Theodore “Ted” Conklin III, the owner, sommelier and hotelier of longtime Grand Award-winner the American Hotel in Sag Harbor, N.Y., died Feb. 1. He was 77 years old. The cause was complications from bladder cancer.
Conklin was a key figure in revitalizing the town of Sag Harbor on Long Island’s East End. The wine list became part of the annals of American wine history when the American Hotel won an inaugural Wine Spectator Grand Award in 1981. It has held that honor for nearly five decades, with Conklin at the helm as wine director—blazer on, pocket square freshly folded.
A Hybridized Education
Conklin was born in New York City in 1948, the son of the heir to Manhattan’s T.E. Conklin Brass & Copper Co. He attended Babson College in Massachusetts, where, as he told Wine Spectator in 2007, he adopted a more “hybridized education.”
“Back in the 1960s, there were colleges where you needn’t attend class if you just passed the exams,” he said. “In sophomore year, I enrolled and bought the texts. Then, for reasons that still puzzle me, I leased a space near my home on Long Island and proceeded to build a restaurant. It was ready to open after the exams the next spring. By Labor Day, I was looking at a thriving business with 50 employees, all of whom had to leave to return to college.” He rushed to find a buyer—but by the time he secured one, he’d already missed the next semester.
After stints in Paris, farming upstate, then finishing school, Conklin came across the disheveled American Hotel in 1972. At that time, the town of Sag Harbor was in a lull, a “depressed old whaling port” in his words. “Any 23-year-old should have known that this was less an opportunity than a sentence,” he said. “But I decided I was up to the task.”
Building Up A Cellar And A Town
After a long winter renovation on the derelict building, Conklin opened the American Hotel on Fourth of July weekend, 1972. His focus was people-first hospitality, paired with a swelling wine list.
The American Hotel was one of the first East End accounts for prominent New York wine importer Michael Skurnik. The two would become lifelong friends, with Skurnik remembering Conklin as a person of “true character.”
“[He was] very eccentric, with impeccable taste not only in wine, but in clothes and all manner of haberdashery,” Skurnik told Wine Spectator in an email. “On a typical night when I stayed over in the hotel, Ted would routinely appear every 45 minutes or so in a completely different outfit. Sometimes he was dressed head-to-toe à la Sherlock Holmes, while other times he resembled a toreador, or he would appear in full black tie regalia. He had fun living!”
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Conklin first built the restaurant’s wine cellar around Bordeaux, the region he cut his teeth on and understood the best. As Conklin later explained, many of the landmark regions of today were still unknown or unavailable in the 1970s and early 80s. Bordeaux was reliable, plus relatively affordable. “Bordeaux was it, and between [importers] Austin-Nichols and [Seagram] Chateau & Estates, the environment to build a great list of classified growths was never better,” said Conklin. “When I priced the wines modestly, I developed a loyal group of wine-oriented customers.”
With a cellar full of well-priced bottles and a kitchen focused on comforting French classics, Conklin lured celebrities and literati alike to the hotel and to Sag Harbor. The town started seeing big names, such as Billy Joel, Bill Murray, Jimmy Buffet and New York Mets star Keith Hernandez.
As the years went on and the cellar grew, Skurnik reminisced, one “could always find super well-aged Burgundies, Rhônes, as well as a deep German section, as Ted had a true love for German Rieslings.” The cellar of the American Hotel holds 25,000 bottles today. “He had great taste, always bought the finest of the fine, the best of the best,” said Skurnik.
Conklin is survived by his wife, Susan Franklin, daughters Samantha B. Conklin and Natasha D. Conklin, son Theodore B. Conklin IV, stepdaughter Katy O’Donnell, five grandchildren, four sisters and several nieces and nephews.
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