Weekend Utopia Revised and Expanded Edition: A Century of Modern Living in the Hamptons

by Alastair Gordon

An expanded new edition of this fascinating and lavishly illustrated landmark volume offers a guided tour of Hamptons history and the architects and personalities—artists and designers, eccentrics and dreamers—who transformed this once-sleepy rural outpost to the high-powered resort it is today.

“Weekend Utopia brings to vivid life a century in the architectural and social history of the East End.”   
– Best Books of 2001, New York Times Book Review

The Hamptons have long served as a release valve for the urban pressures of New York City. Weekend Utopia traces the competitive, often humorous, and always compelling development of this incandescently beautiful but maddeningly self-conscious seaside paradise. Journalist and critic Alastair Gordon looks behind the hype of this charmed seaside realm to reveal the true legacy of the Hamptons as an incubator of cutting-edge art, architecture, and lifestyle that has helped to redefine the very notion of American leisure.

This revised edition includes never-before-seen images and newly researched stories, an updated introduction, and an extensive new concluding chapter that brings the narrative into the present, demonstrating how the region's modernist legacy continues to influence and inspire the East End architecture and culture of today. 

Showcasing the artistic and architectural innovations of the Hamptons from the 1920s to the current day, Weekend Utopia ranges from the country clubs of the Social Register elite to the experimental houses and studios of avant-garde artists like Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell to the daring beachfront homes designed by the likes of Peter Blake, Andrew Geller, Philip Johnson, and George Nelson. An ideal gift for Hamptonites, architecture buffs, and beach lovers alike.

25th ANNIVERSARY The celebrated original edition of Weekend Utopia helped ignite the nationwide passion for midcentury modern. Gordon’s update expands the visuals and includes new anecdotes and projects to bring the content up to the present.

LAVISHLY The sumptuous coffee table book includes more than 420 color and black-and-white images, including sketches, architectural drawings, and photographs—many by the leading photographers of midcentury modernism.

INSIDE Thoroughly researched by critic and journalist Alastair Gordon, who has deep ties to the region and interviewed many of its prominent figures, this is a true insider’s perspective on the architecture, design, and stories behind the singular allure of the Hamptons.

Perfect and design historiansCollectors and fans of modern designHomeowners and visitors to the Hamptons, and all those who are drawn to its glamourLong Island history buffs

224 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication May 5, 2026

About the author

Alastair Gordon is an award-winning critic, curator, cultural historian and author whose work bridges art, architecture and the environment. For over twenty years he wrote for The New York Times and later became Contributing Editor for WSJ. Magazine, where he also created the popular “Wall-to-Wall” design blog. His essays have appeared in Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, Le Monde and Dwell, among others. The author of more than twenty-eight books, including Weekend Utopia, Naked Airport and Theater of Shopping, Gordon also co-founded Gordon de Vries Studio, an imprint devoted to books on the human environment. He has taught at Harvard University and received multiple honors for excellence in architectural criticism.