I’ve been wondering why, with no natural connection between eastern Long Island and the Lone Star state, there is such a concentration of Texas women in the Hamptons. Not only are they here, they are all interesting, accomplished and successful in their fields. They are enormously attractive and engaging.
Adelaide de Menil and her sister, Christophe de Menil, both longtime residents, are deeply involved in the arts. That is no surprise considering that their parents created one of the world’s major private art collections, now housed in Houston in the Menil Collection museum, designed by Renzo Piano.
Starting 35 years ago, Adelaide and her husband, Ted Carpenter, rescued historic houses and barns that were unwanted or abandoned and moved them to an extraordinary forty acre oceanfront property on Further Lane. When they sold that property last year for over $100 million they donated these structures along with an endowment to the Town of East Hampton. This important legacy of eastern Long Island is now being given a new life as a Town Hall.
Courtney Sale Ross started home educating her daughter Nicole and went on to create the Ross School. The international multi-disciplinary curriculum at its East Hampton and Bridgehampton campuses is now recognized and admired by educators far beyond the Hamptons. Earlier in her life Ross founded a contemporary art gallery in Dallas, and produced documentaries. The widow of Steven J. Ross, chairman and CEO of Time Warner, she heads the Ross Institute for Advanced Study and Innovation in Education and started the Ross Global Academy Charter School in New York City. She is one of the foremost philanthropists in the country: an important contributor to major universities here and to museums in China, and a member of numerous boards that reflect her interest in education and international relations.
“Why the Hamptons?” I asked. “The thread in my life has been the arts and that led me in a way to education and also to East Hampton. I first came here from Texas in the early 1970s to meet de Kooning in relation to the documentary I was working on. East Hampton later became a major part of my life.”
Coke Anne Wilcox is the proprietor with her husband Jarvis Wilcox of the Maidstone Arms Inn & Tavern in East Hampton. I asked her how she got from Texas to being an innkeeper in the Hamptons. “I hail from a renowned entrepreneurial family in Texas and our patriarch, my grandfather Clint Murchison Sr. had a favorite saying, ‘Money is like manure: if you pile it up it stinks like s---; if you spread it around, it does a lot of good.’ My siblings and I always recall that dictum when we are exploring new investment concepts.”
I pointed out that running an inn seems to be more than just an investment. “My old friends like to say, "The Maidstone Arms is Coke Anne's answer to Spanish Cay, a private island in the Bahamas that was my family's summer compound. We entertained with shelling and bonfires on the beach, sailing, fishing and diving—and delicious cuisine. Also, I have two degrees in architecture and the inn's antique credentials matched my interest in restoration and renovation.”
Elizabeth Smith walks from her splendid Southampton home the ocean. “You can’t do that in Dallas,” she told me. She has come here for decades in every season, making the East End as much a family center as Texas.
It could have been all coincidence for one group of women, but now there seems to be a younger generation in training. Jackie Mitchell moved from Texas to become one of the most prominent gas traders on Wall Street. After a week of intense trading she heads to East Hampton with her husband and daughters, carrying on the exceptional tradition of Texas women who choose to be in the Hamptons.