Montauk Yacht Club

Montauk Yacht Club

Founded in 1929 by Carl Fisher, the Indianapolis developer who had already built Miami Beach and arrived at the eastern tip of Long Island with roughly 10,000 acres and a plan to make Montauk its northern twin, the yacht club opened on Star Island in Lake Montauk as a private social club for families who could afford both a summer address and a boat to reach it, among them the Vanderbilts and the Astors. Harold S. Vanderbilt was an early member, and Charles Lindbergh is said to have flown his seaplane into the harbor to dock at the marina. Fisher's fortune did not survive the 1929 crash that arrived the same year the club opened, and the property passed through decades of owners before Safe Harbor Marinas bought it in 2022 and brought in Proper Hospitality, the company founded by Brad Korzen and Brian De Lowe, to run it starting in 2024. The resort now spans 16 acres on Star Island with 106 rooms and suites plus five cottages dating to the original 1928 construction, built around what is still the largest marina in the Hamptons. Inside, the rooms and cottages lean into what the property calls a barefoot luxury sensibility, with Aesop bath products, Nespresso machines, and minibars stocked from Montauk-based brands, set against whitewashed walls and nautical furnishings that nod to the club's origins without overplaying them. Alba Spiaggia, the waterfront restaurant that opened on Star Island in May 2026, serves coastal Italian food, crudos, grilled fish, house-made pasta, wood-fired pizza, through long lunches that run into dinner service. A vintage Airstream handles coffee and grab-and-go food near the pools, and an all-day market carries local goods for guests who would rather eat on the dock than at a table. The racquet center, rebuilt for the 2026 season, has padel and tennis courts with lessons and clinics on offer, and the Wellness Cabana by ELEMIS anchors a spa programme built around three pools and a private beach on the lake. What staying here feels like has shifted twice in four years, from a faded institution trading on its own history, to a Safe Harbor asset getting its infrastructure sorted, to, since 2024, a Proper property still finding its footing under new operators, which sometimes shows in the gap between the older cottage stock and the newer restaurant concepts. It suits people who want a boat within walking distance of their room, or at least the option of one, and who would rather spend an afternoon on a paddleboard or at the padel courts than in the spa. It is not the kind of quiet, editorially restrained property where every surface has been considered, but the marina, the light off the lake, and nine decades of people arriving here by water do most of the work instead. You should not come if you want the hushed, unbothered version of the Hamptons, this is a working marina with a hotel wrapped around it, and the energy on the dock in July carries into the pool deck and the restaurant. You should not come, either, if you want interiors that read as a single considered vision rather than a resort still assembling its identity mid-renovation. You should come for the water access itself, for a private beach and three pools and courts that actually get used, and for a piece of Hamptons history that has outlasted the man who built it, the crash that nearly buried it, and several owners since. The short version: A 16-acre marina resort on Star Island in Lake Montauk, built in 1929 by Carl Fisher, run since 2024 by Proper Hospitality, with 106 rooms and cottages, three pools, padel and tennis courts, and the Hamptons' largest marina at its center.