The Illusive Hamptons Brand

At a recent bag lunch series sponsored by the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce, international public relations maestro Robbie Vorhaus (most commonly known in these parts as a congenial village neighbor); spoke to the importance of brand identity. Wrestling with the quintessential question — “What do I stand for and represent?” — the audience of local business leaders grappled with the concept of defining their brand.

Vorhaus suggests it starts with your story — the trials and triumphs of arriving, as core beliefs and values are forged along the journey. So I sat for a while and considered the phenomenon of the East End becoming The Hamptons. As a regional brand and social state of mind, ‘The Hamptons’ came into focus towards the end of my teens in the late 70s. Broadsheets held center stage as their wide-winged coverage reflected idyllic pristine summer afternoons and the ever-vigilant efforts of the village improvement society. To the non-initiated, the zoning battles and tourist boom of the fast approaching disco-driven 80s were as unimaginable as $325 village beach permits. Moms stood, puffing cigarettes, watching their kids, body surfing in the whitewash just below the lifeguard stand as faded VW’s, their rag tops down, peppered the parking lots at Flying Point, Georgica Beach and Indian Wells.

We all seemed to happily co-exist for the sheer authenticity of a Carvel and ticket to the Bridgehampton Drive-In on Thursday nights, in the days of Ridgley’s Steak House, Herb McCarthy’s Bowden Square and James Brown at The Hotel St. James. The moneyed were undetectable then and it’s hard to say who liked it more; they or the farmers they commiserated with at the post office counter buying four-cent stamps.

Here, in Sag Harbor a few artists and writers had managed to nab listing salt boxes on John Street and neighbors remembered having a cup of coffee with John Steinbeck at The Paradise in the days when you ordered your eggs over easy from George. Surfers and hearty fishing families took hold in Montauk and the few celebrities spotted canoodling at The Quiet Clam were simply left alone. You weren’t from The Hamptons then – you were from Amagansett, Water Mill, Springs and North Sea. In those four or five years, from 1979 to 1984, when disco ruled the airwaves and newly minted stock market money fell into the hands of even more freshly minted MBA grads, voracious in their appetites, flocking into LIRR cars on Track 19 heading to ‘The Hamptons,’ a social brand was born.

The New York Times had begun to take notice of a shift in atmosphere as early as the mid-1960s as the quiet beach scenes of Fairfield Porter’s Southampton gave way to Andy Warhol and Peter Beard’s experimental artist compounds on the Montauk bluffs. Yet, it wasn’t until the Yuppie era’s weekly mass exodus in search of sex and sun, glutting the LIE Friday evenings for a wild Hamptons’ weekend, did we all bear the change.

Sunday afternoon tea dances at The Attic and The Swamp ruled traffic flow for miles along the Montauk Highway. Lobster salad at Loaves and Fishes inched its way to $28 a pound and the local papers were peppered with headlines warning of the dangers of ‘grouper house’ rentals. Along came Hamptons Magazine and its slick, glossy spreads of disco clubs on Dune Road and cheeky reports of celebrity spotting. Dan’s Papers swelled to a voluminous beach read with classifieds and personal ads to match. Real estate prices soared as potato fields were sold off to the developers of uber-elite estates on Further Lane, Parsonage and Ox Pasture Road.

A new story was being written in the 1980s and 1990s and along with it came a cadre of print contenders who, too, came and went in the wake of the sea change. The Hamptons became front page news from Hollywood to Cannes as both a brand and a place, while the newspapers, magazines and news programs that attempted to capture its essence became a part of its social fabric.

By the new millennium, ‘The Hamptons’ was so firmly ensconced in the national psyche as a premium brand that vacillates between luxury and tacky excesses that it is equally represented in the media as the height of achievement and bane of supercilious frivolity.

Happily for those of us keeping watch, we are detecting signs of change yet again as a strain of vitality emerges from the rubble of the real estate bust that marked the end of a wanton Hamptons era. It’s old news now, almost 30 years later, when a $22 hamburger seems reasonable after waiting 40 minutes for a table. Somewhere along the way brand giants Martha Stewart and Ralph Lauren co-opted the indelible resilience of the symbolic Hamptons lifestyle and the local farmers markets have brought us back to the land.

As the gears of tourism wind up for Summer 2012, now catering to the grass-fed, organic-air-breathing, feet-never-touched-the-ground, I-don’t-eat-meat-sort vying for a seat at the hamburger joint, I am reminded of the pre-Hamptons charm of a $2 ice cream cone and await this summer’s headlines.

Freedom Of Repression? The Art Of Side Yard Zoning

“The Legs,” as they are euphemistically called, have become something of a news darling.   The debate is  over side yard variances, art verses architecture, and local predilection from respective vantages points.

