Fire Island Sunken Forest
— — a forest the salt wind keeps trimming flat.
Not only on a wall.
“A roughly forty-acre maritime holly forest tucked behind the primary dune at Sailors Haven. American holly, sassafras, shadblow, and tupelo grow to about thirty feet, then the salt wind shears their canopies flat, leaving a green ceiling almost level with the dune. A 1.5-mile boardwalk loops through it, lower than the surrounding sand, so the visitor walks below the treetops and below the sea. One of the rare old-growth maritime holly forests on the Atlantic coast. from the studio
Fire Island Sunken Forest, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Sunken Forest is a maritime holly forest of roughly forty acres on Fire Island, behind the primary dune at Sailors Haven, within Fire Island National Seashore. It sits in a swale lower than the surrounding dunes, which is the source of the name; the canopy reads as level with the dune top because salt-laden wind shears any branch that rises above shelter. The dominant trees are American holly, sassafras, shadblow serviceberry, and tupelo. Estimated stand age is around 200 years, making it one of the rare surviving old-growth maritime holly forests on the U.S. Atlantic coast.
The salt-pruned canopy is the defining feature. Wind off the Atlantic carries salt aerosol that kills any leaf or twig rising above the windbreak line of the primary dune, so the trees grow until they hit that ceiling and then grow only sideways. The result is a remarkably even green roof, often six to nine metres above the forest floor. Beneath it the air is calmer and damper than the open beach a hundred yards south, and the boardwalk passes through pockets of bog and freshwater seep on the way to the bay side at Sailors Haven.
Access is seasonal and by ferry. From Memorial Day through mid-October the Sayville Ferry runs to Sailors Haven, the small marina and ranger station at the north end of the forest. From the dock, a roughly 1.5-mile boardwalk loop carries visitors through the forest to the ocean beach and back. Sailors Haven is one of two ferry-accessible mainland Fire Island National Seashore sites, alongside Watch Hill; no vehicles are permitted in either, and dogs are not allowed on the Sunken Forest boardwalk.