By Diane Strecker
When I think of summers on the East End, my mind drifts back to a simpler time.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, most families found spots to which they would return each year. All over the East Coast, families took summer-long vacations in places like the Jersey Shore, Martha’s Vineyard, the Cape, upstate New York and eastern Long Island.
In the case of my family, it was Montauk, in a place I always will remember simply as “The Park.”
It was a mish-mosh of travel-trailers, mobile homes, railroad cabooses-turned-cottages and tents, located at the far end of Ditch Plains. It was where I spent my summers as far back as I can remember.
When my parents first brought us there in 1959, it was advertised as Montauk Oceanside Park. It consisted of 275 plots, with water and electric hookup, three bath houses, a small office and an even smaller general store. A recreation building (the rec hall), which once belonged to the Coast Guard, sometimes screened reel-to-reel movies.
Aside from a few very tiny cottages around the perimeter, that was it. Back then, you could spend the entire summer on the ocean for just a few hundred dollars. Four hundred dollars, to be exact, plus another hundred for utility costs.
No matter where you were in the park, you felt the presence of the shore. If you couldn’t see the water, you could feel and hear it from whereever you were. It lay hidden behind Dead Man’s Cove on a beach that stretched from Sandpiper Hill to the cliffs of the Seven Sisters. From all points of that oceanfront, the view was, and still is, one of the most spectacular on all of the East End.
At that time, summering in the park was about as unpretentious as one could get.
The adjacent town beach catered mostly to families. The parents’ patio hopped. The moms were all friends and spent the entire summer with the kids. The fathers all fished together on weekends. The kids ran free, became adventurers, swam whenever they wanted and walked barefoot all summer long.
Being one of those kids, I remember that time to be one of the purest of my life. Some of those kids are still my friends today.
I remember being lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves and waking up to a heavy mist that perpetually lay in the morning air. In the middle of the night it was dead quiet, and aside from the pounding surf there was nothing. It was so quiet that you could hear a twig snap. The stars were closer and larger than any I had ever seen.
It was an innocent time: sparklers on the Fourth, ice cream from the general store, roasted marshmallows over a beach fire, and walks to town on the cliffs. We hiked up Deforest Road picking and eating plump blackberries straight off the bush. We went clamming at the bay, bringing home bushels of clams. My mom made beach plum jam, and my dad caught fish as big as my sister.
As the mid- and late-’60s approached, so did the surfers, and little by little Ditch Plains would begin to morph into the surfing mecca that it is today. Word was out — there were waves at Ditch. Most of Montauk’s pioneer surfers camped in the park and made their mark surfing Ditch. The jetty at East Deck was where they held court.
From that time on, Montauk’s popularity and the lure of Ditch Plains began to swell. From then on, it was baggies, bikinis and beach fires.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, something else began to happen.
The Park was slowly becoming a hippie haven of sorts and seemed to draw people who were in search of a lifestyle based in nature and a simpler way of life. Everywhere throughout The Park, guitars were being strummed, a pungent aroma filled the air, nods of understanding replaced hellos, and a lifestyle all its own began to take shape. Alas, “Montauk Cool” was born, and it seemed that everyone wanted in.
Even like-minded celebrities and the Bohemian elite seeking anonymity found their way on the nearby Moorlands, putting Montauk permanently on the map. But, for sure, it all started in The Park. Those truly were the days. We had so much fun it almost felt illegal — and I’m certain some of it was.
Not too long after, the management began to struggle financially. And, by 1975, the remaining 150-plus residents pooled their resources and bought the property outright. Later, a condominium board would be formed.
At some point after, the cabooses were removed. Tents and camping became a thing of the past. The general store — gone. And the park as we knew it became part of a time gone by. Most small trailers disappeared and would be replaced by larger ones, soon to be year-round residences.
Over time the grounds got dressed in a nautical motif, and a pool and playground were added. Most trailers turned double-wide, and very few original trailers survived the transition. All but a few cottages remained. Security gates went up, and prices went with them.
Since that time, property values have gone through the roof — and even this one-time trailer park now has its share of billionaires dumping buckets of cash into the little tin cans, substantially elevating their standing.
Here, the stereotypical negative labeling normally associated with “trailer park living” simply does not apply. A “trailer” in the former campground currently known as Montauk Shores Condominiums could easily cost you upward of $1 million. This small spit of real estate is commanding big bucks.
Some of the premium units along the oceanfront are not even being lived in but are being used as beach cabanas by high-profile owners who come simply to change into their wetsuits before surfing. It’s mind-boggling, really, and has become somewhat of an anomaly. Who would have ever thought — a million dollars? My dad may be rolling over in his grave as I write.
The truth is, there is just so much oceanfront real estate to be had in Montauk. Much is preserved green space, and obtaining buildable oceanfront is a very high commodity. And, compared to other oceanfront locales around town, a million dollars is fairly cheap. It’s all relative.
Summer-long rentals for the average income family no longer exist; most settle for a week away and pay more per night than it cost us long ago for the entire summer. That kind of simplicity has become obsolete.
Today, the park is still kind of a mish-mosh but of a different kind. Now, it’s a mixture of two-story modern planked structures, with decking and landscaping, and double-wide mobiles. Only a few old-time real travel-trailers remain and evidently are the more desirable. Two cottages at the easternmost end have been renovated, as has an old original trailer, all on the ocean. The renovations are rumored to have cost a small fortune.
The 925 feet of ocean beach out in front the park is gone now, turned to a rough and rocky coastline. Nature has had her way there.
The new surf spot has taken residence in those same waters where novices once got their feet wet, or the “girls” surfed. The girls surf the big waves now. I watched them suiting up one morning and heading into the cold ocean with their boards. I nodded as if we had an unspoken understanding, and they did the same — you go, girls!
The jetty at East Deck is now sunk low and dwindling. The East Deck Motel is completely gone, sold off to developers, and is still in the making. When those monster homes go up there, from their sprawling waterfront decks the new inhabitants will not only have a full view of the ocean but also The Park.
As much as things change in this tiny place, I see snippets everywhere of what is thought to be a fading culture. Now and then, I catch sight of an old surf dog or two heading into the waves, or pedaling down to check the surf, long, gray hair trailing behind them. A red-faced fisherman bumps past in his pickup. I notice a couple hiking up Shadmoor, multiple dogs in tow.
A group of little kids on skateboards rev by me toward the beach, already looking like surfers in training, their speed and enthusiasm unstoppable. I recognize that they are having a blast, just as we once did. I silently hope that someone is helping them to understand that they are the soon to be the stewards here.
The Park itself is a far cry from the one I knew, with just remnants of what once was. The “Rec Hall” still stands in the old Coast Guard building, classic white with a red shingle roof, just as its always been. My old friend’s surf shack still sits up on the hill and out of the way, looking just as it did 40 years ago, an array of surfboards perched along the fence. The old white street posts still mark our former spot on Marlin Drive.
And, then of course, there is that endless shoreline stretching between the Moorlands and Shadmoor — and I must concede, it is more than a million-dollar view. It’s priceless.
Diane Strecker is a resident of South Jamesport on the North Fork.
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