Yoko Ono and Edward Albee want more people to enjoy the LongHouse Reserve sculpture garden in East Hampton, New York. All they need is help from some wealthy neighbors.

Both will participate in a summer benefit for the public 16-acre garden owned by textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen. LongHouse also plans to host fund-raising cocktail parties for hedge-fund managers and New Yorkers with summer homes in the Hamptons.

LongHouse hopes to raise at least $250,000 for general operating expenses at a July 21 benefit honoring Ms. Ono, whose white, life-size chess set made of marble dust and concrete is on permanent loan to the sculpture garden. Money raised at the cocktail parties would be used to fund LongHouse’s educational programs for children and possible expansion of the grounds.

“We’ll invite them here and knock their socks off,” Angela Mariana Freyre, co-president of the LongHouse board, said in an interview. “It’s like a little jewel in their backyard.”

The July 21 event, which takes place two weeks before Mr. Larsen’s 80th birthday, will include the auction of a Henry Moore lithograph donated by Mr. Albee and once owned by Elizabeth Taylor. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright has known Mr. Larsen for 55 years and admires his friend’s diverse talents: weaving, gardening, curating, and collecting contemporary crafts.

“It’s nice to be the Renaissance man, and that’s what he is,” Mr. Albee said after an unrelated press conference at the Signature Theater Company in Manhattan. “Jack gets everything right. It’s great to see the intellectual care that goes into LongHouse.”

Mr. Larsen turned his property into a public garden in 1991, leasing it to the nonprofit LongHouse Reserve for $1 a year. He donated half the land to LongHouse in 2001, with the rest of the transfer scheduled to take place in 2013. Mr. Larsen is allowed to live on the property until his death.

The landscaped grounds are covered with flowering trees and 1 million daffodils. Officials would like to expand the garden, which currently features 15 beach ball-size glass floats by Dale Chihuly and a 15-foot-tall sculpture by Dennis Oppenheim of a man’s shirt made of steel and mesh.

“If any [private property] came up around us, we would absolutely be in the market for expansion,” Ms. Freyre said.

Money also is needed to expand LongHouse’s education program, which started with 100 students in 1996 and now attracts more than 1,200 children from spring through fall.

“It’s my greatest joy,” Mr. Larsen said during a reception at Gallery Gen in New York. “When they are at the garden, I can imagine being one of them.”

Matko Tomicic, LongHouse’s executive director, says 78% of the garden’s $1 million budget comes from individual donations, including an annual unspecified gift from Mr. Larsen. The rest comes from foundations and sources such as admission tickets.