What’s Happening in the Hamptons This Summer

On July 13, as a way to celebrate the centennial of Jackson Pollock's birth—and raise funds for the Jackson Pollock Lee Krasner Study House, which is a gallery you can tour and see where he did his drip painting, as long as you wear booties—ArtHamptons organized performance-art pieces. Here, a brave model couple gets a pretty hardcore initiation into the drip painting method.

First stop is the updated Capri Hotel, which was bought last year by Steven M. Kamali. He’s behind the famous—the Montauk locals say notorious—Surf Lodge, which ended a decades-long understanding that “The End” (what Montauk bumper stickers say) would remain the un-Hamptons. Mr. Kamali bought the Capri along with two other properties, the Bentley and Atlantic Hotels, the trio of which I wrote about years ago.

Right on 27 just east of Southampton Village, the Capri is the flagship, with a Cynthia Rowley pop-up shop returning to the lobby, the Nobu at the Capri restaurant, and all sorts of bells and whistles like some sort of L'Oréal poolside spa experience.

The campus of the Capri has all sorts of event-friendly areas like this little Gatehouse. Everything is vividly color-blocked, and it's hard to go wrong, especially while it's new.

But of course with a Nobu on-site, the place has a kind of no-brainer hotness. Manager Sean Dillion is the go-to guy for booking groups and events. He has been with the Nobu organization (there are more than a dozen restaurants now) for more than 10 years and worked on Nobu's first Hamptons pop-up restaurant at the Ross School a few seasons back, which I loved.

Now it’s here to stay. They take reservations starting two weeks in advance, and the place is, as you might expect, always packed on the weekends. But there are still opportunities for events and parties: A budget of at least $30,000 will get you a nifty bar and deck area for cocktails and passed hors d'oeuvres for a few hours.

The evening I was there, legendary restaurateur and Nobu co-founder Drew Nieporent was on hand finishing a big family dinner, although he is not affiliated with this property. I, of course, asked him what he ordered and he kicked out the greatest hits: rock shrimp, black miso cod.

The Hamptons is known for celebrity sightings of all sorts, from the lowbrow Housewives to the sublime Rufus Wainwright, who is always singing for his supper, it seems, on behalf of Watermill Center (whose super-creative event is scheduled for July 28).

The two celebs who are always running for mayor out here it seems are Christie Brinkley and Alec Baldwin. But every once in awhile I run into artist Chuck Close, like at the Parrish Art Museum gala held on July 14, which reminds you that the Hamptons is a place where many great artist came—and still come—for inspiration.

Chuck (he was an honoree) was with two women, one who looked like a famous model and with whom he did not want to be photographed with. Super interesting. The outfit he was wearing is made of printed cotton from Africa.

The tables at the Parrish benefit used the cerulean blue programs as a design element that I thought worked wonders. The centerpieces—a combination of sea grass, succulent plants, and driftwood—were wonderful little scapes you never got bored looking at.

The Parrish event’s tent had a leafy projection and little twinkling rope lights that contrasted with the high-tech-looking lighting rack, which produced this dancing effect. Very fabulous.

Christie Brinkley is kind of the understood queen of the Hamptons. Regardless of her tabloid troubles, she shows up to so many events, always looking great, always friendly. If you get her to your event you are pretty much set. At the "SoFo Goes SoHo" event, a fund-raiser for the South Fork History Museum, Christie's blue dress fit like a glove and moved beautifully on the dance floor. She is still captivating.

Hamptons events are largely about parking lots and giant, hot, white tents, so it was nice to see, enter, and gaze over the elevated display that showed an old farming field that had been recaptured by nature.

It's all about these pop-up stores in the Hamptons. Cynthia Rowley was kind of the first, then Tracy Feith in Montauk. Here comes bag designer Rebecca Minkoff with her version, popping up at Solé East in Montauk, which, like the Surf Lodge, has replaced the once-sleepy nightlife scene in Montauk (a highlight when I summered there was a stop-off at the Dancing Crab jukebox) with wild, celeb-stuffed parties, limos, the works. I bet they sell a lot of these showy evening bags.

This artist performed in a drip-dry dress while tethered to the ground. ArtHamptons has become a huge event in a giant tent held in Watermill at a sculpture garden called Nova’s Ark, which is also the site of Super Saturday. I’m sparing you the picture of the giant tent.

Here's our happy couple again. I wonder what Jackson Pollock would have thought of this performance. (I giggled nervously)

When I heard that M.C. Hammer was the performer scheduled for “Unmasked” (an inaugural benefit for the Alexander Soros Foundation) and that the dinner would be catered by Robbins Wolfe—I mean, “you can’t touch this.”

There was George Soros (pictured, left) at the Unmasked benefit chatting with Angels in America Emmy-winner Jeffrey Wright. Should I go up and ask him to give more money to his super PAC? (I’m worried.)

This literally takes the cake, or is the cake I guess. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Love Heals benefit at Luna Farms, organizers assembled this 20-foot-high cake display. I thought that eventually they would come out and put food on it or something, but they didn’t. Love Heals was founded in honor of Alison Gertz, who died of AIDS at age 26 after contracting the disease at 16 from a single encounter with a man. I knew her. Her family summers in Westhampton Beach, as I do. She was the original “acceptable” face of the disease and spent her life telling people her story. So even though her cake is silly, her message is still getting out.