Weekend Utopia

At the age of 10, Alastair Gordon caught a glimpse of Utopia in the pages of Life Magazine. The full-page advertisement for a prefabricated housing kit constructed on the dunes of eastern Long Island foretold the birth of his lifelong connection to this place, now popularly referred to as the Hamptons. An award-winning journalist, historian and critic, Gordon has been writing about this unique area for the past two decades. His most recent book, “Weekend Utopia: Modern Living in the Hamptons,” explores the people and architecture that characterize the history and mystery of the Hamptons, with a depth that only an insider’s perspective can provide.

What drew so many cutting-edge artists, architects and writers—Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Pierre Chareau, Peter Blake, George Nelson, Truman Capote, John Steinbeck and Edward Albee, among others—to the Hamptons? Why did they stay? What was their impact?

Gordon probes the interplay that developed, noting, “Architects would attempt to explode the conventional house frame just as Pollock and others were exploding the picture plane.” Thus, the book traces the evolving Hamptons from the days when potato fields blanketed the landscape, through the decades when the most creative minds of the time converged and conspired, to the present state of high-stakes development and garish displays of wealth. “The presence of the artists legitimized the place for weekend visitors and established the foundation blocks for a kind of urban culture that would gradually be transplanted from the city to the rural setting.”

An excellent collection of photographs, architectural drawings, advertisements and postcards depict the progression of the architecture from beach houses to experimental art forms to palaces designed for parties and play. Gordon examines each transformation and its primary motivation—weekend and getaway living at the fringe of the beaches, under the “wild, sea-brewed light,” steeped in a decidedly atypical stew of personalities.

In the book’s epilogue, aptly titled “Past Perfect,” Gordon writes, “The Hamptons provided a service to the hordes of new arrivals who were busy creating new identities for themselves. It became a place to show off the achievements and rewards that had come from so much hard work in the city. . . . There was also the emergence of an odd . . .combination of hiding out and being seen; of wanting to retreat and advance at the same time; of escaping city strife to experience nature firsthand yet having the comforts of the city within easy reach; of enjoying a moment of quiet introspection followed by a flurry of social networking.”

Four decades after he passed the ad to his parents, prompting them to purchase a waterfront lot in Amagansett, Gordon’s interest in the Hamptons remains alive. He summers there with his family while living part-time outside Princeton, NJ, and in Milford, PA, where he and his wife, Barbara DeVries, rent studio space in the Old Schoolhouse on Harford Street. The Gordons are in the process of establishing Milford Jitney Service to transport people from New York City to the “Weekend Utopia” of the Upper Delaware Region, similar to the service that brought New York City to the Hamptons.

“Weekend Utopia” is published by Princeton Architectural Press. For more information, call 800-722-6657, or visit www.weekendutopia.com.