If you thought the Setai was upper-tier, just you wait.
For the uninitiated, some basic trivia: The Hamptons is not a single place, but a collection of well-heeled communities on far eastern end of Long Island that happen to have “-hampton” in the name: Bridgehampton, East Hampton, Westhampton, Southampton, Northampton, Hampton Bays, and West Hampton Dunes. In and among these are towns and hamlets like Wainscott, Sag Harbor, Montauk, and Quogue that, while lacking the “-hampton” badge, are still considered to be members of the club. Oddly enough, there is no town just called “Hampton.”
And one might wonder, given that every last “hampton” is more or less a bump on a long, how The Hamptons came to have a hammerlock on the American elite and what can there is to do once they get there? The first part comes down to A/C; once you could cool down a beach house, mountain getaways like the Catskills and Berkshires became redundant, and the rich and famous of New York society sloshed along the Long Island coast like a tsunami.
As for the second question, this is where house parties are the highlight. It is not to say that there aren’t scads of bars and nightclubs to hit—there are plenty, ranging from 75 Main and Elm in Bridgehampton to South Pointe in Southampton—but the real hook is to finagle an invite to some posh soiree on a beachside mansion. How to score an invite? Hang out at the clubs and charm your way in. The Hamptons is where connections and networking mean everything.
Aside from the fact yoe rubbing shoulders with royalty both real and imagined, The Hamptons is much like any other beach resort, ballooning to near bursting in the summer and deflating into near-obscurity in the winter. Winter is for the die-hards.
But when you have a season that lasts from Memorial Day to Labor Day, in a region covering several hundreds of miles, when is the best time to go? East Hampton has a world-renowned fireworks display on the 4th of July; The Hamptons Food & Wine Festival kicks off in August and pulls in culinary masters from around the globe. To really get a taste of how rarified it gets, the late-August Hamptons Classic is the see-and-be-seen must-do. The largest equestrian show in the country (1,500 horses, 60,000 spectators), many of the riders have a few Olympic Games under their belts—and medals.
For more information, check out the individual towns’ websites. For a “society calendar,” go to hamptons.com.