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What is Bridgehampton all about? To the outsider it may be similar to the other villages and hamlets of the Hamptons. To the insider, it is a singular and uncommon place. The social structure is unlike Southampton. The Main Street is unrelated to East Hampton. And it marches to a different drummer than Sag Harbor or Amagansett.
Finding it is easier to say what it is not, then to measure what it actually is, I began to research the subject for an article. I naturally spoke to people with deep roots in the community, who could give me some insight. But along the way it occurred to me that you do not necessarily need a lifetime or even many years in a place to define it or have it define you. It is the strength of the connection that really counts. So I decided to interview people, whatever their vintage, with strong attachments.
On an invitation to the opening of her new shop in Bridgehampton, Donna Parker added a hand written message saying, “This is so not Bridgehampton.” When I saw the store I realized what she meant. It looks back, but not to simple, rural Eastern Long Island. The emphasis is on glamour—specifically the kind of sophisticated polish and romance that we associate with Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s. It is as homespun as a Dorothy Draper room or a Cole Porter song or a movie set with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers whirling around.
But if a store with mirrored furniture and fabulous jewelry is “so not Bridgehampton,” then what is? Bear in mind that less than 30 years ago Bridgehampton was mostly potato farms, and Main Street was lined with the same kinds of local shops you would find in any small town in America. Two places had broken the mold and gave a taste of what Bridgehampton would become: Elaine Benson’s gallery, which was the first serious gallery in the Hamptons and the first to pay attention to local artists, and Bobby Van’s, the hangout for those artists and many others from the summer and year-round population.
Kimberly Goff, who took over the Elaine Benson Gallery after her mother’s death, has deep roots in Bridgehampton. She has now has sold the property, but very much continues the business as a private art dealer. I asked her what her perceptions are.
“Bridgehampton has changed less than the other Hamptons. There are some wonderful changes on the Turnpike with the addition of the Children's Museum and the South Fork Natural History Museum. Other than that, from Dan's Papers to Bobby Van’s onto the Library and Saint Anne's thrift shop, most of my favorite places are still here….Change happens but fortunately it happens slowly in Bridgehampton. I am impressed by the diversity. We have a balance of race, income levels, open space and development, farms, great beaches, eateries, churches, antiques, shops. You can take the girl out of Bridgehampton but you can't take Bridgehampton out of this girl. I love my community!”
Paul Brennan grew up in Bridgehampton, the son of a farmer on Ocean Road. He went on to a highly successful career in real estate and is now a Senior Vice President at Prudential Douglas Elliman. He knows Bridgehampton:
“Bridgehampton has transformed itself from a sleepy little hamlet that you drove through to get from Southampton to East Hampton, to the ‘bridge’ or the triangle between the Villages of Southampton, East Hampton and Sag Harbor. With traffic an issue, Bridgehampton has become a place you can get to on back roads. Twenty years ago the Kimco shopping center was lucky to have 20 cars in the parking lot. Now people drive from Montauk to do their grocery shopping at King Kullen. If you go ‘up street’ there are many quaint shops and also cool restaurants like Bobby Van's and Pierre's that have become places to be seen and dine. Starbucks on one end of Main Street and the Candy kitchen on the other are always busy. There are music festivals, two major golf courses, an untold number of benefits, and of course the Hampton Classic Horse Show, whose growth mirrors that of Bridgehampton itself. Yet with all this change you can still stop at a farm stand and get your corn or get caught behind a tractor moving from one field to the next. It's an unusual paradox for us locals, one which we never really can get our minds around fully. Yet somehow it all makes sense.”
Cindi Cook. For someone newer to the scene I did not have to look far. I remembered my own editor at this magazine, Cindi Cook, is as passionate about Bridgehampton as any of the oldtimers at the counter of the Candy Kitchen.
I asked Cook how she got to Bridgehampton. “When I was looking for a place to call home on the East End, the first place I looked was Bridgehampton. It’s not as if I wouldn’t have looked anywhere else, but it has always felt like home to me. Seven years ago, when I had another position at another Hamptons based-magazine, I had rented a small cottage to a larger estate on Poxabogue Pond. It was blissful. The cottage had a small terrace that overlooked the pond on which I used to sit and write and think great thoughts. I truly felt like my hero Thoreau! At night I’d listen to the crickets chirp and the wind blow off the pond. My first real impression of the Hamptons was solidly made.”
“Three years ago, I had to find a place for a new job at a new magazine, since the position necessitated me moving out to the East End. I was thrilled to have this opportunity and my thoughts immediately turned to Bridgehampton. A call to an Allan Schneider broker turned up another cottage-a carriage house-for rent smack in the middle of south-of-the-highway farm country. It turns out as well that the owners of the farmhouse to which the carriage house belonged, and my future landlords, hailed from my hometown. We happened upon each other completely by coincidence, and I loved the house so much, I took it immediately.”
I wondered what kind of place can arouse this instant love. “The property is an historic one, being one of the original Corwith Farms, and it has turned out to be a wonderful place to live. The house sits on an acre plus and has a pool and a driveway that wraps around both houses, but with privets that separate the properties from one another. I have my own yard and my own address, which, despite being a renter, makes me feel like I have my own home! To boot, as a writer I feel especially happy about being there. The house has also been rented by the playwright Terrance McNally and Wendy Wasserstein whose energy, I hope, is still in abundance within its walls.”
But you have to leave home sometimes. Where does Cook go? “Bridgehampton is one of the more laid-back Hamptons towns. It rides the fine line perfectly between being polished and sophisticated and very casual. The Candy Kitchen, World Pie, and Bobby Vans are some of the most well-attended establishments in town; Pierre’s restaurant at the end of the street is one of the most chic restaurants on all of the East End; Anne Moore’s millinery shop falls into that same category, as does the furniture shop Country Gear, the antique shop Lauren Copin, and even Thayer’s hardware. Add to it that it is the home of one of the only grocery stores on the East End and the site of the Hampton Classic and you have one near perfect town!”
Bridgehampton, it turns out, ranges from razzle-dazzle to rustic, from the opulent glitter of Donna Parker on Main Street to the unadorned glow of ripening corn on Scuttle Hole Road.
[Sidebar]
When famed author James Jones had a back problem and could not sit comfortably in the Bobby Van’s chairs, he brought a more accommodating chair with him from J. G. Melon, a restaurant up Main Street from Bobby Van’s. Bridgehampton was still a very small, very friendly town.
