A Haven at the End of the World

IT WAS AN oppressively hot afternoon in late August when I arrived in Montauk with my husband and our one-year-old son. The baby was grumpy and restless, tired of being strapped into his car seat and no longer sated by snacks or distractions.

- THESSALY LA FORCE

We had just concluded a three-hour drive from Brooklyn, the last third of which was spent sitting in Hamptons traffic, through which my husband and I stared silently at the cars ahead. We barely registered the giant houses with their perfectly manicured lawns and white picket fences; instead we prayed our child would keep napping for a little bit longer.

Finally we pulled in to the parking lot of Marram Montauk (marrammontauk.com; doubles from $877), a 1960s motel that was transformed into a chic beachside resort in 2019. The dunes in the courtyard were planted with the tall marram grass that gives the hotel its name, and the cedar paneling on the building's exterior had already acquired a gentle patina from the salt air. Seagulls circled overhead. The air was a few degrees cooler than it was in the city, yet the sun felt gloriously warm.

We checked in quickly and dumped our bags on the floor of our ocean-facing room before changing into our swimsuits and walking just a few paces down to the beach, where an attendant set us up with umbrellas and towels. The stifling humidity of the city was all but forgotten as I plunged into the ocean for the first time that summer. Our son, shaded by the wide umbrella, played happily in the sand. "There's nothing better than this," my husband said.

WE FIRST VISITED Montauk at the start of the pandemic, when we spent three glorious summer months at a friend's house. The hamlet has a permanent population of around 4,000, though that number swells to almost 40,000 in summer. The name is derived from Montaukett, the Algonquian-speaking community that once lived on the land (today, almost none of their descendants remain in New York State).