Weekend Utopia: Modern Living in the Hamptons

Finally got the chance to sit and read Gordon's excellent text in Weekend Utopia. The book goes way beyond an illustrated coffee book. Gordon manages to weave together stories about the characters who shaped the place (like developer Carl Fisher who created Montauk to be the "Miami Beach of the North")with stories about the flamboyant architecture, post-war artists like Pollock and Motherwell and his own personal memories as a boy spending summers there. While the book has a large format with hundreds of illustrations it is most readable and explains so much about how a rural American landscape was transformed into a resort for show-offs. I loved it and can't comprehend what reviewers from Hong Kong and the Netherlands were talking about. It is neither trying to be a professional book on architecture nor a cheap gossip book about pseudo-celebrities. It is an intelligent cultural history that also happens to be well designed and illustrated. It warmed my soul on a chilly winter weekend and made me want to go to the beach as soon as possible.

I'm a bit mystified by the comments below that seem to implicate this book and its author in what the Hamptons have become. To the contrary, Weekend Utopia celebrates happier days pre-mega mansions: when culture and architecture and some fascinating characters created some truly exceptional houses, most of them modest in scale. In fact, today's Hamptons home-builders could learn a lesson or two from this book (like small can be very beautiful), and stop the further despoilment of what the Hamptons used to be: something Weekend Utopia shows with great clarity and style. This wonderful book is certainly no apologia for the mess that awaits you at the end of I-495...

This booked turned an ordinary middle of the week evening into a time-travel weekend getaway for me. If Barbarella had a beach house, it would be in this book. I keep coming back to it for the sense of place and experimentation on every page, and to wonder at how much architecture of essence is concentrated in one spot on the map. It strips away the glam veneer of the so-called Hamptons to show how creative minds used creative materials to construct fantastic but livable houses. I'm glad they're all in one book so I can escape any day of the week.

As a fan of modernist architecture and Long Island history, I received this book with great interest. I wasn't disappointed. Alastair Gordon has written an extremely compelling narrative. The book is beautifully designed. It is my hope that Weekend Utopia will spark a renewed interest in both beach house architecture and lifestyle.

Without a doubt the best book on the Hamptons! A must for anyone who wants to understand the evolution of exclusive communities in the US. Cleverly disguised as a coffee table book, it is filled with extraordinary and beautiful photographs, sketches and architectural drawings. Gordon, in his long essay, lays out the history of the place with insight, humor and fascinating detail. The scope is vast and should rivet your attention whether or not you find the Hamptons themselves worth thinking about. Anyone who wants to better understand understand one of the fundamental motivations of American culture and society should sit down with 'Weekend Utopia', preferably on the beach on a warm Sunday.