Sixty-Something: The Call to The Hamptons

Love is the fuel that makes things successfully happen. Love leads to passion, and passion leads to a focus that drives one to a goal. When someone has zeroed in on their successful life’s path, some say they are achieving their calling in life. I suppose everyone may answer a few callings over a long lifetime.

Within all the hamlets that make up the Hamptons are the folks who were born and raised and now have chosen to stay and live. North American Van Lines did a study (2016) of data that concluded 72% of all Americans “live in or close to the city they were born in.” That same study also stated that in the last year, only 11.2% moved away—a statistic that is decreasing every year.

However, in the Hamptons, there are many new folks who heard the call to go and live or vacation yearly on the east end. Everyone has a story on how and why they did it, why they chose the Hamptons.

Interviewing folks over the last twenty years has given me the opportunity to hear individual stories of why people who weren’t born and raised in the Hamptons gravitated to the east end. Former New York Mayor Ed Koch told me in an interview that took place in Montauk that it was coming out to visit his sister, who had a place in Amagansett, that led to his appreciation and desire to spend a lot of his remaining time in the Hamptons.

Stephen Spielberg reportedly bought in East Hampton on the recommendation of Steve Ross, who was then CEO of Warner Communications. Ross actually picked the property right next to his Hamptons home for Spielberg to purchase. Now, decades later, the famous movie Scion still owns that property.

I can’t specifically say what led one of Spielberg’s co-founders of DreamWorks, David Geffen, to purchase a luxury East Hampton home close to Spielberg, but Geffen does have one now. In fact, many well-known and unknown successful folks have purchased second homes all over the Hamptons.

I used to do a weekly real estate column called “Estate of Mind,” and for that column, I would weekly interview the leaders of the east end real estate industry. One leading agent told me he came to the Hamptons as a teen to be a lifeguard! Now this distinguished agent of Italian descent, who also played polo, is one of the east end’s leading agents and resides in Westhampton Beach. Twenty years ago, I used to talk with him at Bobby Vans in Bridgehampton and loved to hear his stories. Now I read about him on “Page Six.”

How about the dudes who came to live in Montauk because of the surfing? There are a host of such folks, many now in their late sixties, still riding the waves off Ditch Plains. I interviewed a few commercial fishermen who fished out of Montauk and bought homes there for less than $50,000 and now laugh when they admit their home is worth in the millions. Frank Mundus, the famous fisherman, told me about when he arrived in 1951 to work in Montauk; he came with his wife and first daughter. “I‘d leave them (wife and baby daughter) at the dock when I’d go out in the morning,” said Frank of his first days living in Montauk (after moving from New Jersey). They actually lived on his boat, the Cricket II. “Finally,” he said, “I rented a small house for a hundred dollars a month.” Then he bought a home. After three great fishing years in 1988, 1989, 1990, Frank sold everything and moved out of Montauk to Hawaii.

Then there is Dan Rattiner of Dan’s Papers whose dad moved from New Jersey to Montauk to be a pharmacist many decades ago. Dan wasn’t too keen to be a pharmacist like his dad and founded “The Montauk Pioneer,” his first publication that eventually became known as Dan’s Papers.

My favorite all-time story has to be of Felice Lupo and his family and their Astro Pizza in Amagansett. It seems in 1971, Mr. Felice Lupo came from Italy and was working in a pizza establishment in Brooklyn to raise enough money to pay for his wife and family to come to America. After achieving that goal of raising the money the very first week his family came to the U.S., Felice Lupo borrowed a car and took his family for a joy ride on Route 27 heading east. When they became hungry, he stopped in Amagansett for some pizza.

As Felice Lupo himself told me, the pizza owner was very unhappy and told Lupo he no longer enjoyed the business. He wanted to sell. Mr. Lupo, seizing his slice of the American dream, made an offer and shook hands on a deal that day to buy the business. Lupo then raised his family in East Hampton. Felice Lupo passed away on August 8th, 2014. Only recently did the family sell the business after owning it for fifty years.

The common thread in all these stories has to be how people came out east for many different reasons. Yet, they all stayed and have made legacy lives. They all answered their individual call to the Hamptons.”