The Hamptons Is More Than Just a Luxury Beach Destination — It’s Also a Place With Rich Literary and Artistic Heritage

A novelist and longtime Hamptons resident explains the eternal appeal of the South Fork.

Long Island resembles a fish with a long, split tail that has collided with the southern tip of Manhattan. It is the remnant of two separate, intersecting glacial moraines, laid down over the continental shelf many millennia ago as the glaciers melted. South of the rocky central spine of the island, the fine white sand of the glacial outwash spills into the Atlantic, creating beaches that, over the past century and a half, have drawn wealthy New Yorkers eastward in droves. This summer migration takes them out along the lower fork of the tail to find paradise in a series of villages, settled by farmers and fishermen, that are collectively known as the Hamptons.

As is often the case, it was the artists who were among the first cosmopolites to discover this idyllic spit of land, drawn in part by the unspoiled rural vistas and limpid marine light. William Merritt Chase and other important landscape painters congregated in Southampton in the latter half of the 19th century; in the 20th, Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning relocated from Manhattan. An inordinate number of successful artists, including the godfather and godmother to the current scene, Eric Fischl and April Gornik, live and work on the South Fork. Their presence is part of the lure and the myth of the Hamptons, although the rising price of real estate makes the area increasingly inaccessible to all but the most successful artists.

The Hamptons also has a rich literary history. I started visiting in the late '80s, when much of the land was still given over to agriculture and the area still had the feel of a rural bohemia. Some of the writers I admired — John Irving, Peter Matthiessen, George Plimpton, and Kurt Vonnegut — were living in Sagaponack (a Hampton village in all but name). I rented a small house on the beach, just down the street from Truman Capote’s. My friend Bret Easton Ellis rented the house next door. Joseph Heller and Richard Price lived a few miles away in East Hampton.

"Old-timers complain about the new construction, about the traffic, about the new people. But the beaches are still pristine, the villages are picturesque, the corn and tomatoes are the best in the world, the neighbors are ridiculously fashionable — and, come summertime, many of us would hate to be anywhere else. "

Today, Hollywood has increasingly colonized the Hamptons, to the point that movie stars and rock stars seem to outnumber the writers and artists. Alec Baldwin, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Spielberg, and Robert De Niro are some of the entertainment-world names who can be seen at Nick & Toni’s restaurant in East Hampton or at one of the movie premieres that take place in the East Hampton and Southampton theaters. The social season reaches a fever pitch in August, when the two-lane “highway” connecting the villages and hamlets is jammed with vacationing city folk trying to get from cocktail party to gala benefit to dinner party.

For many years, the day after Labor Day was known as Tumbleweed Tuesday — thousands of New Yorkers having driven west the day before, not to return until nine months later. But in recent years, more and more summer residents are extending the season, coming back on autumn and spring weekends and even moving out permanently — a trend that was accelerated by the pandemic. It has made the area even less affordable for locals and those on whom wealthy New Yorkers depend for services. Old-timers complain about the new construction, about the traffic, about the new people. But the beaches are still pristine, the villages are picturesque, the corn and tomatoes are the best in the world, the neighbors are ridiculously fashionable — and, come summertime, many of us would hate to be anywhere else.

A version of this story first appeared in the August 2023 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "A Hamptons Summer."

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