The beautiful, eastern coast of Long Island is home to luxurious mansions and high-end lifestyles that many people aspire to. But hidden away in Montauk, there’s a community that was once affordable for working-class people, but now only the rich and famous can afford to call it home. The Montauk trailer park was supposed to be a place for people who couldn’t afford the high prices of the Hamptons, but now the trailers cost as much as $20,000 a month to rent during the summer.
These mobile homes, which once sold for around $95,000, are now worth millions of dollars each. The trailers are in high demand because of their proximity to the Hamptons, where celebrities such as Beyoncé and Gwyneth Paltrow frequently vacation.
The Montauk Shore trailer park was built sixty-five years ago and was supposed to be a place for working-class people. But now, it’s owned by the rich and famous, including singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, Vitamin Water co-founder J Darius Bikoff, and producer Karen Lauder.
Recently, one of the trailers in the Montauk trailer park sold for $3.75 million, despite being just eight hundred square feet. The park is home to 152 individually owned lots and an additional forty-seven leased properties. However, the new owners do not actually live in the trailers. Instead, they use them as changing rooms and stopovers on trips to the beach. This has caused frustration among locals and the working-class people of the Hamptons, who are being priced out of their homes.
Montauk Shore resident Kathy Pare spoke out about the changes to her community, telling the New York Post:
“When you read about the history of Montauk, it was a village of the workers. Now, they’re being priced out and pushed out. When we first moved here, it was a much tighter community. On the weekends, we’d have parties, karaoke, and hang out with our neighbors — now, since a lot of people moved out, we have a lot of renters. They can get loud at night because they’re there to party. You don’t get to know people for a long period of time. They don’t respect the rules.”
The trailer park is now considered to be one of Montauk’s best-kept secrets, but its secret is slowly fading as more and more people catch on to its marketable location. The rich and famous are buying out the working-class people, driving up prices so much that people can no longer afford to live in the area.
Despite its high prices and the changes to its community, the Montauk trailer park still has a certain charm. The trailers are considered to have a “shabby chic” style, and tourists are willing to pay high prices just to be able to say they stayed there.
The park is a reminder of the way things used to be in Montauk, and although it may never be the same again, it’s still a special place that holds a lot of memories for the people who call it home.
Source: AWM
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