Hey, Last-Minute Summer Vacation Planners! Rent My Glorified Boho Hamptons Beach Bungalow

Up for a beachy idyll of two weeks, eight weeks or something in between? Contact me for more info: caramia447 [at] gmail [dot] com

I can’t fault you for not having made summer plans yet, because I’m kind of a last-minute type myself. In fact, I’ve just finished setting up my house in East Hampton/Springs, N.Y., for July and/or August rental ($3,000/week, minimum two weeks).

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The main attraction: it’s a five-minute walk from what still seems to be the Hamptons’ best-kept secret: the wide, sandy crescent of Maidstone Beach on eminently swimmable Gardiner’s Bay.

• Swim in Gardiner’s Bay, at unspoiled, never-crowded Maidstone Beach, a 5 minute stroll from the house, or in the ocean at Amagansett (10 minutes drive)
• Walk the scenic ‘loop’ through Maidstone Park, or along nearby Gerard Drive with Gardiner’s Bay to one side and Accabonac Harbor to the other
• See egrets and ospreys, wild turkey and deer (not on my property, however; I’m fenced:-)
• Nap on the deck, watch the sun set over the jetty, picnic at Louse Point, make bonfires on the beach or in my fire pit
• Shower outdoors, grill on the brick patio, hang out on the porch at the Springs General Store
• Paddleboard or kayak in the bay
• Do yoga at one of several nearby studios
• Surf or party at Montauk (25 mins. by car)
• Farm stands, greenmarkets, nurseries
• Yard sales, antiquing, shopping
• Art shows and galleries, live performance at Guild Hall, music at Stephen Talkhouse, historic house tours, vineyard wine tastings at Wolffer and Channing Daughters
• Garden tours + garden visits at LongHouse Reserve, Madoo, Bridge Gardens
• Check out the new arts center at Duck Creek, which has an ambitious program of outdoor jazz concerts (a mile away!)
• Restaurants and bars galore
• Explore historic Sag Harbor (20 minutes), Shelter Island (30), the North Fork, Block Island (day trip by ferry from Montauk)

The 1,400 square foot house, begun in the 1940s as a fishing cabin and expanded and renovated over the years, sleeps 6 in three bedrooms (one a separate cabin/studio) with one full bath, a huge outdoor shower, spacious decks for sunning and dining and half an acre of landscaped gardens.

There’s a master bedroom with comfortable queen bed; 2nd bedroom with two twins; as well as a separate studio with double bed and space for additional cot or crib (bathroom is in main house). There’s also a queen-size air mattress for overnight guests.

Quirkily enough, there are two main living areas: a sitting/dining room adjacent to the kitchen with sofa, chairs and fireplace, as well as a high-ceilinged great room with comfy seating and another large table for dining or working.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Like Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner (whose home and studio is a mile away) and the other artists who flocked to this region in the postwar years, there’s no dishwasher and no air conditioning, but there are ceiling fans and room fans (and, unlike back in the day, Wi-Fi).

If I can help make your last-minute summer vacation plans happen, please email me at caramia447 [at] gmail [dot] com

Live the Beachy Life This Summer…Rent My Rustic-Modern East Hampton Retreat!

UPDATE: The house is available for July and August 2018 (one month minimum). Contact me for further info – thanks! caramia447 [at] gmail [dot] com

IT’S HIGH TIME to square away plans for renting a place at the beach for July and August, or part thereof.

I can help you with that. My rustic-modern retreat in Springs (East Hampton), Long Island, a 5-minute walk from stunning Maidstone Beach — is available for rent in July and/or August.

It’s pretty idyllic.

Built in the 1940s as a fishing bungalow, with a later addition and a separate guest cottage, the house is 1,400 square feet on a private, landscaped half-acre, with a great big wood deck for lounging and dining, and a glorious outdoor shower right out the back door.

Share the place if you want — it can work for two couples with a total of two or maybe three kids.

The house sleeps 6, officially — there’s a master bedroom with comfortable queen bed; a second bedroom with two twins; as well as a separate 14’x17′ guest cabin with double bed and space for additional cot or crib (bathroom is in the main house).

There are two showers, one indoors and one out, and plenty of room to spread out — there’s a dining/sitting room with fireplace, in addition to a great room with two comfy sofas, and a home office with a partner desk, if you must work.

