutionally incapable of joining an organization and then quietly attending an occasional meeting. Once I understood the breadth of the work, I wanted to be part of doing it.
You have chaired the LVIS Student Awards Committee since 2019. What have you learned about the young people coming out of East Hampton High School through that work?
Reading the applications changed my understanding of the students coming out of East Hampton High School. They are not simply filling out forms and listing activities. They are telling us who they are, what they care about, and what they hope to do with their lives.
Some are balancing school with jobs and family responsibilities. Some already know exactly where they are headed. Others are still working it out, which is perfectly reasonable. I am still working a few things out myself.
What impresses me is their seriousness of purpose. They are not asking anyone to construct a future for them. They are asking for tools, access, and the chance to construct it themselves. My role, and the responsibility of my committee members, is not to decide what their dreams should be. It is to help make those dreams more possible.
LVIS has awarded more than $1.5 million in scholarships to more than 200 local students over the past decade. What does that investment in the next generation mean to you, particularly as someone who grew up here?
It means we are investing in East Hampton’s most important asset, which is not the land. It is the people.
The reality is that many of the young people growing up here will have to find other places to live. If a student chooses a life of service, education, healthcare, nonprofit work, or another career that does not pay enough to buy into the community where that student was raised, home may eventually have to be somewhere else.
I don’t see that only as a sad story. It spurs me to give these students every tool in the toolbox before they go out and build their lives. They may take what they learned here into another community. They may come back differently. They may create something none of us has imagined yet.
In real estate, I understand the power of purchasing an asset that appreciates over time. Education is the ultimate legacy purchase. Its value compounds for the student, the family, and every community that student eventually touches.
Can you remember a particular student or scholarship moment that stayed with you and reminded you why this work matters?
It is difficult to choose one student because the cumulative experience is what stays with me. Every year, names on applications become real people with plans, worries, responsibilities, and enormous potential.
The most meaningful moments often are not dramatic. They come when a student explains what the scholarship will make possible: fewer hours working during the semester, books purchased without adding another financial worry, or the ability to accept an opportunity that might otherwise be out of reach.
A scholarship provides money, certainly, but it also communicates something important. It says that this community recognizes the effort, believes in the potential, and considers the dream worth backing. That matters.
LVIS is perhaps best known for its beautiful thrift shops and historic property, but its work goes far beyond that, from scholarships and historic preservation to trees, parks, ponds, and community programs. What part of LVIS’s mission do you think people may not know enough about?
I don’t think enough people realize that all the pieces connect. The shops are wonderful, and I am completely in favor of the thrill of finding something chic before someone else spots it. But the shops are also engines for the mission.
A donated chair can become part of a scholarship. A box of dishes can help support the care of a public space. A vintage coat can contribute to preserving something historic. It is an extraordinary circle: one person gives something that has had a life, someone else gives it a new life, and the proceeds help create opportunities throughout the community.
LVIS has also practiced sustainability since long before sustainability needed a marketing plan. Reuse, preservation, trees, ponds, and public spaces are all part of the same belief: what already exists has value and deserves care.
You’ve spent your career in real estate watching East Hampton change. How has your involvement with LVIS influenced the way you think about development, preservation, and what makes this community special?
LVIS has reinforced my belief that preservation and progress are not opposites. The real question is whether change adds something to the community or simply extracts value from it.
I spend a great deal of time evaluating property, but the value of a house in East Hampton is inseparable from what surrounds it. A beautifully renovated home does not exist in a vacuum. Its value is supported by the trees along the road, the historic character of the village, the schools, access to the water, preserved open space, and a community that still has an identity.
Protecting those things is not merely sentimental. It is practical, economic, and necessary. Preservation is not about freezing East Hampton in time. It is about making certain that progress does not erase the very qualities that made this place valuable.
There’s an interesting connection between real estate and stewardship: real estate is ultimately about place, while organizations like LVIS are working to protect that place. Do you see those two worlds as naturally connected?
Completely. Real estate is not simply a structure, acreage, and a set of comparable sales. A property is part of a larger place, and that place creates a substantial portion of its value.
I think purchasing in East Hampton should be approached more like investing than shopping. I look at the quality of the asset, its history, location, long-term potential, and the elements that will protect its value. The best purchases are not simply transactions. They become legacy assets that can serve a family over time.
Like the stock market, long-term value depends upon the health of the larger environment. If East Hampton’s character is diminished, the value of every property within it is diminished as well. Stewardship is not separate from real estate. Stewardship protects the investment.
You’ve also served on the East Hampton School District Board of Education and the Town’s Community Housing Advisory Board. How do these different forms of community involvement inform one another?
My children attend these schools. During the school year, they spent more waking hours there than they did with Chris and me. I certainly wanted to know what was going on, and I wanted to influence decisions that affected not only their curriculum and learning, but also the environment in which they were spending so much of their lives.
Serving on the Board of Education made policy intensely personal. Budgets, programs, and staffing decisions can look like numbers on paper, but every one of those decisions eventually walks into a classroom and affects a child.
My work with the Community Housing Advisory Board made the connections even clearer. Housing affects whether teachers, healthcare workers, first responders, and local employees can live in the community they serve. That affects the schools, local businesses, and the strength of year-round East Hampton.
None of these issues exist alone. Education, housing, preservation, employment, and community life are all connected. Pulling one thread always moves something else.
East Hampton is experiencing enormous change, from housing pressures to development and the increasing demands of a year-round community. What do you think we have to be especially careful not to lose?
I do not want East Hampton to lose the people who make it function as a community rather than simply a beautiful destination.
That includes families who have lived here for generations, but it also includes teachers, tradespeople, shop owners, first responders, healthcare workers, and young families trying to establish roots. Property values may be extraordinary, but property values do not coach Little League, teach children, volunteer, serve on boards, or check on a neighbor after a storm.
I also don’t want us to lose the idea that people with very different lives still belong to the same community. East Hampton has always contained wealth, work, beauty, eccentricity, ambition, and history. The mix is part of its character. Once that mix disappears, something far more valuable than a view will have been lost.
What would you like your own children, and eventually their children, to inherit from the East Hampton you grew up in?
I want them to inherit more than property. I want them to inherit a sense of belonging and responsibility.
I want them to know the beaches and back roads, recognize the buildings that tell our history, and understand that the beauty surrounding them did not remain intact by accident. Someone showed up. Someone paid attention. Someone objected when objecting was necessary. Someone planted the tree whose shade we now take for granted.
My children may not be able to build their adult lives here in exactly the way previous generations did. But I want East Hampton to remain part of their identity and part of the standard they carry with them for what a community can be.
Most of all, I want them to understand that an inheritance is not only something received. It is also something protected and passed forward.
If you could leave one message with the next generation of East Hampton residents about giving back to the community, what would you want them to understand?
I would tell them not to wait for more time, more money, or a more impressive title. Communities are sustained by people who decide something matters and then do what they can.
I would also tell them that giving back is not entirely selfless, and I think honesty about that is healthy. Every hour I have given has connected me more deeply to East Hampton. I have met people I might never have known, learned how decisions are made, and gained a much clearer understanding of the place I call home.
I was fortunate enough to inherit a connection to an extraordinary community. Gratitude is important. Participation is better.
Learn more about Minardi by visiting hamptonsrealestate.com.
