Messages of Sympathy

Dear Marilyn, and Family of Sid,\r\n\r\nWhat a huge loss to our community. We will always remember Sid as a great guy, with a smile and a a good chat. We have many memories from HS as the Beebe boys were a challenge on the field. (Southold was a friendly rival.) \r\n\r\nWe will keep you all in our thoughts and prayers. \r\n\r\nMark and Karen Van Bourgondien

by Karen Van Bourgondien
2025-08-27 8:12:23 PM

Dear Marilyn, and Family of Sid,\r\n\r\nWhat a huge loss to our community. We will always remember Sid as a great guy, with a smile and a a good chat. We have many memories from HS as the Beebe boys were a challenge on the field. (Southold was a friendly rival.) \r\n\r\nWe will keep you all in our thoughts and prayers. \r\n\r\nMark and Karen Van Bourgondien

by Karen Van Bourgondien
2025-08-27 8:21:07 PM

There are many great men in this world, but good men are few and far between. On August 22nd, we lost one such rare man, and his family, friends, colleagues, and community will miss him dearly. 
My family has known Sid Beebe for nearly 30 years. When my parents, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, first moved to the North Fork in search of a place and space to contemplate and create art, Sid helped them build what many have called, Paradise. Their studio, museum space, and model gallery, all built by Sid, has become a mecca for students of contemporary art. Like my parents, Sid poured his heart and soul into every project, and when one does their work with such care and such humility, the result is imbued with a life of its own. Each edifice he built became more than a sum of lumber, glass, and steel, it took on his warmth, his humor, his gentle character. \r\nWhen my stepfather passed, Sid cried with us, and helped carry him to his final resting place. Sid called my mom weekly and made sure at least the burden of caring for a home and museum could be eased for her during a time of great grief and deep mourning. And when the time came to build a new home on the site where my parents used to host interns and curators, there was never any question as to who would be entrusted with the task. For me and my husband, this project was personal, we planned to retire there, pass it on to our children. During the two years construction took place, Sid grew from a trusted and respected craftsman, into a dear friend. We began to look forward to the completion of the house not for the sake of living there, but to having him and Marilyn and their children, about whom we got lengthy weekly reports, share it with us. It is rare to make good friends late in life, and such friendships are especially precious as we make them as fully formed adults with all our experiences and prejudices in tow. Sid was that rare human that carried much experience but no prejudice I could ever see, and so the friendship was easy and natural to nurture.\r\nOn Friday, we pulled into our driveway at 10pm, tired after a long day\'s work and a long drive from the city. Of course, Sid was standing in the freshly leveled dirt with our plumber. Shocked at the lateness of the hour, and worried because we knew he had started at 7am, we told him to go home and get some rest. He laughed and said he was anxious about finishing up the last house he ever wanted to build. I laughed it off. We said goodnight. He said he would see us in the morning. But for Sid, the morning never came. His footprints are still in the hardened ground and I am loathe to cover them with grass.\r\n\r\nLike Sid did in life, his homes will continue to take care of those who live in them, and will do so for long after their inhabitants can no longer remember the carpenter who lovingly raised their beams.\r\n\r\nWe mourn his loss. \r\n\r\nViola, Doug, Emilia, Orliana, Joseph, Lauren, Isis, Aurora, Igor, Rima\r\n

