Tulum, Rio De Janeiro and St. Bart’s are popular seasonal getaways for affluent New Yorkers. Come summer, however, they stay closer to home — when tony beach towns thrive. From Nantucket to Montauk, this is where Hollywood is staying, dining and playing along the Atlantic.
Nantucket
With trademark lighthouses, expensive cottages and nautical charm, this New England beach getaway is a perennial favorite for celebrity vacationers. Ben Stiller, whose parents Jerry Stiller and the late Anne Meara had vacationed at their beach house there since the early 1990s, has regularly been spotted. Jerry Stiller also hosted the screenwriters tribute at the Nantucket Film Festival this year from June 21-26. Last July, Kourtney Kardashian stayed at a $50 million vacation house; the island has since flooded with rumors she returned to buy property. Celebrities are checking into Greydon House, a new 20-room property where New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, John Shea (Agent X) and Alex Moffat (Saturday Night Live) have recently stayed and dined at the hotel’s signature restaurant helmed by Michelin-starred chef Marcus Ware.
Related Stories
In the heart of Nantucket, The Nantucket Hotel + Resort, which comprises one- to four-bedroom suites and cottages, has been visited by A-listers Sharon Stone, Harry Connick Jr., Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep and, recently, James Franco, who celebrated the Fourth of July there last year, then returned in August to film “Only In America” (a music video with Riff Raff) on Great Point Beach. The Nantucket Hotel recently hired a new chef, Bill Weiss, for its Breeze Restaurant, and debuted a new Front Porch programming with live entertainment on evenings and Supper Club, a weekly event in July and August featuring live entertainment.
The Club Car, a decades-old institution and piano bar, reopened this month with a new design concept and menu (Californian/Mediterranean) with notable island chef Mayumi Hattori from Straight Wharf. Day drinking is essential at Sandbar at the Jetties, which opened in May; it’s a casual restaurant right on the sand with live music daily, a cocktail/wine menu and family-style clambakes, their specialty. The new spot also offers a retail shop and beach equipment rentals. For nightlife, The Proprietors Bar & Table is a stylish, New York Times-approved hot spot that serves innovative, globally inspired and seasonal cocktails and bites.
Cape Cod
An hour flight from LaGuardia Airport in NYC, the charming, artsy haven of Cape Cod was John F. Kennedy’s former stomping ground, and it’s still a hot summer vacation spot for celebrities like Meg Ryan and Samuel L. Jackson. A number of new restaurants have opened for summer, including The Chart Room at Crosby’s in Osterville, the newest location for this Catamet haunt (since 1966). The marina-based seafood restaurant is popular for its baked stuffed lobster. Opening this month, The West End is a swank lounge in Hyannis Port with wall murals by notable local artist Tim Ellis Cole, whose work is ubiquitous in Cape Cod. In 2012, Taylor Swift bought a house in Hyannis Port to be close to her then-boyfriend Conor Kennedy (which she sold after the break-up).
Martha’s Vineyard
Martha’s Vineyard, a small island chockfull of wild beaches, clay cliffs, anchored yachts and Victorian cottages, is a summer stomping ground for former presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Celebrities like Mia Farrow and James Taylor own homes here, and a slew of A-listers regularly visit (like Jake Gyllenhaal, whose parents owned a home in Chilmark). John Belushi is buried here at Abel’s Hill Cemetery, near his former summer home, and Michael J. Fox named his daughter after the charming town Aquinnah. The Christopher, a French Caribbean-styled boutique hotel in a Victorian building, opened last year in Edgartown with 15 rooms. The more private Sydney Hotel, with eight rooms, is in the heart of town and a short stroll to Lighthouse Beach. While only three years old, 20byNine, a stylish, modern craft beer and whiskey bar, has become essential for late-night drinking. Martha’s Vineyard is a 30-minute ferry from Cape Cod.
Montauk
A four-hour drive from NYC, Montauk in the Hamptons is a magnet for A-listers, known for its boho-chic vibes merging with highbrow sensibility, where visitors take surf lessons, charter yachts and dine at expensive restaurants at night. Celebs such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Jon Hamm and Michael Jordan check into Gurney’s Montauk Resort & Spa, which offers direct access to a 2,000-foot private beach (it’s also the only resort in the U.S. with an indoor, ocean-fed seawater pool). The 146-room resort recently partnered with Ric Pipino, a stylist to the stars, for salon services and expanded their partnership with Wellth Collective, bringing NYC trainers like Alex Kate Knight and Holly Rillinger to instruct weekend classes. Scarpetta, the resort’s signature restaurant, is introducing a summer menu that includes pork belly with charred corn and Long Island duck with fava beans, radishes and spring onions. Thanks to a new partnership with BLADE, travelers can now hop on a private seaplane from Gurney’s Montauk to Gurney’s newest private-island property, Gurney’s Newport in Newport, R.I.
