As 2022 draws to a close, we are reflecting on the year in real estate, including looking back at all our Behind The Hedges magazines. It was a big year for us — we produced 12 magazines for Dan’s Papers, launched Behind The Hedges Powered By The Long Island Press, another publication owned by our parent company, Schneps Media and we also expanded our real estate coverage to South Florida with Behind The Hedges Palm Beach.
Once the magazine gets in our readers’ hands, it’s had to gauge their favorite, but thanks to feedback and readership online, we have an inkling! Here are some of our most popular magazine articles from 2022 (in no particular order).
At Home in the Hamptons With — Zibby Owens
In our July magazine, we sat down with the award-winning podcast host Zibby Owens.
The busy mom of four is behind the popular, “Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books,” where she has interviewed First Lady and Senator Hillary Clinton, First Lady Jill Biden, singer-songwriter Alicia Keys, actress Natalie Portman, and hundreds of other New York Times bestselling writers. She had also just recently released her memoir, Bookends, out July 1, and launched a publishing company, Zibby Books, and as well as a podcast network. We’re tired just thinking about all that!
Owens and her husband, Kyle Owens, bought their Hamptons house three years ago, and they let us in to talk books, family and managing it all — and, of course, her favorite spots to read! Read her story in the magazine here.
Léon 1909, a Provençal-style Eatery, Transforms Former Shelter Island Bank
For our Labor Day issue, we took the ferry over to Shelter Island to visit the new restaurant, Léon 1909. But, we traveled not just for the food (though we do travel for food!), but to see the amazingly transformed space.
Valerie Mnuchin and her father Robert Mnuchin, the art dealer and former banker, opened the Provençal-style restaurant in a most unexpected place — a former bank. For those of us who remember the bank, it is unrecognizable and the ambiance is as good as the food. Check it out.
At the New Pridwin on Shelter Island, Character Lives On
Speaking of Shelter Island, Hedges also featured the newly renovated Pridwin this summer. The classic summer resort overlooking the Peconic Bay across to Greenport has existed, mainly in the same form, for over 95 years. After 60 years of running the hotel, the Petry family took on a partner, Cape Resorts, which runs Baron’s Cove in Sag Harbor, among others, and a transformation to a year-round resort occurred. Step inside with us in the pages of our July issue.
Rich Conversation, Deep History and Soul In Our Hamptons Podcast
The preservation, history and soul of the East End took center stage in our Labor Day issue it seems. Irwin Levy and Esperanza León shared what brought them to start a podcast called Our Hamptons, in May. It has quickly grown in popularity as they tackled difficult issues, including balancing preservation and real estate development. Their very first episode focused on the Amagansett neighborhood of Poseyville, home to many baymen, and now undergoing major development. Learn more about how you can listen, click here.
Sara Gore Explores Real Estate From Montauk to Manhattan and Beyond
Emmy-winning lifestyle host Sara Gore, one of America’s most recognized television personalities, especially when it comes to the world of real estate, graced the cover of our October issue of Hedges in Dan’s Papers and the September issue of Hedges Powered By the Long Island Press. Her show, Open House, a nationally syndicated real estate, architecture and design show, was just kicking off its 15th season featuring some of the country’s most beautiful homes and offers inspiration from the industry’s top designers and most in-demand brokers. We chatted with Gore about not only real estate, but her love of food (real estate and food really do go together!). Read the magazine here.
Iconic Gurney’s Montauk Unveils New Seawater Spa
Who doesn’t love a day at the spa? Reading about the newly renovated Gurney’s Montauk Resort & Seawater Spa will put relaxation and self-care right at the top of your new year’s resolution list. An extensive $16 million renovation was undertaken at the 30,000-square-foot space Seawater Spa, all centered around holistic wellness, innovation and sustainability, before it reopened in May, just before our Memorial Day issue. See what’s in store for you.
The Southold Academy’s Place in North Fork History
Off Main Road in Southold is Horton’s Lane, a residential street that holds the small-town feel of the North Fork, even as it has grown busier and more popular in recent years. A red building on Traveler Street, once a schoolhouse, has been home to Academy Printing, a commecial print shop, since 1948. It went on the market earlier this year, but its history is priceless. Learn more in the pages of our Memorial Day magazine.
A Norman Jaffe Architectural Showpiece in Old Westbury
From the pages of Behind The Hedges Powered By the Long Island Press in May, we featured a Norman Jaffe-designed home on the maket in Old Westbury. Jaffe, known throughout the Hamptons for his architectural masterpieces, including this house on a stone wall base, built in 1977. “Poised above the stone, and setting up a powerful contrast, are elegant wood enclosures of contemporary form and detail. A thin ribbon of glass sets the two materials apart,” treads a description of the house in the Architectural Record’s publication of the 20 homes selected for the 1978 Awards of Excellence for Design. See more of it here.
Vision Required: Buying Straight From Floor Plans Offers Big Benefits
It takes some vision and foresight, but there are plenty of benefits to buying a Hamptons home off floor plans — especially in this economic climate. “What it allows you to do is to lock in the price of your house,” says Steven Dubb, the principal at The Beechwood Organization, a Jericho-based company founded by his father, Michael Dubb, that has built more than 7,500 homes in 60 communities across the New York metro area since 1985. We took a tour of Beechwood’s latest development in Westhampton Beach for an inside look at buying off floor plans and you can too, in our magazine pages.
Master Craftsman: Christa Wilm of Christa’s South Seashells
Back in March of 2022, our first winter in Palm Beach, we met Christa Wilm, who has taken seashell art to a whole new level. From her Christa’s South Seashells in West Palm Beach, she fashions high-quality, often functional seashell art and masterminds custom, intricate and unusual seashell pieces, fabricating furniture and fitted wall panels, even ceilings, all while working with a bevy of acclaimed designers and architects. The photographs are certainly something to be seen!
Special for Father’s Day: Keeping Real Estate in the Family
For Father’s Day 2022, Behind The Hedges celebrated real estate professionals who are not only fathers but who work closely together in the business with their children. It’s a unique relationship that presents challenges, from simple matters, like how to address one another in front of clients, to how to achieve a balance between work and personal life. Read the stories of several father-son/daughter teams on the East End.
It’s a familiar scene: friends sitting around a table, rubbing elbows, sharing laughter and good food, with drinks flowing. Except these friends are acclaimed artists, such as Robert Motherwell and Lee Krasner, all guests of the house’s owner, Dore Ashton, whose work as an art critic helped make them all household names.
For about 45 years, the unassuming house, not far from Three Mile Harbor, was where Ashton lived, enjoying summers with her children and doing research — both with books and during her many dinner parties, which her daughter Paris Marina Devereaux recounted in a conversation with Behind The Hedges when she put her mother’s home on the market. Though it has since sold, Ashton’s life is worth reading about in our April issue — I know I enjoyed learning more about this woman ahead of her time!