by Viola Kanevsky
2025-08-28 7:42:57 AM

There are many great men in this world, but good men are few and far between. On August 22nd, we lost one such rare man, and his family, friends, colleagues, and community will miss him dearly. 
My family has known Sid Beebe for nearly 30 years. When my parents, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, first moved to the North Fork in search of a place and space to contemplate and create art, Sid helped them build what many have called, Paradise. Their studio, museum space, and model gallery, all built by Sid, has become a mecca for students of contemporary art. Like my parents, Sid poured his heart and soul into every project, and when one does their work with such care and such humility, the result is imbued with a life of its own. Each edifice he built became more than a sum of lumber, glass, and steel, it took on his warmth, his humor, his gentle character. \r\nWhen my stepfather passed, Sid cried with us, and helped carry him to his final resting place. Sid called my mom weekly and made sure at least the burden of caring for a home and museum could be eased for her during a time of great grief and deep mourning. And when the time came to build a new home on the site where my parents used to host interns and curators, there was never any question as to who would be entrusted with the task. For me and my husband, this project was personal, we planned to retire there, pass it on to our children. During the two years construction took place, Sid grew from a trusted and respected craftsman, into a dear friend. We began to look forward to the completion of the house not for the sake of living there, but to having him and Marilyn and their children, about whom we got lengthy weekly reports, share it with us. It is rare to make good friends late in life, and such friendships are especially precious as we make them as fully formed adults with all our experiences and prejudices in tow. Sid was that rare human that carried much experience but no prejudice I could ever see, and so the friendship was easy and natural to nurture.\r\nOn Friday, we pulled into our driveway at 10pm, tired after a long day\'s work and a long drive from the city. Of course, Sid was standing in the freshly leveled dirt with our plumber. Shocked at the lateness of the hour, and worried because we knew he had started at 7am, we told him to go home and get some rest. He laughed and said he was anxious about finishing up the last house he ever wanted to build. I laughed it off. We said goodnight. He said he would see us in the morning. But for Sid, the morning never came. His footprints are still in the hardened ground and I am loathe to cover them with grass.\r\n\r\nLike Sid did in life, his homes will continue to take care of those who live in them, and will do so for long after their inhabitants can no longer remember the carpenter who lovingly raised their beams.\r\n\r\nWe mourn his loss. \r\n\r\nViola, Doug, Emilia, Orliana, Joseph, Lauren, Isis, Aurora, Igor, Rima\r\n

by Viola Kanevsky
2025-08-28 7:48:17 AM

There are many great men in this world, but good men are few and far between. On August 22nd, we lost one such rare man, and his family, friends, colleagues, and community will miss him dearly. 
My family has known Sid Beebe for nearly 30 years. When my parents, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, first moved to the North Fork in search of a place and space to contemplate and create art, Sid helped them build what many have called, Paradise. Their studio, museum space, and model gallery, all built by Sid, has become a mecca for students of contemporary art. Like my parents, Sid poured his heart and soul into every project, and when one does their work with such care and such humility, the result is imbued with a life of its own. Each edifice he built became more than a sum of lumber, glass, and steel, it took on his warmth, his humor, his gentle character. When my stepfather passed, Sid cried with us, and helped carry him to his final resting place. He called my mom weekly and made sure at least the burden of caring for a home and museum could be eased for her during a time of great grief and deep mourning. And when the time came to build a new home on the site where my parents used to host interns and curators, there was never any question as to who would be entrusted with the task. For me and my husband, this project was personal, we planned to retire there, pass it on to our children. During the two years in which construction took place, Sid grew from a trusted and respected craftsman, into a dear friend. We began to look forward to the completion of the house not for the sake of living there, but to having him and Marilyn and their children, about whom we got lengthy weekly reports, share it with us. It is rare to make good friends late in life, and such friendships are especially precious as we make them as fully formed adults with all our experiences and prejudices in tow. Sid was that rare human that carried much experience but no prejudice I could ever see, and so the friendship was easy and natural to nurture.\r\nOn Friday, we pulled into our driveway at 10pm, tired after a long day\'s work and a long drive from the city. Of course, Sid was standing in the freshly leveled dirt with our plumber. Shocked at the lateness of the hour, and worried because we knew he had started at 7am, we told him to go home and get some rest. He laughed and said he was anxious about finishing up the last house he ever wanted to build. I laughed it off. We said goodnight. He said he would see us in the morning. But for Sid, the morning never came. His footprints are still in the hardened ground and I am loathe to cover them with grass.\r\n\r\nLike Sid did in life, his homes will continue to take care of those who live in them, and will do so for long after their inhabitants can no longer remember the carpenter who lovingly raised their beams.\r\n\r\nWe mourn his loss. \r\n\r\nViola, Doug, Emilia, Orliana, Joseph, Lauren, Isis, Aurora, Igor, Rima\r\n

by Viola Kanevsky
2025-08-28 7:49:33 AM