By Larry Marano/Getty Images.
Two summers ago, I met a couple in Delhi, an out-of-the-way town in central New York about 150 miles north of the Upper East Side. They live in Sag Harbor year-round, but like many locals of the increasingly seasonally absurd east end of Long Island, they summer elsewhere to avoid the celebrities, politicians, and Page Six reporters who crowd Hamptons streets and beaches all season.
And this year the follies reached new depths! In the last week of the Hamptons summer season, Page Six reported1 that Scarlett Johansson was filming Rock That Body on Peconic Bay, in Southampton. In the film, a group of women gather for a bachelorette party in Miami Beach, and things go wrong. A male stripper is killed. And so even Hollywood studios now see the Hamptons, once a sleepy destination for artists and very old money, as an easy stand-in for Miami-Dade County.
And the moneyed hamlet was indeed lousy with actresses and television personalities. Bethenny Frankel, a recently divorced Real Housewife, supposedly threw her drink2 at a group of women who blocked her view during an intimate Coldplay gig in Amagansett. Chris Martin and the band were performing for a tiny group that included their actual friends, like Jay Z and Beyonc . Jennifer Lopez caused a scene when she reportedly rented out an entire grooming facility for her dogs, sorely disappointing3 one East Hamptonite who was attempting the usual pre Barry s Bootcamp dog drop-off. The actor who played Hodor on Game of Thrones had a D.J. gig4 in Montauk.
The Hamptons: slightly less hellish than Westeros.
Related: Even the Pre-Summer Season Was Grim This Year5
Elsewhere in East Hampton, Oliver Stone, who just spent months going through hell to shoot a new movie about Edward Snowden, held a screening for the usual fixtures on the national-security scene. Joy Behar, Peggy Noonan, Dick Cavett, and Christie Brinkley all attended. The movie is really lighting up the scene out east: Larry Gagosian also held a private screening at his estate in Amagansett.
Less-famous rich people did some gross stuff. Soon after reportedly divorcing his second wife, whom the Post referred to as stunning in two6 articles7, Andrew Farkas, a 56-year-old real-estate billionaire, was spotted hanging out with a 22-year-old student from his alma mater they both went to school in Cambridge. A Wall Street bro supposedly trashed a $20 million house8 in Bridgehampton by throwing a charity fund-raiser replete with little people wielding champagne guns. After being fired from Moore Capital, Brett Barna went on to tell The New York Times9 that the party was good, clean fun, though he admitted the dwarfs were probably a touch too far. It turns out that Omar Amanat, the owner of the house Barna rented, was arrested on fraud charges shortly after the party. (Amanat has since been indicted and released on $2.5 million bail, and forced to surrender his passport.) Seems like a classic case of no winners here.
Politics were everywhere, too. Paul McCartney joked10 that a fund-raiser at Jimmy Buffett s Sagaponack home was the first time in my entire life when I have paid to hear myself sing. The proceeds went to the Hillary Clinton campaign, which made hay in the South Fork this summer. Jets owner Woody Johnson angered11 his neighbors when he closed a road for his Donald Trump fund-raiser. The K.K.K. planned12 to disrupt a Black Lives Matter rally at a traffic circle in Westhampton Beach. Judith Giuliani, whose husband, Rudy, has been flying all over the country to scream at people, said13 the best thing about the Hamptons International Film Festival was that it is nonpartisan, which is apparently a funny joke.
Hosts are compelled to ask and guests, under pain of death, must accept, Page Six s Cindy Adams wrote of the Hamptons.
It s an equal-opportunity misery. Adams recently suffered an unimaginable tragedy: she made the trip14 to visit a now ex-friend, a brand-new, first-time, 10-week Hamptonite. Then the power went out. Horrible stuff.
Page Six wasn t the only outlet showing signs of Hamptons exhaustion. In the span of a single month, the Observer ran at least three stories on alternative summer options: Aspen15, a round-up16 including Rhode Island and Cape Cod, and glamping. 17 Some quick-service journalism: the only sentence more unappealing than we re heading East this weekend is we re going glamping.
With all the bad press, one wonders if the city folk will ever realize they could simply choose not to suffer through a Hamptons summer. If so, I know a couple who just returned from Delhi who d be quite pleased.
