The Hamptons hotel hopscotch

From Gurney’s rebrand of the Montauk Yacht Cub to $300-a-night tents, a look at what's new on the East End hospitality scene

The former Montauk Yacht Club Resort & Marina on Star Island with Lloyd Goldman and George Filopoulos of Metrovest Equities 
The former Montauk Yacht Club Resort & Marina on Star Island with Lloyd Goldman and George Filopoulos of Metrovest Equities (Credit: Getty Images)

While Hampton weekenders were enjoying the off season, real estate players were transacting on the East End hospitality scene. And there are a number of new venues in the mix.

For starters, Glamping has hit the Hamptons in the form of $300-a-night tents outfitted with stylish couches, books and showers.

Last year, the Suffolk County Parks Department issued a request for proposals for a high-end campground — with the goal of drawing campers to a site overlooking Gardiners Bay in Cedar Point County Park in East Hampton.

Brooklyn-based Terra Glamping won the bid and is debuting 30 tents that will remain open from May 24 through October with queen-size beds, six-foot decks and a gourmet menu to boot.

Read the full story, “An inside look at the Hamptons’ new hotspots this summer,” here

“[It’s] an ideal setting,” company co-founder and CEO Rebecca Martin said of the park.

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But for those not interested in sleeping in a tent, even a swanky one, there are plenty of other new East End lodgings.

Most notably, Gurney’s, now the biggest player in the Hamptons hotel business, has officially rebranded the former Montauk Yacht Club Resort & Marina on Star Island. Gurney’s owners — George Filopoulos of Metrovest Equities and Lloyd Goldman of BLDG Management — closed on the property last spring for a rumored $60 million and poured another $17 million into renovating it, according to published reports. Andrew Farkas of Island Capital Group was the seller.

The only other new hotel opening this season is the 10-room A Room at the Beach in Bridgehampton. Owners Lucy Weber and Charles Lemonides bought the old Bridge Inn (also known as the Enclave Inn) in 2017 for $1.7 million from designer Donna Karan, her daughter and her son-in-law.

Other recent motel sales include Gosman’s Culloden House Motels and the Soundviewer Motel — both in Montauk, both to LLCs and both for $3.4 million. And there’s also the Japanese-inspired wellness resort — the 13-room Shou Sugi Ban House — which opened in Water Mill offering “retreats” focusing on “transformation, healing, and an exploration.”

Despite all of those deals, brokers say there’s actually been a lack of major hospitality transactions for a market with so much wealth. But they attribute it to the dearth of prime development sites, along with the fact that existing hotels don’t come on the market that frequently.

“The first thing you have to realize is that there just aren’t a lot of commercial properties for sale out here to begin with,” said Tony Cerio of Brown Harris Stevens, who is marketing the restaurant and marina East Hampton Point for $28 million. “But the ones that are out there that are priced properly, they move.”