Anthony Martignetti has worked hard to build a big life. With his brother Tom, in the last two decades he’s opened twelve restaurants in New York City, among them The East Pole, Canal Street Oysters, and Eastfields, as well as a nightclub and jazz club. He started his own wine brand and wrote a satirical book, Deep Thoughts from a Shallow Grave: Epitaphs to Die For. One day in 2016, he was driving around the North Fork of Long Island and spotted the crumbling Old Mill Inn, first built in the 1820’s as a grist mill, which was on the market for two million dollars. Martignetti decided to buy it, figuring it would be a fun and easy restoration project. What could possibly go wrong?
He closed on the property in February 2019. And now six intense years later, after putting a fortune into the restoration—enduring pandemic delays and historical renovation board runarounds, and raising the entire building to 28 feet over the Mattituck Inlet to adhere with FEMA guidelines (lifting the structure five feet, and installing 67 new timber pilings in the water)—the Old Mill Inn is fully restored and open for business as a classic American seaside tavern
I first met Martignetti and his wife Angela Ledgerwood at a New York state winemaker event in Manhattan, “Cab Franc Forward,” promoting the state’s most successful grape varietal (they were pouring tastes of their Old Sound Vineyard Cabernet Franc). He mentioned his massive restoration project and the tavern he planned to open in May. Intrigued, I followed up with a call a few months later.
“The Old Mill Inn was such a gem of a building,” said Martignetti when I reached him. “There was nothing like it on the East Coast. This 199-year-old mill was sitting here completely unloved, sinking into the water. I said to myself, ‘I must save it.’”…