A curious feeding frenzy of news gluttony which results in endless articles appearing in rapid succession in Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, Curbed Hamptons, a cadre of local web outlets  and most recently ArtNewsWorldwide.com,  speaks to the nature of how local news becomes a bigger story.   Let it be said the hometown media have amply constructed the crux of the debate and laid out the matters of precedence and zoning mandates which entangle Larry River's 'Legs' in their controversy.  Yet, the further out from the debate, the more myopic the controversy appears.  One can almost imagine a New Yorker cover drawing of the Atlantic Ocean, The Legs, the Manhattan skyline and the Hollywood sign looming in the distance in a Saul Steinberg drawing.  Any good news person worth their salt knows all news is local if you can just connect the dots.

In this curious case of social climbing, the much larger issue of freedom of expression as it relates to home ownership comes to light. It is one thing to gain news prominence on the merits of local zoning restrictions and altogether another thing to gain news prominence on the merits of social and cultural association, ie:  The Legs to The Hamptons, Larry Rivers to The Contemporary Art Scene, Manhattan press to national news. In one fell swoop, Sag Harbor is now indelibly linked to the question of freedom of expression, which would have pleased Larry Rivers to no end.   

Hear The Un-Buzzing My Friend

It's back to conspicuous consumption in The Hamptons as Irene's wrath fades into the backdrop of sales on Newtown Lane, while in farm fields nearby Canadian geese flock to begin their conventions north and keeper bass swim thru the gut opened by Mother Nature herself at Scott Cameron.

It's a picture perfect Labor Day Weekend as snappers flop and coo in the bays. How quiet and calm it was with the lights out and the buzz un-buzzing. Even the most must-see-event-driven among us must have enjoyed a moment of solitude and thought, why don't I do this more often?

As school kids soak in the last vestiges of summer va-ca and young Manhattanites scurry to regain their too-cool-to-care weekend 'tude in search of true love south of the highway, count the days on one hand that you dug your toes deeply in the sand at Napeague and savored the wee things that scurried for cover in the shallows.

A Hurricane Like All Others

Excuse the hint of glee you detected in the check out line as you scrambled for flashlights and double D batteries at the hardware store. It is small compensation in dubious times that finds the native among us mildly entertained as the newly initiated prepared for a hurricane to rake eastern Long Island. By all official accounts you should be scurrying about like a rabbit in search of its tail in preparation for the big blow.

Yet see the steady, determined stride of the farmer and fisherman among you (though they tend crops and seabeds of a different ilk these days) as they emerge from beneath the yoke of modern times, lean toward their ancestral pride and stand firmly. For these, Irene is a long awaited adversary that will be likened to the brethren before her, heralded for her width and girth and deep barreled breath as she washes leeward.

For there remain some among us who can tell the tale as their own of the water that rose to divide Montauk from the mainland and the wind that toppled the spire from its protestant perch above the Old Whalers pew. New Englanders are a salty crew and Bonackers I dare, the most crusty of the lot, stalwart and determined to hold fast to a shifting dune and muddy clam bed.

As the great equalizer approaches, with her 800 mile reach and 130 mile per hour howl, undaunted by designer show houses and black American Express cards, it is the farmer and fisherman among us who fear the least. For they know that after this beastly blow a calm returns to the sea and a vitality to the field born of this baptismal rite, having washed free the veil of modern conventions. It is the pilgrim that lives lightly on the soil that weathers the most severe of storms.

All the while, deep in the furrows of Sagaponack and beneath the eel grasses of Accabonac, Peconic, Noyac and Nappeague, lives the birthright of The Shinnecock, The Montaukette and The Amagansett, laid claim by the Gardiners, the Lesters, the Millers, the Hildreths, the Halseys and the many named among us who remain invisibly beside you at hardware store, flashlights in hand.

Say You Did And Stow Away

There's a new psychological state emerging from The Hamptons this summer in a mash up of over stimulation and waning desire as event signs propagate along our back roads announcing the must-see-must-do fab event of the weekend. Even the most willing of circuit-going minds tires along the circuitous route from Seven Ponds Road to Hands Creek in search of farm stand and cell tower, texting missives to the posse gathering outside Round Swamp Farm stuffed like sardines on the grill.

Even if you wanted to take a gander at Escape To New York, with their quirky campsite village outpost behind the Elks Club on County Road 39 or trip once again into the ever-expanding Hamptons Designer Showhouse, take in a producer's chat at John Drew Theatre or make your pilgrimage drive to Rushmyere's in Montauk, there's plenty of opportunity to talk yourself out of it while stuck in the bumper to bumper traffic getting through Water Mill, Wainscott and Amagansett.

Yet, at 10:20 p.m. this past Saturday night I actually counted five empty spaces on Sag Harbor's Main Street -- which had me wondering what was awry with the universe. I know that they've discovered what they think might by a sludgy water on Mars but parking spaces in Sag Harbor is an entirely other matter... one to raise an eyebrow or two as August turns the calender her haughty direction. For this is the month we must pack it all in, whether we are particularly in the mood or not because with Labor Day goes the fanfare of party tents and the casually clad summer set looking perfectly disheveled for an evening of hobbing and nobbing.

