Real LI

East End architect Jay Lockett Sears has a new project in Quogue, which he predicts will be, "the best I've ever designed…a spiritual place, filled with light, with sweeping rooflines…a house built out of love."

Sears recently sold the Beach Lane estate that had been in his family since his grandfather Lockett moved to the area in 1901, and he'll be designing a new home for the buyers, Randy and Bev Cardo. "I feel I am passing on the baton to the Cardo family … It's all good and positive."

Randy Cardo is a Quogue village trustee and owner of an excavating company, and Bev Cardo is a designer and owner of a lifestyle and home fashion boutique in Quogue. Public records show that the 1-acre waterfront property sold for $2.15 million in November.

The connection to the Cardo family goes way back. Sears said that his grandfather and Randy Cardo's grandfather knew one another. In a coincidental twist, the day before the sale closed, Sears says, he found a photo in the house of Cardo's grandfather on a horse and buggy. "It's so terrific that his family has a connection with my grandparents."

Sears, who has been an architect 48 years and designed more than 1,500 homes, nearly became a Californian in the late 1970s when he decided to move out West to take a job designing a home in Carmel for Clint Eastwood. Sears says his life was transformed after a West Coast flight that he originally had been booked on, but later rescheduled, went down in flames. A stranger told him that his life had been saved in order that he return to the East Coast and help people. Sears came home to Quogue and later started Mission of Kindness, an organization devoted to helping families in need. He estimates that over the years, he has been able to help hundreds of families find temporary shelter and assistance. "So many are in need…We need to remember tolerance and kindness," he says.

It was in the Beach Lane home, in fact, that an act of kindness first touched his life, he says. During the 1938 hurricane, his pregnant mother was evacuated from the second-floor window and taken to safety in a rowboat. Sears was born a few months later.

Sears, who has worked with local celebs such as Michael J. Fox and Susan Lucci ("they are great people"), says he intends to stay in the Quogue area. "It’s a great little village … I'll always love Quogue."

To donate to or find out more about Mission of Kindness, call 631-653-4368.