Our Hamptons

Esperanza and Irwin welcome Susan Horowitz, of Hamptons 20th Century Modern. Susan formulates advocacy efforts to both raise awareness and influence actual preservation efforts by viewing modernism as a continuum of the architectural history of eastern Long Island. While Long Island modern architectural history is documented by writers such as Paul Goldberger, Alastair Gordon + Caroline Rob Zalesk...

Esperanza and Irwin discuss Freetown, East Hampton. Following the passage of the Gradual Emancipation Act of 1799 in New York State, John Lyon Gardiner and other wealthy local slave-owners settled newly freed slaves in Freetown. Some of these households bore the last names of their former owners in subsequent census records. Rufus Right, Cyrus Hedges, William Gardiner, and Luce Gardiner were early...

Esperanza and Irwin start Season Five with Mayor Gary Vegliante of Westhampton Dunes. In the late 1980's, a severe coastal storm battered this then unincorporated section of Westhampton practically into oblivion. Homeowners lost access to their houses to the point of police barricades denying entry. Current Mayor Gary Vegliante was a teacher and restaurant owner, and along with other political...

Esperanza and Irwin discuss the storied history of Montauk's Seven Sisters. In the late 1880's, Arthur Benson, the developer of the Brooklyn neighborhood Bensonhurst, purchased 10,000 Montauk acres, and within it, created a fishing retreat for six friends and himself. The houses were designed by McKim, Mead and White, and sited by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead. Kitchens were small, as...

Esperanza and Irwin welcome Columbia University Professor Alexander Stille, the author of The Sullivanians. The Sullivan Institute was a maverick psychoanalytic practice and cult that flourished on the Upper West Side from 1957 until 1991. Paramount to the Sullivanian doctrine was the rejection of the traditional nuclear family and monogamous relationships. “The Sullivanians told myparents that th...

In 2008, Larry Rivers 16 foot tall "Legs" was installed outside a private residence in Sag Harbor. The usual questions abounded; was it art, was it a structure, did it have a place as a public art display. An East End version of a centuries old battle over what can be deemed art, what can't, and who can judge the difference? In fact, in 1989 East Hampton Village banned outside displays of art with...

Esperanza has lamented the current lack of nightlife and dancing on the East End on numerous Our Hamptons podcasts. So we decided to transport ourselves and our audience back to the era of Saturday Night Fever, and disco itself. Even the high school had something called Bonac Bandstand, and in fact partied (dry of course) at the Mellow Mouth Disco at 44 Three Mile Harbor Road. As often happens on...

The biggest single scene on the East End in the late 1970’s had to be Asparagus Beach in Amagansett, or what we refer to today as simply Atlantic Ave. Singles would stand around like upright stalks of Asparagus, to see and be seen. String bikinis ruled the day, as did groupers; not the fish, but the participants themselves who squeezed into rental share houses, predominately in Amagansett’s Beach...

Esperanza and Irwin hearken back to the days before 300 plus cable tv channels and numerous streaming options. If you're of a certain age, you remember channels 2 to 13, and possibly UHF. Rooftop antennas, tin foil on the rabbit ears. But eastern Long Island weren't getting TV out of NYC. Apparently, those signals did not travel effectively west to east. Rather, channels out of Hartford, N...

Esperanza and Irwin welcome the filmmaker Joanne Roberts to discuss The Bonackers Project. The loss of the commercial fishing industry on the east end has been well documented. Overreaching government intrusion, onerous regulations and a powerful sports fishing lobby, combined with ever increasing house prices damaged an industry whose legacy dates back hundreds of years. Joanne shares the stories...

Esperanza and Irwin discuss a time when unspoiled Lazy Point was an industrial zone unto itself, with multiple fish factories operating. They even had their own LIRR Train Station for the employees to arrive there from points west. It was seemingly the perfect place for an industry that generated some awful smells from the factories. But with its isolated location it really wasn't bothering an...

Esperanza and Irwin discuss the storied history and many lives of the most prominent commercial address in East Hampton, if not the entire East End: One Main Street. Perched on the most prominent location in the Village, the northwestern corner of Newtown Lane and Main Street, the tenants, and the stories speak metaphorically to all the changes in East Hampton over the past hundred years.

