Just two hours east of Manhattan, the Hamptons is an ultra-wealthy beach hideaway where millionaires and celebrities from Martha Steward to Beyoncé hide away from the big city bustle.
At least it used to be.
Nowadays, exclusive social clubs with long lines, dress codes, and pounding music are popping up in the Long Island hub for the rich, and residents aren’t happy.
Take the Blu Mar restaurant, for example. The Southampton restaurant was recently transformed into an Italian restaurant and nightclub by KyKy Conille, who is known for operating several hotspots in NYC, the Hollywood Reporter reported in July 2024.
Conille told the Hollywood reporter that the restaurant’s club will be inclusive, catering to “customers from 25 to anyone who can still walk.”
However, another club in the back is more selective about who to let in.
“We will pick the clientele for the lounge,” Conille reportedly said at the time. “My doormen will choose by the way they dress. We don’t want people coming in the lounge in the evening wearing shorts. I want to bring back elegance — for people to get excited to get dressed.”
And KyKy Conille isn’t the only one transforming the scene.
Scott Sartiano, owner of the elite Manhattan social club Zero Bond where high-profile celebrities from Taylor Swift and Elon Musk to Tom Brady and Kim Kardashian go to party, planned to convert East Hampton’s historic Hedges Inn into a new club location earlier this year, according to the same article.
Business Insider previously reported that the club’s fees for new members range between $2,700 and $9,000 a year, depending on age.
But Sartiano’s plans had to shift in May after locals filled town meetings and convinced local leaders to set up an 11 p.m. curfew for this season.
Since that spoiled the nightclub idea, Sartiano says he’ll use the property as a new outpost for his NYC restaurant, Sartiano’s, for the time being.
Still, some locals aren’t buying it.
“Mr. Sartiano has greatly watered down his proposal so that it will simply be an Italian restaurant, and if that’s the case, we will roll out the red carpet,” Marcos Baladrón, East Hampton Village administrator, told the Hollywood Reporter. “But if his ultimate goal is to open another Zero Bond, I think the neighbors should be very wary.”
The New York Times reported that town officials could not confirm if Sartiano had officially leased the property on July 4.
While the future of the Hamptons is up in the air, one thing is clear: the coastal wealth enclave is going through a cultural identity crisis, and locals will have to fight to stop it from transforming into a getaway for partiers.
“One of the lost things in this world is quietude,” village trustee Carrie Doyle, told The New York Times. “People come out for peace and quiet, and the ironic thing is that to get it, you have to make a lot of noise. So that’s what we’ve done.”
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