Ah, summer. The season where New Yorkers pack their tennis whites and Hermès Oran sandals into a leather weekender; throw it in the back of a Blacklane, Blade, or their own Range Rover; and head out to Hamptons. (As Chuck Bass says in the canonical Gossip Girl episode “Summer, Kind of Wonderful”: “What’s a jitney?”)
Well, uh, the generationally wealthy ones anyway. The rest of us? We’re stuck in a city that smells like microwaved garbage, wondering what white collar crime or Anna Nicole Smith-style marriage we’ve gotta commit to afford a house in a town where the median sales price is $24.9 million.
Like me! For years, I’ve been a guest—never a resident—in the Hamptons. Instead, I twiddle my thumbs in my apartment until I get that text from that friend inviting me to that house. I accept immediately, and express my gratitude profusely. Then I schlep out on the Ambassador with an overstuffed LL Bean tote bag and a hostess gift that’s more like a religious offering to an ancient summer deity: “Please, oh benevolent god, let this olive oil and Fuyu persimmon vinegar set from Flamingo Estate prove my worthiness to swim in an in-ground pool and drink rosé at Topping Rose House.”
So, as I wait by my window A.C. unit for an invite to come through, I decided to pass the time with the following activity: writing a satire about the type of people you meet in the Hamptons.
By god, I hope one day I’m one of you.
This was supposed to be the summer you opened Hither Lane, your artisanal jams and cashmeres concept shop in East Hampton. But then your Bernadoodle, Beau, got in a fight with one of Martha Stewart’s Chow Chows outside the Chanel on Main Street. The poor thing almost lost an eye. With all of this going on, you simply didn’t have the time to run a store that’s open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Wednesday.
You drink your Tutto Café iced coffee in the garden while reading The Wall Street Journal. An article reports that guacamole at Round Swamp Farms costs $32. You aren’t sure if that is a lot or a little. Your private chef does all the grocery shopping out here anyway.
“Amagansett is just such a bohemian beach town,” you say to your friend as you drive to Atlantic Avenue Beach in your classic Land Rover Defender with four “resident” beach stickers slapped prominently on the passenger window. “You know, a place where you can ride your bike into town, get fresh produce from Amber Waves, and not buy into the whole pretense of places like South and East. I’m not like my parents. I don’t need to belong to Maidstone. I don’t need a town with a Chanel store.”
She nods politely in return.
“Anyway,” you continue. “Let’s stop by The Row later.”
Your 100-year-old Victorian may not have central air conditioning, but it does have the amenity that matters—being within walking distance of the Yacht Club. You’ve held a longstanding boycott of two places on the island: Sunset Beach (for obvious reasons) and Black Cat Books. How dare they refuse to stock your 1000-page, self-published book on the naval campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars?
I’m too scared of pissing off the Succession-level rich people who live here. They could end my career with a phone call. Actually, that’s giving me too much credit and them not enough. They could end it by texting only my name followed by the garbage can emoji. Enjoy your chic general store, I guess?
You sip a gimlet on your Billy Baldwin-designed veranda and think about where things went wrong. Deerlick, your estate on Gin Lane, has been in your family for nearly a century. It survived the Great Depression. It survived the war. The World one… and the one where your brother sued you for partial ownership. “Cricket, you frigid bitch!” he screamed as your lawyers escorted him out of the office. “You ruined my life. I’ll make you pay for this!”
“Actually, Sebastian, you’re the one who legally needs to pay me,” you reply.
Look, it’s not your fault that Father wrote him out of the will. It just might be your fault that a felony-worthy amount of marijuana happened to appear in his bedroom. And that your father happened to form the opinion that he was a drugged out, draft-dodging hippie who brought shame upon the family name. (The ’70s... different time.)
You got your karma when you married Henry, anyway. Bad investment after bad investment. Gambled away the rest you had in the back room of The Knickerbocker Club.
So now it’s come to this: Deerlick sold. To a hedge funder. With the world’s largest Kaws collection.
You ring the servant’s bell several times in a fit of rage, and scream: “These gin gimlets aren’t strong enough for Ms. Cricket!”
