The Life and Times of Gurney’s

No one understands this better than Gurney’s. The Montauk hotel, which turns 100 this year, has moved through many chapters, evolving from a humble, 20-room inn to the rollicking resort it exists as today, all the while playing witness to the transformation of the South Fork’s entire easternmost area, from sleepy fishing village and military base to a global, clinquant retreat. This is perhaps how it was intended to exist all along. After all, when Warren and Maude Gurney purchased their beachside parcel of land in 1926, it was from Carl G. Fisher, the Miami developer with a vision of turning Montauk into the “Miami Beach of the North.” The Gurneys had previously managed a hotel for Fisher down in Miami, the King Cole Hotel, which had opened the year before.

But Gurney’s Inn inherited not a single drop of Miami’s infamous liquor lawlessness of the Prohibition era. From the time it opened until Maude Gurney sold the hotel to restaurateur Nick Monte in 1956, the resort remained dry, even past the abolishment of temperance laws, given the couple’s Christian Scientist background. Rumor has it that Monte offered to buy Gurney’s after trying to order a glass of wine with his lunch. Maude refused at first but called Nick back a few months later. What would Maude Gurney think of the hotel’s methuselahs of rosé? Today, Gurney’s is one of the country’s largest sellers of the stuff, part of an ambitious food and beverage program that harkens back to the original restaurant, often referred to as “On the Brink O’ the Beach.” It opened before the introduction of any hotel rooms and was soon advertised as “the finest food that money will buy” in the East Hampton Star.

The restaurant was the priority for both Maude Gurney and Nick Monte, the latter of whom set about expanding the dining room (which he renamed “Skipper’s”) almost immediately after purchasing the hotel in 1956. When contractors finally tackled renovating the original building three years ago, they found green painted wood beams, likely sourced from the army barracks near the Montauk Lighthouse, and large burlap bags filled with dried seaweed in the roofing—a form of insulation that stayed lodged there for nearly a century, even as the resort around it expanded. Monte was also the Gurney’s owner who introduced the hotel’s Seawater Spa, in 1980. At the time, it was the first in the US to use thalassotherapy, pumping seawater into the 30,000-square-foot building for an indoor heated pool. In 2022, the hotel did a full renovation of the spa, adding cold plunge pools, reducing its 40 treatment rooms to 19 larger private spaces and installing rain showers and outdoor bathtubs to its open-air rooms.

Gurney’s’ 13-year-long renovations have also included a refresh of all the 158 guest rooms, suites, and beach cottages (where original exterior cedar shingles were moved to interior ceilings), and an expansion of the hotel’s Saint Tropez–inspired Beach Club. They concluded last summer with the opening of Gigi’s, the hotel’s new flagship restaurant, housed in the original Gurney’s restaurant location. Pulling from local purveyors, such as Amber Waves Farm and Balsam Farm Stand in Amagansett and Sagaponack’s Foster Farm, the restaurant focuses on fresh local produce and seafood. Its name is something of a portmanteau to honor Maude Gurney and the property’s most recent previous owner, George Filopoulos, bringing the hotel’s legacy full circle.

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