Cool breezes, miles of pristine beaches, and vast, open farmland have long attracted visitors to Long Island's South Fork, known worldwide as "The Hamptons." Residents in picturesque seaside communities from Southampton to Montauk are calling upon world-class designers to fine-tune their visions, giving rise to a fresh design vernacular: homes that are testaments to what can be achieved when inspired by the natural beauty of a unique locale--and when imagination is one's only limitation. Out East captures the enduring appeal of shingled houses, modernist oceanfront designs, artists' compounds, and Montauk surf shacks. Jennifer Ash Rudick, a long-time Southampton resident, leads an insider's tour of more than 25 houses, cottages, and pool houses. Tria Giovan, a Sag Harbor-based photographer, captures extraordinary gardens, verandas, lakeside pavilions, farmhouses, and converted barns.

"American Dream" documents the Houses at Sagaponac, a groundbreaking architecture project initiated by real estate developer Harry J. Brown. The project features homes designed by internationally recognized architects on a 10-acre site near the tip of Long Island. THe region has nurtured modern housing in previous decades, and the weekend homes and artist studios of the 1960s and 1970s serve as early precursors to the project. Additonal sources of inspiration for the Sagaponac houses include Case Study Houses in California commissioned by "Arts + Architecture" magazine in the 1950s and the famed 1927 Weissenhof Siedlung experimental housing in Stuttgart, Germany. Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier is creative advisor to the initiative and is also designing one of the houses. Meier collaborated with Brown on architect selection, bringing together well-known figures like Michael Graves, Philip Johnson, and Richard Rogers with acclaimed younger practitioners, including Gisue and Mojgan Jariri, Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umenoto, Lindy Roy, and Deborah Berke. The designs of all the Sagaponac Houses are illustrated in full-color and are accompanied by floor plans, architectural drawings, and computer renderings.

A luxurious look at nineteen private houses in the Hamptons, Long Island’s exclusive summer retreat—with architecture, interiors, and gardens from celebrity designers including Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan, John Barman, Fox-Nahem, Thad Hayes, Tony Ingrao, Todd Merrill, Roman & Williams, and Joe d’Urso. These architects and interior designers are inspired by the island’s renowned natural beauty to create houses that set the global standards for oceanfront style. Today, that means thoughtful, modern, highly personalized structures that reference the East End’s rich history and are designed to enhance appreciation of the fabled seaside landscape. The properties range from shingled beach cottages to a redesigned 1840s barn and a sustainable, glass-walled guesthouse on pilings. They display a curated blend of traditional references with cutting-edge architecture and enviable art collections, finished by the South Fork’s famous light and ocean views. In some houses, a sense of calm pervades, and cozily appointed dining terraces with neutral color schemes look out over peaceful docks, while in others, vibrant midcentury modern accessories and outsize outdoor fireplaces point to frequent and exuberant pool parties. Whether they are decorated with natural materials and iconic 1950s and 1960s furniture from Charles Eames and Hans Wegner, or eighteenth-century antiques and industrial objects—all have been carefully selected to demonstrate the possibilities of authentic design in the Hamptons today.

Richly illustrated with archival photos and reproductions of the artists' work, "Hamptons Bohemia" chronicles the evolution of a community and the colorful characters who have inhabited it, from Winslow Homer to George Plimpton. 176 full-color and halftone images.

The Hamptons are known as a glamorous playground of the rich and famous, but since its earliest days as a sleepy summer colony, the area has also been at the epicenter of American garden design, boasting a vast collection of lushly innovative, private landscapes-and a staggering assemblage of creative gardeners, designers, and landscape architects. Hamptons Gardens invites you behind the private hedges and into the picturesque landscapes, showing work by groundbreaking designers such as Edwina von Gal, Oehme, van Sweden and Associates, and Miranda Brooks. From the sustainable and native to the over-the-top and avant garde, these gardens frame or transform houses-both modern and traditional-and extend the living space outdoors. Hamptons Gardens makes stops at the estates of Southampton, the cliffs of Montauk, East Hampton's Georgica Pond, and even the famed Grey Gardens. In collaboration with photographers Mary Ellen Bartley and Doug Young, author and Hamptons-insider Jack deLashmet open the garden gates to the Hamptons' most exciting private gardens in this visually stunning edition.

Bestselling author Steven Gaines's "richly entertaining" (People) and juicy social history of the Hamptons. As one of America's most fabled communities--long a magnet for artists, celebrities, the very rich, and their respective hangers-on--the Hamptons have been a scene of constant collision among the established old guard, New Money, and the local families who farmed and fished the region for generations. In serving up three centuries of Hamptons history, Steven Gaines introduces a host of colorful characters including Jackson Pollock, Ron Perelman, Lauren Bacall, and the Bouvier Beales of Grey Gardens infamy. Philistines at the Hedgerow is a mesmerizing feat of storytelling--a book that takes us behind the privet hedges and rolling sand dunes and brings vivid life to the curious passions and personalities that animate the Hamptons.