Live like Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner (whose home and studio is a mile away) in the 1940s… no air-conditioning, no dishwasher.. but good Wi-Fi and fans in each room. (*TV and DVD player on request)

Picture it:

• Swim, kayak, paddleboard at unspoiled, never-crowded Maidstone Beach on a miles-long crescent of sand just down the road
• Walk the scenic ‘loop’ through Maidstone Park, or along nearby Gerard Drive with Gardiner’s Bay on one side and Accabonac Harbor on the other
• See egrets, ospreys, wild turkeys (no deer on my property, though — it’s fenced!)
• Nap or read on the deck, watch the sun set over the jetty, picnic at Louse Point, make bonfires on the beach (legal!) or in my fire pit, shower outdoors, grill on the brick patio, hang out on the porch at the local landmark Springs General Store
• Surf or swim in the ocean at Amagansett (10 minutes by car) or Montauk (25 mins.)
• Shop for local produce at farm stands and weekly greenmarkets
• Check out the always-promising yard sales and thrift stores. Designer shopping too.
• Art shows and galleries, live performance at Guild Hall, music at Stephen Talkhouse, historic house tours
• Garden tours + garden visits at LongHouse Reserve, Madoo, Bridge Gardens
• Restaurants and bars galore
• Explore nearby Sag Harbor (20 minutes), Shelter Island (30), North Fork, Block Island (day trip)

Sound good? It is good! I’m opening the house for the season in the next couple of weeks. Let me show you around.

Contact me for more info, including rental rate: caramia447 [at] gmail [dot] com

This is what awaits at the end of the day, at the end of the street:

Contact me for more info: caramia447 [at] gmail [dot] com

Hamptons August Rental, Walk to Water

SPEND A WEEK OR FOUR this August living the beachy life in my idyllic modern rustic/Bohemian chic summer house in East Hampton (Springs), N.Y.

Built in the 1940s as a fishing bungalow, with a c.1970 addition, the house is 1,400 square feet on half a landscaped acre. Share with friends or another family — it’s ideal for two couples with a total of two or maybe three kids.

• Swim in Gardiner’s Bay, at unspoiled, never-crowded Maidstone Beach, a 5 minute stroll from the house
• Walk the scenic ‘loop’ through Maidstone Park, or along nearby Gerard Drive with Gardiner’s Bay to one side and Accabonac Harbor to the other
• See egrets and ospreys, wild turkey and deer (not on my property, however; I’m fenced:-)
• Nap on the deck, watch the sun set over the jetty, picnic at Louse Point, make bonfires on the beach or in my fire pit, shower outdoors, grill on the brick patio, hang out on the porch at the Springs General Store
• Paddleboard or kayak in the bay
• Do yoga at one of several nearby studios
• Surf or swim in the ocean at Amagansett (10 minutes by car) or Montauk (25 mins.)
• Farm stands, greenmarkets, nurseries
• Yard sales, antiquing, shopping
• Art shows and galleries, live performance at Guild Hall, music at Stephen Talkhouse, historic house tours
• Garden tours + garden visits at LongHouse Reserve, Madoo, Bridge Gardens
• Restaurants and bars galore
• Explore nearby Sag Harbor (20 minutes), Shelter Island (30), North Fork, Block Island (day trip)

The house sleeps 6, officially — there’s a master bedroom with comfortable queen bed; guest room with two twins; as well as a separate 14’x17′ guest cabin with double bed and space for additional cot or crib (bathroom is in main house). There are also sofas comfy enough for overnight guests and a queen-size air mattress.

There are two showers, one indoors and one out, and plenty of room to spread out — there’s a dining/sitting room with sofa, chairs and fireplace, in addition to a great room with three sofas, and a home office with a partner desk, if you must work.

Live like Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner in (whose home and studio is a mile away) in the 1940s… no TV, no air conditioning, no dishwasher.. but good Wi-Fi and fans in each room. (*TV and DVD player on request)

Flexible rental schedule, August through Labor Day, $3,000/week.

Contact me for more pics and info: caramia447 [at] gmail [dot] com

Vintage Cottage on 2/3 Acre, East Hampton, N.Y. 580K

IF THIS HOUSE HAD COME UP when I was in the market a few years back, I would have seriously considered it, even though Sotheby’s is advertising it as a teardown. (The address is 110 Old Stone Highway, East Hampton, NY. You can Google it.)

The house needs work. So what else is new?

