Island Profile: Life finally led them to a home in Hay Beach
Charles and Linda Puls are Long Islanders through and through — together and apart, they’ve lived in more than 20 Long Island communities, as their careers evolved and first marriages were followed by second ones. And very few of the five children and 19 grandchildren they share between them live elsewhere. “Every time either one of us moved up” in their careers, Linda explained, “we moved to a different house.” Laughing, she added, “Some people like vacations but we like renovating houses.” Charles, on his own, has done more than a dozen.
And now that they’ve been committed to making Shelter Island their home for good, he recently joined the Board of Trustees of the Shelter Island Historical Society.
Born in 1928, he grew up in Garden City and went to high school there “during the war years.” While still in high school, he joined the Marines but the war was over before he could see action. After he was discharged, “I went to work as a laborer and then as a carpenter, plumber and electrician. Then after bouncing around in the trades for two years or so, I went to the telephone company. I worked for New York Telephone for 41 years and was very fortunate there. I started as an installer, then went to sales and marketing, and then to public relations. So it was quite a diversified background. It was an interesting career because I kept changing assignments so there was always something different. It was always very challenging.”
Linda’s career mirrored the same upward trajectory. She grew up and went to school in Oyster Bay, graduating from high school in 1960. She began college at SUNY Oneonta and eventually graduated from SUNY Stony Brook. She worked for Allstate Insurance, initially as a claims adjuster and then made her way into management. While she was there, “I went for a master’s degree in special ed, thinking that when I retired I would want to do that. I was 57 then and had some patience but by the time I retired? Forget it!”
So she went back to C. W. Post and took a master’s degree in art. “My undergraduate degree is in fine arts. Once I retired, it gave me a chance to get back into my art and I’ve been exhibiting in galleries — oils, acrylics and watercolors. My undergraduate degree was actually in print-making but that’s kind of messy to do at home. For the past year and a half, with selling the house and moving here, I haven’t even picked up a brush! I’m getting very antsy and want to get back to it soon. I love it. When I paint, I just forget everything.”
They’re both avid sailors — in fact that’s how they met. Was it love at first sight? “It was best friends in the beginning,” Linda said. “Then love, and he’s still my best friend,” she said, after more than 20 years of marriage.
Not only did sailing bring them together but it also brought them to Shelter Island. They had boated as visitors in Coecles Harbor for years, loved Taylor’s Island and began to think that maybe this Island was their eventual destination.
When Charles retired in 1990, Linda was still working and not ready to retire. In the years that followed, he kept busy. He participated in the renovation of the Northport Yacht Club, where his electrical know-how proved very useful. He was commodore of the Eatons Light Yacht Club as well and was active in the American Legion. But as time went on and Linda’s mother died — she had been living with them in an adjourning apartment that Charles had built for her — they began to think of moving on.
They were living in the house that Charles had built for them in Shoreham; he had functioned as the general contractor during the construction and had really been engaged in the project. But after Linda’s retirement in 2000, they were ready for something different. “We were looking up in Maine but we wanted to stay here, nearer to the kids. Most of our kids are on Long Island but it took a while to find a place that was what we wanted.”
When they found the land they liked, “Charles drew up the plans for the house that we’re building on Country Club Drive in Hay Beach, opposite the golf course. He drew up the layout of the whole thing and it evolved, over about four years. It’s a good thing it took us so long to decide and we didn’t build the earlier plans because, in the end, it wouldn’t have fit our needs. So it worked out well.” They moved into a rental on Silver Beach last December and he’s been “on the job,” supervising the construction every day since then.
Linda has two sons and a daughter, Kevin, Steven and Kelly, while Charles has a daughter and son, Leigh Ann and Keith. All five are married with children. “We have 17 grandchildren, two step-grandchildren and two great-grandchildren,” Linda said. “All I do is shop! There’s always a birthday to celebrate. Now the holidays are upon us! And every month I’m out getting something or doing something, a communion, a graduation, it’s always something, but it’s good stuff.”
They look forward to moving in to their new place early next year and finally settling down.
They also look forward to becoming full-time members of the Shelter Island community and hope that Charles’s future tenure at the Historical Society will help them to put down roots — and that they’ll each find places where their skills will be welcomed as they get to know the Island even better.