Not long after my family and I left New York City to wait out the coronavirus crisis from our house in the Hamptons, the broker who sold it to us a decade ago called my wife, Dawn. She wanted to know where we were planning to self-isolate.
“We are going to stay here,” Dawn said.
“I could rent your place for a lot of money,” the woman countered. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
For years, we tried to rent our house in August, when the Hamptons are so inundated with high-rolling New York City residents that it becomes nearly unbearable. We have invariably failed. Our house is modest, and so is our Southampton neighborhood; we live on what’s called the bay side, far from the multimillion-dollar mansions that abut the ocean. But of course, the ocean is not the draw for the city dwellers now. With the city the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis, anybody with the means to get out is doing so.
You can’t really blame us. Given the choice between being cooped up in a two-bedroom apartment in the densest city in the U.S. or staying in a three-bedroom house with a backyard, it’s no contest, especially with young children. When Dawn and I decided to head to Southampton two and a half weeks ago, we weren’t thinking much beyond our family’s safety. I can’t tell you how many times since then we’ve told ourselves how lucky we are to have such a place to hide from the virus when so many others can’t. Of course, no one truly hides from this virus, something the locals are all too aware of as they watch people like Dawn and me coming in from the city. It’s created a certain, shall we say, tension.
For most of the year, the Southampton population is about 60,000. In the summer, however, it balloons to three or four times that size, Jay Schneiderman, the town supervisor, told me. Two-thirds of the homes in Southampton are summer residences, he said. And to judge by all the cars I see in driveways, almost all of them are inhabited now, even though it’s March.
Southampton wasn’t ready for the onslaught. A few weeks ago, when the migration was in full swing, grocery shelves were quickly emptied. (Thing are better now.) Many stores and restaurants had minimal staff. So did the town itself. “My staffing levels are winter levels — including police,” Schneiderman said.
Of course the primary worry is whether the influx of city people will hasten the spread of the virus to full-time residents. The Stony Brook Southampton hospital has 124 beds and is as worried about being overwhelmed as any other hospital. As of Sunday, Southampton had 68 confirmed cases — with two deaths — up from two cases in mid-March. The hospital staff is telling those who most likely have the virus to stay at home to save the hospital beds for those who are sickest.
“They’re going to give it to us,” the mother of an acquaintance told her.
A friend took her car to be repaired. One of the repairmen muttered, “They’re all coming here now.”
This same friend emailed me a story from the Wall Street Journal about how people in the Hudson Valley were asking New York City residents — even those who own homes in the area — to stay away. “We’re becoming pariahs,” she said.
It’s actually not quite as bad as all that. Two weeks ago, Schneiderman was reported to be organizing the leaders of the surrounding town to sign a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo, asking him to tell New Yorkers to stay away. But when I spoke to Schneiderman, he said that the letter was much more nuanced than that. “It focused on nonessential travel, and asking that people who come from the city self-quarantine for 14 days,” he said. “We’re talking mainly about day-trippers. We’re not trying to keep people out who own homes.”
Still, the classic Hamptons trope — entitled New Yorker versus put-upon local — is hard to resist. The New York Post, for one, has been having a grand old time with it.
It reported, for instance, that a wealthy Manhattan woman called ahead to the Southampton hospital to say she had tested positive and was on her way for treatment. Although the hospital told her not to come, she hopped on a bus without telling anyone of her condition and showed up at the hospital when she arrived in the Hamptons. It’s a great story, and everybody here has heard it. Except it’s not true. *
Last week, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times tweeted about the “increased wail of ambulances” in her Brooklyn neighborhood. In the Hamptons, the increased wail comes from lawn equipment. To my amazement, lawn maintenance has been classified as an essential business. Everywhere you drive, you see lawn workers raking leaves, trimming hedges and mowing lawns. The good news is that people are being employed who would otherwise be out of work. But I’ve been struck at how many businesses in the Hamptons are “essential.”
The Chinese take-out place in Southampton is closed — but the paint store across the street is open. The door was open, though blocked by paint cans. I called to a man wearing a mask who was working at the counter: “What makes you essential?” He pointed to one of the shelves. “Cleaning supplies,” he said.
In Sag Harbor, the bicycle shop was open — and allowing four people at a time to enter. What was its rationale for being essential? “Transportation,” came the reply — though in my 10 years here I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody use a bike for actual transportation.
Next door was GeekHampton, a store that sells and repairs Apple products. It, too, was open, though the staff was not letting anyone in the store and taking other smart precautions. In an email, the owners gave me an impassioned rationale for staying open.
“We feel like we are doing a good thing and all day long we are hearing from people that they are grateful that we have that 100-foot ethernet cable that they need so that their child can have a better connection for their online classes.” They added that people were coming from as far away as New Jersey because theirs was one of the few computer stores still operating. “We are helping people from all over. It is hard, but rewarding,” they wrote. According to its website, the store is now appointment-only.
In most of the country, the crisis is going to inflict severe damage on local economies. But the Hamptons aren’t like other local economies. Many of the restaurants are doing a brisk take-out business; it hurts that they aren’t selling high-margin alcohol, but they’re going to survive. Many of the shops that are closed are seasonal and would be shuttered even without the crisis. What happens when Memorial Day arrives is still anybody’s guess.
Then there’s the linchpin of the Hamptons economy: real estate. I asked a friend who operates at the high end of the market whether it would suffer because of the crisis. Actually, he said, the coronavirus was likely to be great for business.
“I’ve got clients who have been looking for a place a couple of years,” he said. “Now they’re coming to me and saying, ‘I messed up. My wife is furious with me. I should have bought that house two years ago. Now I have to rent some crappy place for five months for $200,000.’” He continued: “People with money are going to want luxury bunkers. That’s what we have here: luxury bunkers.”
Another friend, John Nocera (no relation), whose family-owned company builds houses in the Hamptons, said that ever since the coronavirus hit New York City, he’s been getting all kinds of repair and renovation requests — the kind people usually make when they move out here for the summer. Although not all of them are like that.
“One woman called and asked if I could install a tennis court right away,” Nocera said. “She said that she was afraid the coronavirus was going to cause tennis camp to be canceled, so she needed a tennis court so her kids could play.”
There will always be a Hamptons.
Joe Nocera is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He has written business columns for Esquire, GQ and the New York Times, and is the former editorial director of Fortune. His latest project is the Bloomberg-Wondery podcast "The Shrink Next Door."