Exploring the history of the Hamptons

The white sands of Westhampton Beach burn my bare feet as I come out from the shade cast by my cabana, which is tended by servers. I find relief in the Atlantic Ocean as salty waves roll in. My 14-year-old daredevil son, Max, pedals into the water aboard a buoyed bike, shrugging off my worries, saying he is surrounded by "a SWAT team of lifeguards." My other son, 12-year-old Caleb, reports that Ryan Seacrest called him "Champ" after he retrieved a pingpong ball for him and Eli Manning.

This is life at the Dune Deck, a cedar-shingled beach club 80 miles east of Manhattan, that opened for the rich and famous in 2017. We're guests of generous friends, but our time here has shown us how privileged the area known as the Hamptons can be, if you can afford a rental or the reported $365,000 beach club membership fee.

To be clear, the Hamptons isn't one place, but a collection of old towns, hamlets and villages on the southeastern peninsula — or the South Fork — of New York's Long Island. In the early 1600s, English Puritans settled the area and farmed, fished, whaled — and even once held a witchcraft trial. In the late 19th century, Long Island Rail Road service expanded. Wealthy New Yorkers, eager to escape the sweltering heat of the city, began seeking refuge on the South Fork's bright white beaches. The hedged-in oceanfront estates they built through the 20th century can go for up to nine figures today.

Despite nearly 50 miles of coastline, the Hamptons can be a difficult place to access a beach. Many require parking permits that you buy in advance, and they frequently sell out, especially in celebrity-laden East Hampton Village. In the past, we've schlepped kids across the hot pavement to Coopers Beach, a full-facility public beach in Southampton that's consistently ranked one of the best in the U.S., where a daily parking permit goes for $50.

Fortunately, the Hamptons is more than a party destination for celebrities and beach lovers. On this trip, Caleb and I set out from Westhampton on a road trip to uncover the area's historic origins.

Each town in the Hamptons has a different feel. In the past, we've gone to old-money Bridgehampton to attend its annual horse competition, the Hampton Classic (Aug. 25-Sept. 1). Art lovers flock to East Hampton to tour the modest 1879 home of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, while wine connoisseurs indulge at Wölffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack.

For our road trip, Caleb voted we go to Montauk, a reawakened fishing village at the far eastern end where rough waves make for some of the best surfing in the U.S. Climbing the 110-foot Montauk Lighthouse that was built in 1796 to guide ships in was on my bucket list. But I was an inexperienced surfer, sure to get slammed into rocks. I appealed to his love of Moby Dick to get him to go to family-friendly Sag Harbor, an 18th-century whaling port, instead.

We exited Montauk Highway and wound through the idyllic countryside, passing windmills, vineyards and farm stands before reaching the showier homes. It left us feeling like there were two Hamptons, and we liked the low-key one better.

Sag Harbor is a charming seaport town, and a busy one. It feels like the sort of place you should yacht to — with a crew. Sky-high masts bob from a harbor where whaling ships once docked, while its sheltered waters offer great places to rake the sea floor for clams (permit required).

It's also a place that conveys timelessness, as it juxtaposes the old with the new. On Main Street, fancy boutiques have taken root in the old buildings, selling everything from saris to sandals. Its most famous hotel is the landmark eight-room 1846 American Hotel, believed to occupy the site of an inn where British officers were captured in 1778 during the Revolutionary War.

For almost a century, sailors stumbled home from Long Wharf, a pier built in the 1770s, sometimes after three or more years whaling at sea. Whale oil provided fuel for lamps before electricity, and the quest for it made men rich — if they survived the dangerous journeys.

We learned about those trips at the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum, housed in an 1845 Greek Revival style home where whaling ship owner Benjamin Huntting once lived. A whale's huge jawbones marked the entrance, and passing under them left us with the impression of being swallowed whole.

Caleb sat down to watch footage of a reenacted hunt. A whale bolted across the open sea when a harpoon lodged in its back. Seamen doused the rapidly unraveling line with water to ensure that the friction wouldn't spark a fire. One thrash of the whale's tail could splinter their small wooden boat, and many of the seamen couldn't swim. Or, the whale could pull them miles from their mother ship, never to be seen again. While the seamen had potential disasters, whales seemed doomed.

The artifacts on display seemed ancient: harpoons, flensing knives and pots used for rendering whale blubber. But the tools did enough damage that the whales, once plentiful off Long Island's shores, were hunted to near extinction. Just in time, laws limiting catches were passed and the great beasts have made a comeback in East Coast waters.

A five-minute ferry ride in our car aboard the South Ferry got us to Shelter Island, wedged between the North and South Forks. The British anchored here during the Revolutionary War and ransacked the nearly 12.5-square-mile island for its goods. Now it's a summer refuge with five public beaches. The island is accessible only by ferry, and in summer months that can mean a long wait, as its population swells from 2,400 to 15,000.

We took a break from learning about history to burn off energy on a 6-mile trail through forests and freshwater wetlands at the nearly 2,000-acre Mashomack Preserve. Ospreys dove with their claws out, catching fish to feed their young who nested in a building platform. Without water, the heat of the sun got to us when we crossed a meadow, and we turned back before closing our loop.

It's an age-old debate that can trigger strong opinions on the East Coast: Should a lobster roll be served hot with buttery chunks of meat, as it was first served in 1929 on a bun in Connecticut, or cold, chopped with celery, tarragon and mayonnaise? At the crowded Out of the Blue Seafood restaurant in Hampton Bays, our cashier refused to weigh in.

"Personal preference," he shrugged.

I opted for hot, but his words got me thinking about something I hadn't been able to put my finger on ever since we'd arrived. What was the Hamptons?

It feels like a place of such contrast, and I have never had such a feeling of being locked out — or let in. Was how you vacationed here simply a matter of personal preference, as some suggested, or did it hint at a bigger societal ill as even the best sunsets seemed to come at a price?

Our lobster roll arrived. We both agreed: Hot and buttery was the right choice.

Jennifer Jeanne Patterson lives in Edina and is the author of "52 Fights." Find her at unplannedcooking.com.