About a mile away from where, roughly one year earlier, Jon Bon Jovi’s JBJ Soul Kitchen set up an outpost to partner with local food banks to feed those in need at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, two men were spotted in the parking lot of a HomeGoods shoving discount pillows into a McLaren—the kind of drool-inducing wing-door sports car worth approximately the down payment on a mega-mansion. It was a sign of just how thoroughly the fabric of the Hamptons community, at least in the off-season, had been rewoven.
“It’s a $400,000 car,” said Mary Waserstein, a Hamptons local who watched the episode unfold. “They were stuffing cheap cushions into a $400,000 car they would usually take out of storage in the summer. They’re bored.”
A year after throngs of wealthy New York City residents fled to their East End homes for a more comfortable quarantine, Hamptons hierarchy has been turned on its head, the usual social order upended on multiple fronts, for better and for worse. Socially speaking, the Hamptons is a multitiered system. In the summer, various groups descend on the town: the haves, the have-mores, the Wall Street–money types, the old-family-money types, the flush-enough-to-drop-$150,000-a-month-on-a-rental types. The locals, who live there year-round, cater to all of the above. It’s a symbiotic relationship that endures in part because said locals usually take the quiet winter season to regroup.
Not so this year. The shift is evident in, among other places, school drop-off lines. “It went from pickup trucks to Range Rovers,” Waserstein said, adding that the cars come with a certain city sensibility. “You hear things like, ‘so-and-so’s husband is my broker, so I should have leverage.’ That mentality made its way out here,” she said.
After-school activities are equally fraught. Incoming parents have booked tennis and riding lessons in blocs, turning an already-stressful process into a veritable death match. Waserstein, whose daughter has easily signed up for after-school tennis for years, said court time now has a never-ending waiting list. Riding lessons at a local stable are no longer available. “This whole secondary population has gobbled everything up,” she said. “If they can’t get a pony, they’ll take a donkey.”
One mom was told how fortunate her friend’s relocated kid was to have found their people. “She said to me, ‘At least [my child] has four or five friends from the city in their class.’”
Another was thrown for a loop when a newly arrived mom’s personal assistant called asking for a playdate with her child. “That’s never happened to me before. Usually the mom calls.”
The imports have also flooded a now 4,000-plus strong Hamptons Moms Facebook group with questions so inane that they’ve caused “an underlying war among moms,” said one former member—a mother born and raised in East Hampton. When the group started six years ago it was “very small,” the former member said. “Last March it became very active and grew a lot,” she said, adding that that’s when things began to change. Posts like the below began to proliferate:
Hi mamas. Anyone have a recommendation for someone who comes to the house to make bubbles! Thanks.
Looking for a full time chef to join our family in Southampton. [Comments included: This is amazing and if you hire an Italian chef I’m coming over for dinner and I’ll bring the wine.]
Has anyone ever hired a company to clean their oven?
Any tips for buying a Tesla X?
“The diversity in social classes and a lot of out-of-town ignorance often spurs intense arguments on posts,” the Hamptons-based mother said. She was so bothered by the “idiocy of people” asking who they could hire “to sew on a button” that she left the group, which she’d joined to find local support. “There are so many different dynamics happening and things changing out here,” she said, including “the utter ridiculousness of these women who clearly have no idea how to navigate life. They are three hours from the city, not in New Guinea.”
Not everyone is complaining. Much of the workforce is still hustling, and in some cases happily raking in the cash. One local who’s usually a seasonal house manager for an ultrarich family worked double shifts 260 days in a row starting last March, then went to four days a week when they would have normally taken a five-month break. “I am not complaining,” this person said. “I’m happy to earn the money.” This person said they’d more than tripled their annual income.
When it comes to home renovations, money no longer talks; contractors, plumbers, and electricians are the kingpins now. Those stuck staring at their walls for a year, (i.e. virtually anyone with a house in the Hamptons) have been scrambling to upgrade. For said home improvers, it’s a name-your-price situation. That is, if you can even get them to call you back. “I wanted to redo my basement,” said one resident who has been trying to hire someone to help. “It’s a $60,000 job.” She got a quote months ago, but never heard back despite repeated emails and phone calls. “Contractors are ghosting everyone,” she said.
One landscape designer got a kick out of how many of his lockdown-weary clients raced out to chat with him when he came to do work at their homes. “It’s funny because they were really excited to have someone to talk to other than their partners,” said Geoffrey Nimmer, owner of Geoffrey Nimmer Landscapes. Clients who have spent a full four seasons at their homes for the first time ever tell him how much they liked seeing the change from winter to spring. “I love that people get to see that. It has enhanced their appreciation of how beautiful it is here,” he said.
Whether the changing population has been deemed good or bad varies depending on who you talk to. There is, however, consensus on one topic: With beach parking passes harder to come by than a COVID vaccine, and all that pent-up party energy, summer is going to be a shitshow.
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