Luckier to find one's self lost among the simple pleasures of an afternoon's dip in the ocean come mid-week, digging clams in Northwest Harbor as the sun sets down, taking an idle walk through Green River Cemetery in search of Frank O'Hara and looking up old friends in the backyard of youth. See the beach plum begin to turn its bluish blush plumping on Long Beach and sit idle for a time as the terns make ready their sandy beds.

If we're luckier still, no hurricane will come to wash away all but what is elementally essential and bring us back to our colonial senses for ours is a cyclical pact to keep balance here on The East End as the world rushes in and the lighthouse bears down on eroding rock to even the keel.

Enter SAGOPOLIS- A Coney Island Of The Mind

It's official - Friday is the new Saturday in The Hamptons as caravans arrive with expectations beyond realization come Thursday afternoon winding their way along the LIE in search of Exit 70 and Eastport/Manorville Road. Likely none of them have ever set foot in Eastport or any of the other minor villages that dot the south shore west of Westhampton Beach. Never mind that they have the same Atlantic Ocean lapping their shore line and the same quahog and mulluscs burrowing in their bays. They are not The Hamptons.

Neither were The Hamptons the hamptons when I was a youth attending Southampton parochial schools and its public junior high. The phenomenom of The Hamptons as a regional brand and social state of mind came into focus towards the end of my teens in the late Seventies as the hippies faded into a final tequila sunrise lost to the back beat of something heady called disco. Enter the wanton Eighties - when late Sunday afternoon tea dances at The Attic and The Swamp ruled traffic flow for miles along the Montauk Highway. These were free spirited times of chest bare bronzed boys on amyl nitrates singing 'It's Raining Men, Hallelujah'. Lobster salad at Loaves and Fishes was still vaguely affordable at $28 a pound and Sag Harbor was that little village with the reputation of having more local bars than locals.

There were a few artists and writers who had managed to grab a listing salt box on John Street from the old whaling line and neighbors remembered having a cup of coffee with John Steinbeck at The Paradise in the days when you ordered your eggs over easy from George. There were vacant parking spaces on Main Street and for a time you could go hear Rickie Lee Jones and Tina Turner perform at Bay Street when it was a dance club. Hilde's served the most delicious scrambled eggs and that giant blue gas ball that sat in the back parking lot reminded us all that we were the sons and daughters of the working class - a blue collar community on the rise.

Fast forward to Summer 2011 -- where July is the new August and a $22 hamburger seems reasonable after waiting 40 minutes for a table in the baking sun to be served by surly waitstaff who appear to have no idea why you would want a fork and napkin. It's the summer of the Farmer's Market circuit, the grass-fed organic air breathing feet-never-touched-the-ground I-don't-eat-meat-sort at the hamburger joint trying to place an order. It's the summer of endless sunshine and paddle-board mania as the minions discover standing on the water is all it is cracked up to be. It's not even the 20th of July and already the Tomato Lady is in full harvest, corn is chest high in the fields and the blue fish have begun to move out of the bays in search of cooler, less motor-ridden waters.

It's forage at your own risk come Saturday morning for the foolish among us who forgot to pick up a quart of milk or the avocado and limes for the fluke ceviche tonight. For the village is not ours three days out of seven when the streets clog to capacity and the produce sections run bare at the IGA and farm stand on Scuttlehole. Little East Hampton we, so on trend to be edged out of our own shops and restaurants while our kids learn the value of a $100 tip from the big spender on table 9, eyeing the Ferrari parked outside.

Summer, At Last

July 5th - A calm comes over the marshlands as the heavens shift to this more weighty equinox of families setting up camp at bay beaches for elongated days of seashells and fiddler crab. The main streets swell to their bloated selves, making room for the vaguely directed muddling from IGA to the last Five and Dime this side of the canal. For this is summer, at last.

Lightning bugs spark in the growing dusk at days end, after the yoga worshipers who dawn the beach, the career joggers who pace the roadways, the youngsters reluctantly belting their life preservers at sailing camp, the aging, sitting beneath wild cherry at the water's edge in their folding kitchen chairs. The wind ebbing off the tide as a lone swimmer strokes the length of Long Beach. Summer, at last.

Away from the buzz of trendy night and this year's rave, drinking sun brewed iced tea at a neighbor's picnic table. Away from Justin Beber and his Canadian girl pal nabbing tweets - spotted at the surf and sport shop in Bridgehampton. Away from Howard Stern, wife in hand, looking particularly middle-aged, navigating onlookers on their way to grab a hamburger. Away from the table hustling wanna-be, parking space thief on the ready to redirect blame. Away from the office and its constant gnawing, the daily mail and monthly reminders.

Summer, at last - in all its overheated, sun-drenched, salt crusted headiness, breathing deeply into the garden bed and exhaling out over the tree tops, tomatoes on the vine. Crabs in the inlet come grab us by the toes and lead us out over our heads for a while to bask in a dead-man's float and let the sky worry.

Summer, at last.