Summer Swells, Circa Hamptons 1957

The conceit of a series of posts here about the Hamptons is that, after a first rush of summer “colonies” that culminated in the Roaring Twenties, the East End of Long Island went through sleepy decades until a new wave of city money began to stir development again in the late 1960s. That is generally true but, of course, the wealthy set never really slept through the intervening generation, and the area’s attractions continued to draw them, at least seasonally. For a glimpse at one juncture, in 1957, please find this archival gem from the once regal Sports Illustrated. A correspondent, “Footloose” Horace Sutton, spent plenty of Henry Luce’s expense kitty touring the South Fork’s haunts, dropping names liberally in a swell social-register summary. He traipses “through the fields of rye” to reach Henry Ford II’s manse at Flying Point Beach in Southampton, which sat alone on 100 acres until the gated Fordune subdivision was developed in the 1990s. The local tennis and golf spots served, I guess, as the pretext for such a travel article appearing in a sportsman’s magazine. The photographer made it all the way to Montauk but unfortunately the art isn’t included here. Still, the writer’s quaint touches supply a good sepia tone.

https://vault.si.com/vault/1957/07/29/the-fabulous-hamptons