Our Hamptons

Esperanza and Irwin welcome Bess Rattray, who needs no introduction. The Rattray family has owned and published The East Hampton Star for generations, and Bess' own column, the beloved Shipwrecked Rose, shows a quirkier side of the East End, often autobiographical. Bess tells us what growing up in the family business was like, particularly a newspaper, where the story lines often involved your friends and neighbors in a small town. Bess tells us of the Anchor Society, and their mission to bring a General Store to East Hampton, to meet the every day needs of the community.

Esperanza and Irwin leave their usual comfort zone and head into more uncharted territory. Calverton has the last, large swath of Long Island grassland, and has been protected to a degree. If you visit the area, there doesn't seem to be much development or planning, although proposals exist. It's home to an enormous FedEx distribution center, a large recycling business, along with tiny farmhouses and farms. We''ll tie in the Calverton Executive Airport, the Grumman Corporation's impact on LI, and its Memorial Park on 10 adjacent acres.

Esperanza and Irwin welcome Geoff Gehman, the author of The Kingdom Of The Kid: Growing Up In The Long Lost Hamptons. Geoff spent 1967 through 1972 in Wainscott as a young boy coming of age. The memories we all have in those formative years tends to be indelible, so much so that it inspired the book. Geoff regales us here with many of those stories that serves right into the mission of Our Hamptons; the rich sense of place that never seems to cease pulling at our heartstrings.

Esperanza and Irwin were pleasantly surprised by the number of one room Schoolhouses that still exist. Some have been repurposed into community centers, others as private residences, even museums. Join us for this historical and geographical tour. We explore schoolhouses in Quogue, Hampton Bays, Noyac, North Haven, Sag Harbor, East Hampton, Amagansett. We delve a bit deeper within Sagaponack, which still is a schoolhouse, and especially Wainscott, where Esperanza shares her own experience as a parent of children in the school.

Esperanza and Irwin welcome Canio's of Sag Harbor proprietors Maryann Calendrille and Kathryn Szoka. Canio's has had a long and storied history in Sag Harbor. In 1980, Canio Pavone fulfilled his dream of owning a bookstore, when riding past the Upper Main Street storefront with a For Rent sign on the door in a very different, and long gone Sag Harbor. It quickly became a source of community, and has stayed that way since Maryann and Kathryn bought it in 1999, putting their unique stamp on the store, while maintaining many Canio traditions. We talk of all of that and more, including the unfortunate news of this Sag Harbor institution losing it's lease at the end of September 2024. Canio's hopes to resurface elsewhere, and Maryann and Kathryn will reinvent Canio's in the near term. A poignant Our Hamptons podcast.