DOTTIE STRONG - LIFE AT THE MARINA

SUMMER FUN

Dolores and David Strong had never even heard of Mattituck before visiting in 1965, but the trip changed everything. During that visit, their friends convinced them to move to the North Fork with their two young children, Jeff and Nancy, and buy a tiny marina on a dirt road. “Dave and I had never heard of Mattituck in a million years,” says Dolores, who is known to most as Dottie. “Of course, it was very different back then. There were no streetlights.”

Looking at Strong’s Marine’s eight locations today — which are now run by son Jeff and his wife Re, and her grandson Ryan (grandson Jay sits on the board) — it’s hard to imagine that it began with a dozen boats, a gas house, and a shop with a little office. But listening to Dottie reflect, it’s clear how much hard work — and fun — went into the business. “It was a lot of hard work," says Dottie. "It was a very seasonal business. It was hard to find a playmate for your kids.”

Back then, there was no heat; Dottie and 4-year-old Nancy used a portable heater during the first bitter winter. “She used to sit alongside my chair, and we would keep our feet warm,” recalls Dottie.

David, who’d worked for his father at Strong & Holland, was the sole mechanic. He helped pay the bills by clamming and scalloping — a vivid memory for Jeff since his presence on the boat doubled their bushel allocation. Dottie did everything from balance books to paint boat bottoms to pump gas, but it was her interaction with clients that gave her the social life she craved. Clients became like family, helping out when times got challenging.

"It was a lot of fun,” says Dottie. “That was a big plus, and that’s how we got to meet people. Moms wanted other moms too!” They soon built a house at the marina so Dottie was there when the kids came home from school. Life at the marina meant the kids worked hard; everyone — kids, cousins and friends — helped launch boats or smooth the dirt road. On Fridays, they held clam bakes. The kids sold Stewart’s sandwiches out of the gas house; the favorite, the Torpedo, sold out every Sunday.

“People today, kids younger than Jeffery, still say,‘Mrs. Strong, don’t you remember thosesandwiches?’” Dottie laughs.

They named every boat they had Summer Fun — a testament to their affinity for laughter, even when times got tough. When they weren’t working, the kids would play in the mud flats behind the office in the early years, sliding and skidding and having mud fights before using a rope swing to jump into the creek and wash off. “Then we would repeat the process — mud fights, creek and rinse,” recalls Jeff. David put a new Lilco boom truck used to haul boats up to 23 feet next to the gas house, infringing on a patch of beach where Dottie sat with the kids. Dottie missed the quiet beach, but David occupied the kids by fastening a line to the boom cable so the kids could swing and jump in the creek.

Jeff & Dottie Strong today.

The hard work paid off; when Dottie and David sold the marina to Jeff and Re in 1992, there were 125 boats, a small lift, and floating docks had been installed to replace the original overhead cable and pulley system. Forging those family bonds paid off, too. Dottie still lives at home at the marina, and she talks with her kids, grandkids and great grandchildren regularly. When Ryan spotted one of their former boats in the Mount Sinai Harbor — still named Summer Fun, to Dottie’s delight — he stopped and chatted with the owner so he could send his grandmother a picture.

“It’s amazing that it’s still around,” says Dottie. “It was fun growing up at the marina with kids. It was a lot of hard work. Both the kids did lots of hard work. But we had fun.”

A young Jeff Strong at the gas house in Mattituck Bay.