Big Duck

Southampton, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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Built in 1931 by duck farmer Martin Maurer in Riverhead, New York, the Big Duck is a 20-foot-tall ferrocement structure shaped like a duck—a canonical example of novelty architecture. Originally designed as a shop for selling ducks and eggs during the region's boom in duck farming, the building emerged during an era when automobiles made roadside attractions increasingly viable and novelty buildings grew in popularity. Its distinctive form attracted both public enthusiasm and academic criticism, eventually inspiring the term "duck" as a designation in scholarly literature for buildings shaped like everyday objects. The structure has been relocated several times across eastern Long Island and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, along with the broader Big Duck Ranch property in 2008.