Arrive - Summer/Fall 2016

OCEANFRONT PROPERTY

(l-r) Black Cod, caramelized fennel and concentrated toma-toes at Scarpetta Beach; terraces with ocean views; and the indoor pool at Gurney’s Resort.

Keller is the concierge at Gurney’s Montauk Resort & Seawater Spa, the oceanfront hotel built right into the hillside below Old Montauk Highway. A $5 million renovation has turned the historic property into a pyramid of suites with terraces overlooking the water. The year-round resort has a saltwater pool, provides free shuttles into town, and houses the stellar Italian restaurant Scarpetta Beach with a large deck overlooking the surf.

If one’s sole motivation for visiting Montauk is to collapse onto a beach chair and not move for 48 hours, save for mai tais, massages and shuteye, Gurney’s is an ideal temporary home.

On my first morning in town, Keller took me on a drive around Montauk.

“Over 60 percent of the land in Montauk is protected,” she notes. We toured the Montauk Point Lighthouse, perched atop the steep dunes on Long Island’s eastern tip; Camp Hero State Park, a one-time army base that was disguised as a fishing outpost; and Rocky Point, an under-the-radar walk that winds around Napeague Bay’s coast. In nearby Hither Hills State Park, there are 168 oceanfront campsites that cost $35 a night for New York residents, one of the best deals in the state.

September Is the Coolest Month

As we skirted Lake Montauk, Keller talked about
what it was like to grow up here. “We didn’t have
a key to our house,” she says. “We never locked
the door.” Once, her sister worked as a server for
a party at Andy Warhol’s former estate, Eothen,
While visitors are unlikely to bump into Jag-
ger and company in Montauk today, the town
has much more to offer than celebrity sightings.
For example, there are the lobster sandwiches.

For lunch, Keller dropped me off at the Montauk Yacht Club on Star Island. The sprawling 32-acre property fronts Lake Montauk and is home to docks that house up to 250 boats. Today, though, I essentially had the restaurant patio to myself and could enjoy my lobster roll, stuffed with so much meat that it required two hands, as I looked out at the glassy lake feeling like this was my own private estate. I dined with bar director Wayne Connolly, who moved to Montauk five years ago and, when asked his favorite month, quickly picked September.

“The fishing is better,” he says. “You see
stripers flapping out on the water, and you are
quickly reeling them in.”
Fishermen aren’t the only outdoors enthusi-
asts who can delight in the fall season. It’s also
prime time for surfers, who can ride out the
remnants of the hurricane season storms, and
birdwatchers, who can look off the point and
view the winter migration of birds taking the
skyway from Canada to the Caribbean.

If You Go

THE DOCK BAR

1 Montauk Harbor Thedockmontauk.com GURNEY’S MONTAUK RESORT & SEAWATER SPA 290 Old Montauk Hwy. Gurneysmountauk.com HITHER HILLS STATE PARK 164 Old Montauk Hwy. Nysparks.com/parks/122