There are places where money rules and other places where tradition rules, but in the best of all possible locations they share the throne. In the Hamptons we now have more people with more money than ever before. But we have far less tradition, with tastes changing almost seasonally—perhaps a reflection of an accomplishment society with wide ranging social mobility. More restrictive establishment values, often a result of birth or class, play a smaller role than they once did.
The strongholds of wealth and stability are now more inclusive and often a matter of opting in or out. They belong to no single designated group. Like the piping plover (another somewhat endangered species) this group’s original nesting grounds were close to the ocean in East Hampton, Southampton and a few other places. The estate area of Quogue, though smaller, was always right up there in status—a locus of quiet money and understated tradition.
Though Quogue possesses a couple of miles of oceanfront along Dune Road, the original estate area (like that in Southampton) was centered inland, behind the barrier beach, along the flat plain and beside the creeks. Those small estuaries, narrow fingers of water extending from the bays and harbors and ponds all over Eastern Long Island, have historically been called creeks although they are usually tidal rather then flowing. (The word initially appears in American English in the early seventeenth century, just decades before our towns were first settled, and people with roots in the Hamptons have always called them creeks. Real estate developers however prefer brook or stream to the more down-to-earth creek.)
Although lifestyles keep changing, tradition still lords it in architecture. There is a brash kind of fabrication at work throughout the Hamptons with builders and homeowners trying to achieve instant versions of a century old aesthetic. We see it in rambling, shingle-sided houses with mullioned windows, ornate trim, sweeping rooflines and heavy brick chimneys—overdone take-offs of the old estates. The splendor is undeniably there even if the originality is not, and the houses rarely have the light touch of those built in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The new ones are grand and gorgeous, but few of them can match the ineffable magic of the old.
Even twenty years ago the old estates seemed large and elegant, but they appear more modest now to sensibilities dazzled by current building standards. Back then, size usually reflected real needs. Staff rather than stuff was the key to their comfort. Hedonistic luxuries were not yet constitutionally guaranteed to the affluent crowd. All those specialized spaces packed into supersized boxes, like the currently fashionable rotunda family room, were not yet standardized. The vocabulary of architectural forms and interior décor that now expresses a swelling sense of prosperity was hardly common along our lanes.
That is the direction of life in the Hamptons, but behind the hedgerows of our estate areas there is a lingering divergence of opinion. Hardly a clash of civilizations—it is more like a polite after-dinner discussion—it’s about our look and our lifestyle. On one side, we have the traditional Hamptons attitude, deeply rooted, expensively understated and casual, imposing though not ornate. On the other, we have the forces of Palm Beach, a transplanted style, a more labored, formal, decorated and done-up approach, visually and sometimes socially. The foundation of the house may be dug into Hamptons sand, but the structure is rooted in the resort architecture of Florida and the West Coast and wealthy getaways around the world.
Quogue is not immune. This type of new development certainly exists there, but so far it has not overwhelmed the aesthetic of that village. Change is slow in Quogue and it will be interesting to see if the older estate area ideals can withstand the challenge.