X 
the farm girl
Amanda Hearst
Do you see the emu? asked a bubbly Amanda Hearst, pointing toward the expansive fenced-in farm behind her family s Water Mill spread. A giant ostrich-like bird was indeed flapping its feathers a little more than a touchdown pass away from the pool, where houseguests were splashing around in the hot summer sun. And the emu was just the beginning.
The farm also has miniature goats, a donkey, a mini-horse, ducks, chickens, geese, cats, dogs, an African gray parrot, and doves. This is where the publishing heiress comes year-round, especially during summer weekends, to flee the concrete jungle. We used to rent in the Hamptons, and it would always be in Southampton, Water Mill, or Bridgehampton, says Hearst. But for the past 10 years her family (which includes Amanda s socialite mom, Anne Hearst, and her novelist step-dad, Jay McInerney) has occupied its Peter Cook designed manse, which incorporates leftover marble mantelpieces her great-grandfather William Randolph Hearst flew in from Europe to furnish his famous castle in San Simeon, California.
Amanda Hearst photographed at her family s estate in Water Mill.
the sportsman
Nic Roldan
It s not all work and no play, the Argentinean-born polo player Nic Roldan said as he stood, dripping wet, in the kitchen of the Water Mill house where he s spending the summer. He had just finished a practice session in the polo field next door, then cooled off with a dip in the pool. Roldan, one of the best polo players on the planet, splits his time between Argentina, Palm Beach, and the Hamptons, where he has played Bridgehampton polo for the past six summers. This season he s riding with Team Certified s Gonzalo Garcia del Rio, I aki Laprida, and sponsor Michael Borrico and rolling with an entourage of groupies. Polo is great here in the Hamptons, but it s really the surroundings that make it, says Roldan, who played on Prince Harry s team in the Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic in New York earlier this summer. I love to be outdoors, and between the spectacular beaches for surfing and the long bike rides out to Montauk, it just doesn t get better than this.
Nic Roldan at his Water Mill house.
the writer
Christina Lewis
New York City based freelance journalist Christina Lewis, daughter of the late businessman Reginald F. Lewis, is reporting on the Hamptons for The Wall Street Journal this summer. But Lewis learned the Hamptons beat long before she signed up for the job. She has been making the trip to her family s gorgeous East Hampton estate her entire life, and plans to get married there this fall. You can find Lewis frequenting Bookhampton, in East Hampton, for the greatest selection of books ever, catching the sunset at the Navy Beach restaurant (formerly the site of the Sunset Saloon), and shopping at Laurin Copen s antique store for, well, antiques. Even Lewis, however, has not entirely evaded the attentions of East Hampton s notoriously overzealous police. One morning, she awoke to the sound of barking and discovered her dog, Boomer, stretched out across the beach path, facing off against an officer of the law.
I ran down there, was very apologetic, and got off with a warning, she says. We re now fencing the house in.
Christina Lewis in her bedroom at her family s East Hampton house.
the flower child
Bettina Prentice
My dad starting buying property in Sagaponack when he was young, starting off with roommates to afford the mortgages, says Bettina Prentice, who runs a New York City based visual arts publicity firm. He surrounded himself with creative, interesting people his first roommate was Oliver Stone. Stone wrote the screenplay for Midnight Express in her family s 300-year-old Sagaponack house. Other famous houseguests have included the French filmmaker Louis Malle, who wrote Pretty Baby there, and Brazilian soccer legend Pele, who attempted to impart the finer points of the beautiful game to Bettina and her sister. These days, when she s not spending the weekend at her husband s family s house in Southampton, Prentice likes to shop for flowers with her mother at Liberty Farm s Nursery, on Sagg Main Street, in Sagaponack. It is a beautiful, magical place, she says. But so is Long Island in general, it appears. On particularly windy nights, when the waves are most intense, I lay awake for hours, listening.
It is just hypnotic.
Bettina Prentice and her dog, Harry, at her family s house in Sagaponack.
the foodie
Katie Lee
Some might call cookbook author and chef Katie Lee a Hamptons newbie she s frequented the East End for only the past seven years but the West Virginia native probably spends more time there during the summer than any other young person we know. I go into the city to film the CBS Early Show one day per week then I come right back out here, she says. Lee s good taste expands beyond dishing out cooking tips on TV. Her airy flip-flop Sagaponack beach house (the bedrooms are on the first floor, the kitchens are on the top) has a picture-perfect homey feel. Out the master bathroom s back door and a couple of steps across a wooden walkway is the beach, where she likes to catch waves ( I learned how to surf last summer I m addicted ) and host picnics. We couldn t resist asking for a menu suggestion: French-bread sandwiches with salted tomatoes and mozzarella, lentil salad, peaches, and coconut water. Stick that in your basket and tote it!
