Luxury Hotels Are Replacing Cheap Motels in the Hamptons

New York Times

26-05-2025

The Westhampton Seabreeze Motel, with its quilted bedspreads, white microwaves and mini fridges, is no more. Gone, too, is the Sands Motel, in Montauk, which was a tad swankier with full refrigerators and stoves that were off-white.
The motor lodges were the last of their kind, as the perimeter of the wealthiest of the wealthy Hamptons pushed outward to swallow up many of the remaining patches of affordability in the Long Island resort towns.
This summer, two new hotels are slated to open in their place with amenities more equated with luxury. Three Ducks, on the old Seabreeze site, will offer guests complimentary breakfast from a local farm stand and beach cruiser bicycles. At Offshore Montauk, which has risen where the Sands Motel once stood, guests will find a cabana-lined pool and a room for yoga and Pilates.
The new hotels embody the continued Hamptonization of all the Hamptons, a transformation of quiet coastal spots into chic, moneyed destinations. Both are in towns where housing prices have increased in recent years — the average home is now $1.9 million in Montauk and $1.56 million in Westhampton, according to Zillow. Guests can expect to pay as much as $795 a night at Three Ducks and $1,000 a night at Offshore on the weekends this summer.
In Montauk, what was once a low-key fishing village is now a summer playground for the wealthy, the famous and those who want to be close to them. Two other motels in town were bought last year by the owner of high-end boutique hotels in Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard; both are now closed while they undergo renovations. And several clubs are moving to town this summer, including a restaurant that plans to charge a membership fee to get a guaranteed seat.
Some local residents pine for the simpler (cheaper) times.
'Sands was a honky-tonk kind of place, very approachable, something for everybody, across the street from the beach,' said Kay Tyler, 49, who lives full-time in Montauk and is the executive director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, an environmental advocacy group in town. 'Now it's being turned into a very exclusive, very expensive kind of place. I think it's another example of how Montauk has changed.'
Nancy St. John, 62, remembers growing up in the village of Quogue, about 40 miles from Montauk on the South Fork of Long Island, when the Hamptons were dotted with inexpensive motels. 'People would stop there when they needed a break from driving or a simple place to stay,' she said. 'There were no restaurants or amenities. You would have your room and that was it.'
The places weren't fancy, but they were 'classic' and 'the people were nice,' she said.
For supporters of the changes, there's another way to look at the old motor inns: Sometimes 'classic,' they say, is just plain dated.
Three Ducks and No Parking (in Front)
Take the Seabreeze. 'This motel was the real 'Schitt's Creek' of the Hamptons,' said Randall Stone, 63, a co-owner of Three Ducks, referring to the sitcom about a wealthy family that goes broke and has to move into a rundown motel in Ontario.
Mr. Stone, who splits his time between Manhattan's Upper West Side and Remsenburg, a hamlet just outside Westhampton, said he has spent 30 years at consultancies helping to create hotel brands. He and his partners bought the 12-room Seabreeze for just under $2 million and then put another $2 million into a gut renovation. The hotel, which opened on May 21, still has 12 rooms, but they now have vaulted ceilings and bathrooms with handmade clay tile floors. A third of the building's layout was reconfigured to create different room types, including suites.
A wildflower meadow and other greenery have taken over 1.6 acres of lawn, and a barn-style structure was added for breakfast, programming and special events, like weddings.
'We always knew it had so much potential, and now we are pouring our heart and soul into every detail,' Mr. Stone said.
That includes ripping out what makes a motel a true motel: The parking spaces in front of each room have been turned into private gardens. 'Each room now has a private seating area to enjoy a glass of wine surrounded by a perennial garden,' said Elizabeth Bakhash, 35, the other owner of the hotel, who is also a partner at the real estate company Kash Group. (A new parking lot is in an area that leads up to the barnlike building.)
Offshore and Ocean Views
In March 2024, Enduring Hospitality, a hospitality development group based in Los Angeles, paid $23.25 million for Sands, which had been under family ownership since it opened in 1951.
The new Offshore hotel has 43 rooms just like Sands, but it features an 1,800-square-foot spa with two cold plunges, one red-light panel room, two infrared saunas, a gym, and the yoga and Pilates room.
Representatives of Enduring Hospitality would not reveal exactly how much the company spent on upgrades, but said the hotel underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation. Ceilings were elevated and new floor-to-ceiling windows were installed. Slider doors open up to balconies with ocean views.
'I would not say we are fancy. I would say we are more quality, like a home-away-from-home kind of vibes,' said Marley Dominguez, a co-founder of Enduring Hospitality. 'Our rooms have very warm tones, very understated. It's meant for you to relax.'
The hotel is scheduled to open on June 15.
'People Expect More'
Both hotel owners insist they are riding a wave of the luxury transformation that's already underway.
Last summer, Seven Beach Lane, a boutique hotel with 16 rooms and a heated saltwater pool, opened in Westhampton Beach, a village in Southampton. A new movie theater with a chic bar opened nearby in February. Donahue's Steak House, a storied restaurant in Manhattan's East Village, where a regular left his two favorite servers $50,000 apiece in his will, is opening an outpost in Westhampton Beach in June.
The village recently completed a renovation on its Main Street and its septic system.
'Westhampton Beach was kind of the overlooked part of the Hamptons, but now people finally want to be here,' said Liz Cantwell, co-owner of Six Corners Fine Wines & Spirits, a local wine shop.
Six Corners is one of the many businesses partnering with the Three Ducks to provide services and amenities to guests. 'We are going to be doing daily wine deliveries over there,' she said. 'I am excited.'
Ralph Urban, who became the mayor of Westhampton Beach last year, said he believes this is what people want, even as he worries about the toll on transportation, including an increase in private jets, and the lack of affordable housing for local workers. (He said there is a new development in Westhampton Beach that has seven affordable units: 'It's a small number, but it's a step in the right direction.')
'There is a demand for high-end things now,' said Mr. Urban, 76, who moved to Westhampton from California at the age of 15. 'Lifestyles are changing, and people expect more.'
The area is also in desperate need of more lodging. 'We do have a shortage of hotels in the season,' he said. 'Even when I have family gatherings, I don't have room to house people.'
But in spite of the added rooms, residents like Ms. St. John say that family and friends who once stayed at the Seabreeze won't be able to afford the new hotels. 'I will have to send them to Riverhead,' she said, referring to a nearby town outside the Hamptons.