It’s been a long, hot, sticky summer – and the perfect antidote? A weekend getaway to the Hamptons and throwing the perfect beach dinner party!
It’s been a long, hot, sticky summer and I needed to get out of the loud, crowded city, stat! So when my friend, Lucy Sykes, suggested a weekend at her house in the Hamptons, I jumped at the chance.
For those of you who don’t live in New York, the Hamptons are the beaches on the far end of Long Island. For many who read the social pages or gossip columns, it is also synonymous with the rich and famous.
But for those of us who live in New York, it is simply “the Beach.” And I was dying to go.
I also happen to be an American Express Platinum Card Member (and Ambassador) and an economical girl, so I went to the Amex Travel website and booked a rental car (and got 2X Membership Rewards points!) for a weekend in July, figuring that with points I’d already earned and with the company’s policy of insuring the car, it would be practically free.
I was right.
“Let’s have a dinner party,” I suggested. “There are so many cool people out that weekend.”
“Absolutely,” Lucy agreed and started compiling the guest list.
The next Friday, I packed my bags and drove out to meet Lucy and her husband, Euan, at their house in Water Mill.
We relaxed on the patio, caught up on our lives and downed a bottle of rose.
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The next morning we went to work.
“Right, let’s do this,” Lucy said.
“I’m down,” I agreed, and we hauled off to Fairview Farms, just down the road to visit the owner Harry Ludlow, known to locals as Farmer Harry, the man with the best pies on the East End.
I then ducked out to Southampton a few miles way for some coffee – and shopping. Thanks to the Platinum Card I had an an Amex Offer at the boutique, Intermix: Buy $300 of merchandise and get $100 off, when you load the offer to your Card. And I needed that caftan!
I returned back to Lucy’s, coffee and caftan in hand and spent the rest of the afternoon preparing.
Our friend Paul strung up lanterns over the old oak tree in the lawn, another pal Sarah and I set up the tables, Lucy cooked and somehow we had an intimate party for over 50 people.
It was a magical evening that even made the Wall Street Journal: “but the Hamptons evenings that are most memorable are usually more casual, slightly impromptu (maybe the food runs out, for instance) and take place under a crescent moon… Euan Rellie and Lucy Sykes hosted one of those get-togethers in the pastoral backyard of their home here this weekend. Despite the fact that it was sponsored by American Express Platinum Card with wines by Anthony Giglio, the sommelier for Centurion Lounges, it had an exceedingly noncorporate improvisatory feeling to it. (Paula Froelich, a former Page Six reporter who is now, among other things, a Platinum Card ambassador, helped organize the event.)”
[It’s true – at one point the food did run out, but Lucy saved the day with a jar of pasta sauce and some rigatoni. Thankfully, no one cared as Anthony Giglio, The Centurion Lounge Wine Director, had sent over so much wine there was no chance of that running dry!]
And the trend for noncorporate, casual elegance was set for the summer.
*Please note, I’m an American Express Platinum Card Ambassador and get a small annual stipend from them to represent the brand and its benefits. However, if every word of this article was not true, I would not publish it.
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