How I Spent My Summer Vacation: A Montauk Memoir

by Guy de la Toure´

   When I rented an apartment in Montauk on Long Island, I didn’t know I was following the footsteps of the founder of Miami Beach, Carl Fisher. Maybe my subconscious took me to this special place. My love of the 1920s and ’30s is why I live in South Beach.

   I read that Fisher bought Montauk, three times bigger than Miami Beach, for $2.5 million in 1925. He put in $7 million. It was his second, and last, dream resort build-out. His vision — Monte Carlo on the Atlantic. His motto:

                                                  “Miami in the winter, Montauk in the summer.”

But, dampened by the 1927 hurricane then the Depression, the heydays of Montauk Beach were short-lived.

   I had never been to Montauk before. I flew in to New York, rented a car and drove up on Thursday before the bumper-to-bumper weekend traffic. I loved it, especially riding horses on the beach and having lobster for BYOB lunch at Duryea’s Lobster Deck & Seafood Market. duryealobsters.com

 We watched the sun set (and Julianne Moore sitting nearby) at The Crow’s Nest Inn.  I wore my blue-and-white Swims loafers from Babalu. They matched the decor!

   One night we were walking in the dark in the middle of the road waiting for a taxi when we saw this “Psycho” – looking motel. Here is a picture of the Breakers taken with my iPhone 4.

The tales of Montauk live on. I couldn’t stop Google-ing. In the mid-Seventies, Mick Jagger rented a cottage from Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey for $5,000/month at the huge Eothen estate [now owned by J. Crew]. Mick’s good friend, photographer Peter Beard, also lived there. It didn’t take long for the Stones to turn it into their rehearsal studio.

Mick would bring in his own bottle of Grand Marnier to the Shagwong Tavern. Bianca would duck into the kitchen and shuck clams. shagwong tavern

   Mick wrote this song about Annie Liebovitz, their tour photographer:

Memory Motel

“We spent a lonely night at the Memory Motel

It’s on the ocean, I guess you know it well

It took a starry to steal my breath away

Down on the waterfront Her hair drenched in spray “

(c) 1975 Jagger-Richards/Rolling Stones-Virgin Records