Katie Lee on the beach in front of her Sagaponack house.
the fashion designer
Charlotte Ronson
No Hamptons summer house is complete without a houseguest, and none is more invite-able than fashion designer Charlotte Ronson. I stay with friends in East Hampton and Amagansett, says the rock aristocrat, who has been visiting the East End on and off since she was five years old. Perhaps that s why Charlotte, a member of the ubiquitous Ronson clan (her mom is socialite and jewelry designer Ann Dexter-Jones, her brother is D.J. Marc Ronson, and her sister is D.J. Samantha Ronson), is a walking Hamptons guidebook: she likes Babette s, in East Hampton, for breakfast; Town Line BBQ, in Sagaponack, and Turtle Crossing, in East Hampton, for BBQ; Gosman s Dock and Cyril s, in Montauk, for seafood; Blue Parrot, in East Hampton, for cocktails the list goes on (Round Swamp Farm for fresh snacks) and on (Scoup du Jour, in East Hampton). She may have it all figured out, but she s far from bored. Every day is special out here, she says.
Charlotte Ronson with her dog, Oliver, on a friend s property in Amagansett.
the surfer
Rob McKinley
Montauk, the tiny hamlet at the end of the Long Island Rail Road line, was the sleepiest of all the Hamptons communities until 2008, when a couple of big-city nightclub guys opened the Surf Lodge. The hotel, bar, and restaurant, situated near the fabled surfers beach Ditch Plains, was an immediate hit with the party crowd and, perhaps inevitably, a bust with the locals, who feared an onslaught of trendy imitators. Even the Surf Lodge s critics, however, express respect for its co-founder Rob McKinley, a true Hamptons surfer dude who has been trekking to the East End for decades. I first went to Montauk in the summer as a kid at eight years old, says McKinley, who dates TV producer Summer Strauch. I started summering in East Hampton in the early 90s and have had a home in Amagansett for the past six years. McKinley says he appreciates the natural beauty of the Hamptons and the mix of characters that the area attracts, but the ocean at Montauk is what really keeps him coming back.
Rob McKinley on a beach in Montauk that is not Ditch Plains. Let s just keep it at that.
the shop owner
Dylan Lauren As a child, Dylan Lauren, daughter of American fashion icon Ralph and photographer-author Ricky, used to frequent East Hampton s local candy store Nuts About Chocolate. Now that very storefront is home to Dylan s own sweetshop, Dylan s Candy Bar. I insisted on it, even though there were other available spaces in the area, says Lauren, who established the first Dylan s Candy Bar in New York City in 2001 and has since opened four more locations.
I felt a nostalgic connection to it. It had a great charm, and I liked that its past owner was also passionate about candy. But the East End is also Lauren s hideaway. The Hamptons is my favorite escape in the world, particularly my family s home in Montauk, she says. I love biking from Montauk Point all the way to Southampton through the back roads, because every town along the way has a different and special vibe, and you can escape to all of these different worlds within an hour. There s the ocean surf world of Montauk, the forests and camping scene of Wainscott, the gardens of lush flowers and horse stables of East Hampton, the old sailboats and yachts of Sag Harbor, the plantations, farms and potato fields of Bridgehampton it has everything! If that sounds like a sweet existence, it is.
Dylan Lauren at Dylan s Candy Bar in East Hampton.
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References
- ^ reported (pagesix.com)
- ^ threw her drink (pagesix.com)
- ^ sorely disappointing (www.vanityfair.com)
- ^ had a D.J.
gig
(www.vanityfair.com) - ^ Related: Even the Pre-Summer Season Was Grim This Year (www.vanityfair.com)
- ^ two (pagesix.com)
- ^ articles (pagesix.com)
- ^ trashed a $20 million house (www.vanityfair.com)
- ^ tell The New York Times (www.nytimes.com)
- ^ joked (pagesix.com)
- ^ angered (pagesix.com)
- ^ planned (nypost.com)
- ^ said (pagesix.com)
- ^ made the trip (pagesix.com)
- ^ Aspen (observer.com)
- ^ round-up (observer.com)
- ^ glamping. (observer.com)