Esperanza and Irwin welcome artist Mike Solomon. Mike had an extraordinary childhood, growing up as the son of Syd and Annie Solomon. Syd was part of the Ab-Ex movement, and while he was a painter of great renown, the salons Annie hosted in her home were legendary. Mike, who is an important painter in his own right, shares the stories of what went on in the East Hampton in 1960's and 70's...

Esperanza and Irwin continue the virtual road trip with the travel writer Horace Sutton, and the photographer Toni Frissell. We enter East Hampton Town, with stops and conversations about Out Of This World Restaurant in Wainscott, The Hedges Inn and Maidstone Arms. Not to mention the Amagansett Windmill House, rented by Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller to escape the paparazzi!

Esperanza and Irwin

Esperanza and Irwin have talked of many grand estates on the East End; the Bell Estate, Bayberryland and the Dunes come to mind. Fordune certainly has its place in this conversation. Ford methodically acquired 235 acres including significant oceanfront to construct the 16000 square foot manse. Sadly, Ford's marriage to Anne McDonnell Ford ended in divorce, and she was awarded Fordune in the se...

Esperanza and Irwin discuss the ongoing metamorphosis of our downtowns with veteran Commercial Realtor Hal Zwick.  Is the homogenization of our downtown districts mimicking a worldwide pattern of sameness?  Is Main Street Southampton/ East Hampton really that different from Beverly Hills, London, or Singapore?  Hal describes how the vibrancy of Sag Harbor's downtown as compared to b...

Esperanza and Irwin discuss the parallel histories of two of the East End's most beautiful waterfront communities: Barnes Landing and Bay Point. Helen Codling Halstead developed both, inheriting the land after the untimely death of her father. Helen had grand plans for both: rows of shops on Quality Row in Barnes Landing, and a waterfront dock and marina at Bay Point, neither of which ever hap...

Esperanza and Irwin transport you back in time to an off season Bridgehampton and Sagaponack. Some of the literary giants of the 20th century, Salter,Matthiessen, Capote, Vonnegut and others decamped here. The solitude, and yes, the sheer affordability of this bygone era inspired some of the greatest literary minds to produce their greatest work, often capping it off with a nightcap at Bobby Vans.

Esperanza and Irwin both have a connection to Longhouse; Esperanza is Head of Education and Community Engagement while Irwin has been a Docent. Sure, Longhouse is a stunning physical property; 12 acres of gardens, pond, sculpture. But the true story of Longhouse is Jack Lenor Larsen, a 20th century visionary. Jack purchased the property, a former potato field of flat land completely overgrown with...

Esperanza and Irwin have a special visit with Charlie Tupper. The Tupper's presence at Towd Point started in the early 1920's. Charlie's grandfather (Frank Edwin Tupper) bought the property on Davis Creek in about  1917 or 1918 . The land reminded him of his native Nova Scotia. When he bought it, the property cost $7500. The house, initially called "Ramblers Cottage" for the...

Esperanza and Irwin were surprised to learn Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis' formative years were spent on eastern Long Island. Born in 1929 at Southampton Hospital, the center of the Bouvier family life was at "Lasata", (meaning place of peace) the Further Lane estate adjacent to the Maidstone Club, where the family also had a cabana. When the Bouvier's first arrived in East...

Esperanza and Irwin look back on the way Real Estate was bought and sold on eastern Long Island, in the not too distant past. Before the internet, before Zillow, before Redfin, before Real Estate firms with national and world wide presence. As recently as the early 1970's, there were not many more realtors then in the early 1950's, and many were part timers. Sure, there was money to be mad...

Esperanza and Irwin look back on the history of Beach Hampton. In the 1920's, Richard B. Allen began accumulating land in Amagansett along the oceanfront, from Beach Lane to Napeague Lane. By 1936, the RB Allen corporation owned 200 acres, and began developing a community for the middle class, called Beach Hampton. Ultimately, Alfred Scheffer became Beach Hampton's resident architect, desi...

Esperanza and Irwin welcome Brenda Sinclair, third generation Hampton Bays resident, and executive director of the HB Historical Society.   We admitted to being a bit mystified by this hamlet, and Brenda's hometown stories and memories brings it all together.   Brenda tells us about the storied history and many lives of the Canoe Place Inn, now in the process of being reinvente...