But what an upside this property could have: it’s a 1950s cedar-shingled cottage with great interior spaces (as seen in my through-the-window shots, below), on a flat, sunny .6 acre that would be terrific for gardening.

There are two outbuildings: a freestanding summerhouse (screened porch) that looks to be in good condition, and a guest house that reeks powerfully of mildew and needs to be gutted ASAP. That’s the one potential deal-breaker, as far as I can tell from my trespassing, if the house itself smells the same (only the guest house was unlocked).

It’s located on the historic Springs-Amagansett Turnpike, AKA Old Stone Highway, where a number of avid gardeners and high-profile people make their homes.

See the full listing here, with a photo of the pool in season.

It won’t last long. Don’t say I didn’t tell you!

Fall Garden Report: With a Little Help from My Friends

ALL GARDENING ALL THE TIME… that’s how I spent September and October at my beach-house property in Springs, N.Y., before cold nights forced me back to the big city.

I devoted last spring mostly to home improvements, while my garden ambitions lay fallow. I rented in July, and August was broken up by treks back and forth to Brooklyn, to oversee work at my townhouse in Cobble Hill (now rented, happily).

Besides which, though I had done a lot of clearing and planting by this third season at the house, I’m still somewhat lacking in the overall vision department.

But Labor Day weekend, I had a visit from a garden-designer friend who never fails to get me thinking, and things took a conceptual leap forward. I’d had this grand new deck built the summer before last, but hadn’t done much landscaping around it. Mary-Liz suggested that if I enlarged the existing beds, which began a few feet away from the deck, with an expanse of wood chips in between, and brought the beds right up to the edges, you’d feel, while lounging on the deck, as if you were sitting in the garden and not just looking at it.

While she was visiting, we swam in the bay and drank wine and, except for one trip to the dump for compost and some watering, didn’t lift a finger. It was Labor Day weekend, after all. As soon as her car pulled out of the driveway, though, I sprang into action. Over the next few days, I outlined new, expanded beds with some of the bricks from the three huge stacks I inherited when I bought the house two-and-a-half years ago. Then I had more compost delivered and piled in the newly defined areas, where there was only packed-down dirt.

This is all still very ad hoc; the bricks are mere suggestions, not yet dug into the soil, and they don’t quite end anywhere. Things may shift later, when more permanent paths are built. But it was enough to get me going, and on to my next challenge: what to plant in these new areas without spending a lot of money I didn’t have?

As it happened, my friend Stephanie, gardener extraordinaire, had recently sold her East Hampton house and could quite easily part with a couple of hydrangeas, some Japanese silver ferns, hostas and other random things that would never be missed from her intensively planted acre. I procured these donations in late September, along with some pieces of slate for stepping-stone paths.

Then, my dear next-door neighbors were planning to move, too, at the end of October. They had been renting for several years, had done a fair bit of planting, and didn’t want to leave their fabulous weeping spruce, an Alberta spruce, a couple of other evergreens, some irises, etc., to the new owners, nor could they take them along. So these were dug up and brought over the fence to my property, where I carefully chose spots for each.

Finally, around Columbus Day, I made a visit to Lynch’s Garden Center in Southampton, one of my favorite area nurseries — it’s medium-size, not overwhelming, and always has an interesting selection. Even at that late date, to my amazement, they had a table of robust-looking shade perennials, including Solomon’s seal, rodgersia, astelboides and ladies mantle, at the giveaway price of $3 apiece. I bought almost all they had.

I also moved things I’d planted in the outer reaches of my own half-acre to spots nearer the house and deck, where I can enjoy them on a daily basis and where they’ll get more watering. A crape myrtle that was unhappy in the woods is now in a prime sunny spot, and three leather-leafed mahonia that were lost back there now have pride of place in a V-shaped area where two paths meet.

Oh, and then there were several buckets of liriope from Brooklyn, a grasslike groundcover, that had been hastily dug up, thrown into plastic pots and left to sit all summer with an occasional spritz. It was a tangled mess, but alive, when I got to it in September, and I spent two days teasing it apart and painstakingly transplanting what I hope will one day be a glorious carpet on either side of a new path from my brick patio to the… what to call it… well, to the area that still needs conceptualizing.

Add to this my renewed commitment to watering, watering, watering, which I did diligently by hand for approximately an hour-and-a-half each day, with fancy new watering wands and nozzles to make the job easier, and I have every expectation of a great gardening season when I get back to my little Eden next spring.