Everyone knows that bigger is better. That’s why you came up with your grand vision: a 18-bedroom, 22-bathroom modern farmhouse with an outdoor pool, two-floor gym, and a biohacking center complete with a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, a cold plunge circuit, and a chef who used to work at Lanserhof.
Yet Southampton wouldn’t let you tear down some decrepit old Georgian estate… Deer Haven? Deer Crest? Deer something?
Then East Hampton rejected your architectural plans for “excessive bathrooms.” So instead you found a 32 acre plot north of the highway in Watermill and built the megamansion of your dreams.
Erm, you think. You’ve only used seven of the bathrooms. Your wife works out at Tracey Anderson rather than in the home gym. And the Lanserhof chef? He serves a lot of sauerkraut. Like, a lot.
At night, while your wife bitches about having to drive 30 minutes to Topping Rose, you whip out your iPhone and type in Bespokerealestate.com. You check the box for listings South of the Highway. When they load, you scream into the echoing abyss that is your Carrara marble foyer.
“Whose phone is that?” Carter, your son, asks as a faint ring echoes around your Mark D. Sikes designed a living room in Wainscott. “Can’t be me,” you say, feigning interest in an old issue of Architectural Digest.
After he leaves the room, you toss the paper to the side and frantically flip over the couch cushion. It reveals a 2006 Motorola Razr. Missed call (3) from Unknown.
You type in a jumble of numbers. They pick up on the second ring.
“It’s done.”
“And no one will know?” You ask.
“No one will know,” they repeat.
“What about the wire transfer?”
“Untraceable.”
You hang up. Then, you snap the phone in half.
Henry walks back in with a cup of coffee. “Mother, did you see the news about offshore wind turbines? About time the Hamptons invested in green energy,” he says. “And you must be so thrilled. With all the fundraisers you’ve thrown about the environment over the decades: ‘Don’t Bungle the Jungle.’ ‘Protect the Polar Bears.’ ‘Seas the Day.’ You’ve really dedicated your life to the cause.”
“Oh, it’s wonderful darling,” you say. “Although our view of the ocean is certainly going to change...”
He waves his hand. “I’m not bothered by the sight of wind turbines.”
You grow cold. “They’re ghastly.”
The next morning, an issue of The East Hampton Star arrives on your doorstep. “WIND POWER PROJECT IN WAINSCOTT ABRUPTLY CANCELLED,” reads the headline. “OFFICIALS GIVE LITTLE TO NO EXPLANATION.”
You sip your tea and smile.
You say you love to surf—but your handcrafted surfboard by an artist-slash-DJ from Bali has made more of an appearance on your Instagram story than it has Ditch Plains. At night, you drive your Ford Bronco to dinner at Crow’s Nest. The hostess says there’s a two-hour wait. “But I’m like, best friends with the Macphersons,” you say, crossing your Ulla Johnson-sleeved arms. She’s not buying it. In a huff, you go back to your house that you bought from a fisherman in 1998. (Well, not his house exactly. You razed that two-bedroom shack as soon as you got out of escrow.)
After polishing off a bottle of rosé in your modernist mansion, you go rant about how Surf Lodge-crazed TikTokers ruined Montauk.
Adam called you crazy for buying a 992-square-foot home in Sag Harbor Village for $2.8 million. But he just didn’t understand your vision: Ken Fulk interiors that shit Pierre Frey! A Edmund Hollander garden with a fuck-you amount of hydrangeas! Shutters that aren’t just blue, but Farrow and Ball’s Hague Blue! “Like the international war crimes court?” Adam asks, confused. “Do you want to increase the value of this home or not?” You snap back.
“I’m sorry, darling. I’m not great with all this…aesthetic stuff,” Adam says. “You’re right. Maybe in a few years we can sell it for three million and get a bigger place in East. Let’s talk about it over martinis at the American Hotel later?”
You give him a kiss on the cheek. When he turns around, you hastily dump a bunch of bills in the trash. He doesn’t need to know you’re already at $3.5 million all in.
