Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons [Hardcover]

Steven Gaines (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1998

Steven Gaines is a bestselling storyteller with a special gift for capturing social nuance, colorful detail, and quirks of character. Just a few examples:
-- A well-to-do former ballet dancer arrested for stealing his neighbors' furniture -- and showered with thank-you notes from his victims, who admired his skills at refinishing
-- The aunt and cousin of a First Lady, who for many years inhabited a Gothic mansion with twenty-eight cats (and no litter box)
-- A locally prominent family who played host to Captain Kidd in 1699 and still have the buried treasure to prove it
-- The Oscar-winning actress whose tearful performance before a local zoning board failed to secure her a permit to build a swimming pool
-- A self-made man of outsized appetites who realized his ambition of becoming the most powerful real estate agent in the Hamptons -- and died choking on a piece of steak
-- The world-renowned painter who, at a black-tie dinner party, attacked his host's piano with an ice pick
-- As well as many of today's Hollywood, Wall Street, and fashion- and art-world potentates -- all vying for a slice of land still inhabited by families that have farmed and fished the region for generations.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Hamptons, that famous string of beachside hamlets in New York State, are not just a quiet vacation spot for New England blue bloods like the duPonts and Vanderbilts. According to Steven Gaines, the author of a spate of "untold" and "true" biographies of such glitterati as Calvin Klein, they're also--surprise!--a sandbox of scandal.

And who exactly has been stirring things up? Gaines centers the book on an eccentric cast of characters in Hamptons history: semicloseted gay men of fabulous wealth and Ralph Lauren taste, half-cracked Mayflower descendants going to seed, and those "Philistines," the nouveau riche, blemishing the scenery with their terrible taste. "The establishment can hold off the newcomers for only so long," explains the author. "There are always more of Them than Us."

Heavily researched, the book is painstakingly detailed and unapologetically voyeuristic, full of "nine-ounce chilled Baccarat crystal stem glasses," "Chippendale sofas upholstered in Scalamandré silks," "Gucci loafers," and "fourteen-karat-gold wallpaper." It's a Champagne truffle: sinful, enticing, and pure froth at its center. --Maria Dolan

From Publishers Weekly

Even those who have never heard of Long Island's home to the super-rich and the celebrated (Calvin and Kelly Klein, Steven Spielberg, Martha Stewart, Alec Baldwin and wife Kim Basinger, to name only a few) will find page-turning entertainment in this social history of the Hamptons. In 1635, Lion Gardiner made a pact with Wyandanch, the great sachem of the Montauk, to keep the marauding Connecticut Pequots from infiltrating Long Island, and he received a sack of five Pequot heads to seal the agreement. From that time forward, the Hamptons have hosted a m?lange of old society and new money, often an uneasy blending. At the turn of the century, wealthy artists Albert and Adele Herter built the legendary Mediterranean villa, "The Creeks"; a caretaker poled Adele about Georgica Pond to visit friends in a gondola bought from poet Robert Browning. When operating costs depleted their fortune and Adele, without a laundress, discovered that it took an hour to iron her nightgown, she decided to sleep in her bloomers. In 1990, billionaire Ronald Perlman purchased The Creeks for the bargain price of $12.5 million. In the booming 1980s, to own property in the Hamptons was the signal that one had arrived; it was said that "if you have to work on Fridays in the summer or be back in the office on Monday morning, you're not successful enough to live there." Gaines (Obsession, a biography of Calvin Klein) depicts a fabulous cast of real-life characters, both high and low. More fun than most fiction, this is a terrific summerAor anytimeAread. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 326 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (T); 1st edition (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316309419
• ISBN-13: 978-0316309417
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #593,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steven Gaines is the best-selling author of twelve books, including Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons; The Sky's the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan; The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of the Beatles; and Marjoe, the biography of evangelist Marjoe Gortner.

The big screen version of his biography Simply Halston starring Brendan Fraser is in pre-production with Killer Films.

His weekly radio interview show, Sunday Brunch Live from the American Hotel in Sag Harbor airs during the summer and fall months on WLIU FM Southampton, New York, a National Public Radio affiliate.

His journalism has appeared in Vanity Fair, the New York Observer, the New York Times, Los Angeles, and Worth, and he is presently a contributing editor at New York magazine. His frequent television appearances include "60 Minutes"; "The Today Show"; "CBS Morning News"; and "Good Morning America."

Mr. Gaines is a co-founder and past vice-chairman of the Hamptons International Film Festival.

He lives in a small hamlet on the East End of Long Island.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TERRIFIC READ!, January 26, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons (Hardcover)

I loved this book. The author has written a social history of the Hamptons that's a real page-turner. The characters are fascinating and he evokes a sense of place that makes you feel the author knows every nook and cranny of his subject. The book creates an historical tapestry stretching from pre-Revolutionary days to an end- of-the-millenium July 4th party. It would be easy to take potshots at the rich and richers who live in the Hamptons, but the author, who sees these characters with a clear and discerning eye, never condescends. The book moves so quickly I finished it in one sitting. This is my favorite kind of book-- a non-fiction book that reads like a novel. Because of the subject, some people might consider this a summer read, but I found this to be THE perfect book to read during a recent snowstorm. Enjoy!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Entertaining Look Inside, November 21, 2001

By 

BeachReader (Delaware) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons (Paperback)

This was a most enjoyable book....a look at how the super-wealthy denizens of the Hamptons really live. The author tells many gossipy tales, but at the same time, gives the reader a great deal of historical background about the early settlers of the area; those who became wealthy via the real estate of the Hamptons; and the mega-wealthy newcomers who seem to delight in flaunting their wealth even as they try to remain anonymous...or perhaps the right word would be "mysterious".

I think Gaines, an insider who lives in the Hamptons, has done his research and perfectly relates the superficial life led by many of the residents there.

This book read like fiction and I finished it very quickly. Many of the characters who populated the book were very odd people, ones that a reader would expect to meet in a novel.

I found the story of Gardiner's Island fascinating. It was first settled by Lion Gardiner in 1639, and was the first permanent English settlement in New York. Lion bought this from the Indians and it has been owned by his descendents ever since. They allow no trespassing.

I also enjoyed the story of The Creeks, one of the largest estates in the Hamptons. It was created in incredible splendor by Arthur and Adele Herter and recently rebuilt by Ron Perelman. In the intervening years, The Creeks belonged to the artist Alfonso Ossorio and his lover Ted Dragon, an interesting couple. These men befriended Jackson Pollock and their story included interesting information about Pollock's life and tragic death.

This says it all: "The establishment can hold off the newcomers for only so long. There are always more of Them than Us". The "Them" he refers to are the Philistines at the hedgerow.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Really Good Driving Tour, July 13, 2000

By 

Anne Lewis - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and Property in the Hamptons (Paperback)

The best way for me to describe Philistines is as the really good driving tour of the Hamptons. You get history, you get gossip, you get social commentary, you get, in other words, a feel for the Hamptons and how they came to be The Hamptons.

The writing in Philistines (I'm a stickler for good writing) is breezy and smooth, perfect for summer or winter when you want to think about summer. My only quibble with the book is that the publisher could have included a map since I only have the vaguest of idea of where the Hamptons are on Long Island and how all the individual Hamptons fit together.