Photos
So here's how you might spend a typical weekend at the house:
House members take a one-hour train from Penn Station to Bay Shore, where they then board a ferry for the 25-minute ride to Kismet. No need to bring anything other than casual clothes and a toothbrush.
It's a seven-minute walk from the bay to the Chance house on the ocean block. (Dated aerial view before the roofdeck vegetable and flower garden.)
Some make a beeline to cocktail it out in the jacuzzi...
But most people drop off their bags in their scheduled room (everyone knows where they're sleeping) before heading upstairs for a cocktail. There are two people to a room. (Check out our beds made from local, reclaimed lumber.)
Someone has signed up to cook dinner... (Frank and John slicing up ribs straight from the digital smoker.)
...which we usually eat out to the deck.
Knowing how to cook is not mandatory. Besides, someone has to do the dishes... Although many people have learned how to cook in the house by sous-cheffing for someone else.
We'e got guitars, drums, a keyboard for impromptu after-dinner jam sessions. Musicians/singers are highly encouraged.
After dinner, some people hang out on the deck playing music, or go to the bars or other houses that might be hosting a party, or for a nighttime stroll on the beach, or really any combo thereof.
You might want to do some late-night dancing or karaoke at The Out, or you might prefer to shoot a game of pool and just hang out at The Inn.
You can walk everywhere and the bars are close together, so you can find your friends without electronics or pixels. Everything is simple here, and it's nice to be able to leave your cell phone at home, or to turn it off altogether...
As some people have had a rough week and just want to go to bed, our quiet hours begin at 12:30. While other people have had a rough week and just want to go out until the bars close at 4 am, they can do that, too.
Another nice feature of being on the quieter, ocean block is that whenever you feel like cranking up the volume late-night, you can walk to the bars on the bayside. But after 12:30, anyone looking to party needs to go to the bars, the beach, or another house...
Following up an epicurean Friday night with Saturday morning chess and yoga before brunch.
Just another brunch out on the deck.
Sometimes people sign up to cook brunch, other times people just start frying bacon for whoever is around. Others might have gotten up early to eat something before going for a walk or a run, while others might still be asleep from the night before...
After brunch, people usually wander down to the beach. Which is really easy because...
We provide everything: Towels, chairs, umbrellas, sunscreen. We even have house beach hats. EVERYTHING.
We're only four houses from the beach, so it's easy to go back and forth. Often, someone will bring lunch down to the beach, maybe sandwiches, or hotdogs, or something repurposed from the night before. Lunch is not in any way structured and we are amazingly well stocked. People do whatever they feel like doing for lunch.
Your day at the beach might include a trash-talking game of Scrabble.
Or maybe you'd like to take out a house kayak. (We also have boogie boards and a surf board and tennis rackets for Kismet's private and public courts.)
Launching is easy on days when the surf is calm, whereas surfers and more advanced kayakers/boogie boarders like the rougher days.
Or you can go for an exploratory bike ride (we've got eight of 'em) to the lighthouse or another town.
Or maybe you'd like to go for a run. A few house members have even done marathon training on Fire Island.
If you'd like to go further, you can take a water taxi (these guys are waiting on the water taxi dock) anywhere on the island.
If you'd like some excercise, Ocean Beach is a 45-minute walk, or you can do the 25-minute bike-and-walk combo. (The main road gives out just before Ocean Beach.)
Ocean Bay Park, the Sunken Forest, and the gay towns are quite a bit further, though, and you'd probably want to getting on the water taxi to visit those towns. If you're feeling lazy or it's late, you can always water taxi it to Ocean Beach as well.
Around six o'clock, the cocktail hour gets underway and whoever has signed up to cook rounds up their sous chefs. Our well-equipped kitchen is where the fun and love begin.
And being in touch with your inner twelve-year-old is not just for men.
During the cocktail hour, there's a decent chance that you'll spot bucks prancing along the dune from the viewpoint of our deck.
Sometimes the deer come right up to the house.
But they can't get at our hanging tomatoes.
We grow many vegetables right up on the deck, as well as a nice array of fresh herbs for cooking.
Another shot of the deck overlooking the ocean and the federal preserve that borders the house to the east. (That's how close we are to the beach...)
That's one happy, raspberry-margarita-ing double-fister, priming for...
...Saturday night dinner.
Sunday is often a replay of Saturday: Brunch, lunch on the beach, everyone doing whatever they feel like doing...
Until it's time to head back..
...unless you're one of the smart ones who opt to stay over Sunday night and then take a ferry back on Monday morning. (The first one leaves at 6:20 and gets you to Penn Station by 8 am.)
Scheduled weekends begin on Friday morning, and then run through Monday evening, so it's easy to play it by ear. And hanging out and having cocktails at the beach while everyone else is clearing out feels like stolen time...
Meanwhile someone has begun cooking a smaller, Sunday night dinner, where a balsamic reduction might very well be drizzled...
...or maybe we'll get lobsters.
(The proper way to prepare lobster: 1. Hypnotize lobsters. 2. Eat lobster, grilled asparagas, grilled corn and sauvignon blanc out on deck.)
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So that's a typical weekend. Here's a few more pics of our more elaborate cooking and eating:
Our maiden effort with the Caja China, a pig-roasting box, on July 4. 1. At least one of us is smiling. 2. Injecting the mojo. 3. Carrying cooked pig over to the "carving station." If you're a vegetarian, this is probably not the house for you...
The Cajun Shrimp Boil. Poured out, before, and after sunset.
John Blesso invented the Bloody Gehry, an update on the traditional bloody mary mix served with deviled eggs, smoked salmon, bacon, soppressata, emmentaler cheese, shrimp, toast and olives. This is America and we deserve to have our entire brunch fitted onto the rim of our glass.