Coopers Beach named best in United States; Main Beach ranked fifth

Coopers Beach, long the crown jewel of Southampton Village’s 7-mile oceanfront, has been crowned the number-one beach in America.

Dr. Stephen Leatherman, the director of Florida International University’s Laboratory for Coastal Research, bestowed the title upon Coopers Beach late last week when he released his 20th annual ranking of 650 of the country’s major public recreational beaches. The village’s premier sandy spot, a 500-foot-long-by-300-foot-wide stretch gently sloping into the Atlantic Ocean, has been a perennial contender, alternating between third and fourth places the past several years, but 2010 marks the first time it or any other New York beach bested sandy stretches in Florida, South Carolina, California and Hawaii to top the list.

East Hampton’s Main Beach was the only other New York beach to place in the top 10, finishing fifth this year.

Dr. Leatherman—also known as Dr. Beach—evaluates beaches according to 50 criteria, including sand softness, water temperature, size of breaking waves, rip currents, presence of seaweed and jellyfish on the beach, trash, amenities, and safety record, assigning a score of 1 to 5 for each factor. Every year, the nationwide winner is retired from the competition in order to rotate the limelight.

One beach on the Florida panhandle was pulled from consideration this year in part because of the gushing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, though Dr. Leatherman observed that no oil has washed ashore there yet. “The only oil we have on our beaches is suntan oil,” the Floridian said.

Coopers Beach garnered particular praise this year for being shielded from cold Labrador currents, having hundreds of yards of “grainy white quartz sand,” plentiful dunes covered by American beachgrass, and ease of access, as well as a concession stand, which Dr. Leatherman equated to a restaurant.

Although the coastal expert said he subtracted a few points for sand—he favors the whiter and finer sands of Florida and Hawaii—Southampton’s beach was buoyed by its cleanliness.

“I find locals pick things up themselves. They’re very proactive. It’s clean. It’s safe. It has an excellent lifeguard program,” he said of Coopers Beach, “and there are no drownings in its history whatsoever,” he said, adding that preservation of the dunes was also noteworthy.

This year, the Southampton Village Board banned smoking within 50 feet of the concession stand.

“People say, ‘That’s nice, but I know this great beach in Maine,’” Dr. Leatherman commented. “Wilderness beaches are wonderful, but how can you get there without hiking 4 miles?”

The 400-spot main parking lot at Coopers Beach boosted its accessibility score, though Dr. Leatherman did comment on its priciness—$40 for day parking. (Season passes for residents are free; permits for renters are $350; and residents of the town but not the village pay $225.)

He described Coopers Beach having emerged relatively unscathed from recent storms as “almost magical,” and the unique treasures nearby, such as St. Andrew’s Dune Church, “majestic.”

“I think Europeans know more about Coopers Beach than Americans do,” he said.

Southampton Village Mayor Mark Epley, standing seaside at Coopers Beach over Memorial Day weekend, said, “It’s a great honor for what it is to be ranked number one. It’s a real team effort by all our departments.”

Caitlin Lemanski, beach manager for the fourth year running, noted that the beach is raked every day by the Highway Department and that “a lot of village employees really care about Coopers Beach.”

One 12-year-old from Medford, Alexandria Barlowe, skipped school last Friday to wade through the surf in Southampton with her twin sister, Francesca, and their friend Shannon Torre, 12.

“My mom started screaming, ‘It’s the number-one beach, and it’s in New York!’” Alexandria explained.

Fedelia Herchy, a kitchen helper at Southampton Hospital and native of Ghana, was there too. Every day, she said, she walks to the beach and back to the hospital to try to ward off the diabetes that runs in her family.

A German couple, Oliver and Christian Lentz, and their daughter, Sophia, 12, vacationing at Coopers Beach for the first time, said they found the beach very relaxing.

The water measured a chilly 56 degrees last weekend, and few swimmers have taken the plunge so far this year, though a wetsuit-clad Shane Dyckman, 37, a surf instructor for the Flying Point Surf School, took student Sammy Dubner, 10, out for a lesson on Friday. “It’s a great little sandbar here,” Mr. Dyckman smiled.

Meanwhile, Coopers regular Manny Falzon, a retired Wall Street trader, joked from his beach chair that, “We only have negative things to say. We don’t know how it won this award. We want to keep this beach empty.”

His wife, Adrienne, a retired teacher sitting next to him, swatted him playfully. “Oh, shh,” she said.

The fifth-ranked beach on the list this year, Main Beach, is one of three lifeguard-protected beaches in East Hampton Village and one of two that has pay-by-day parking for $20 on weekdays, but it is also near enough to Main Street that many people walk there, said Village Beach Manager Ed McDonald. Main Beach also has a pavilion, where there are bathroom facilities and a snack bar.

Mr. McDonald said in addition to the expected amenities to make the list, what keeps Main Beach at the top is the atmosphere.

“It’s a very classy beach,” he said. “It almost feels like you’re at a private beach club when you’re here.”

He said the village has maintained the historic look of the beach pavilion over the years. In 1984, he said the pavilion was rebuilt to look exactly the same as the original structure. There is a painting hanging in Village Hall and in the beach office, he said, that shows Main Beach in the early 1900s, and the only indications that it isn’t a present-day depiction are the horse and buggies in the parking lot and the women wearing long dresses and carrying parasols.

Mr. McDonald also noted that the beach has a history of keeping its staff. He said most of the lifeguards and other employees at Main Beach continue working there year after year, and it tends to span generations. Mr. McDonald said he was a lifeguard there himself, in the 1970s and 1980s.

“It’s a lot of the same East Hampton families,” he said. “There’s just kind of a great history to it.”

Mr. McDonald said Main Beach has consistently been included on the list of best beaches, though it has gone up and down over the years. He said he believes the highest it has been so far is number four.

“Main Beach will always be a great beach,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s number one or number 1,000.”

Rounding out the top 10 beaches this year in order of rank were, two through four: Siesta Beach in Sarasota, Florida; Coronado Beach in San Diego, California; Cape Hatteras in the Outer Banks of North Carolina; and six through ten: Kahanamoku Beach in Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii; Coast Guard Beach in Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Beachwalker Park in Kiawah Island, South Carolina; Hamoa Beach in Maui, Hawaii; and Cape Florida State Park in Key Biscayne, Florida.