KDHamptons recently caught up with our old NYC friend, author and magazine journalist, Amy Spencer, who is living the good life between Montauk and Venice, California! After working as a magazine editor in New York for a decade, Amy now writes celebrity cover stories and features in Los Angeles for magazines including: Glamour, Health, Seventeen, Real Simple, In Style UK, and Harper’s Bazaar. Her compelling interview subjects run the gamut: from Katie Perry, Justin Bieber, Amy Adams, to Bradley Cooper, Eva Longoria, Kanye West and many more…

 

Spencer is also the author of two happiness books: Bright Side Up: 100 Ways to be Happier Right Now that was recommended by Oprah this year; and Meeting Your Half-Orange, about using dating optimism to find your other half in love~ which she did with artist husband Gustavo Albero [below]!

 

 

Amy tells KDH, “Montauk, to me, is pure magic. It feels like stepping back in time. I breathe deeper, feel calmer, and can write for hours looking out the back picture window.” Always an authentic character, Amy invites KDH readers to sneak a peek into her East End lifestyle below……

 

KDHamptons: What do you love most about the East End?

Amy Spencer: It just astounds me how much we have here at our fingertips with the ocean, bays, ponds and beaches. In Montauk, we go biking, clamming, fishing, stand-up paddle boarding, kayaking, horseback riding, and do clambakes and bonfires on the beach. Then winter comes and we get snowy hiking trails and harbor seals sunbathing on the rocks. It’s a year’s worth of vacation wrapped up in one perfect town!

 

 

KDHamptons: How long have you been coming to the Hamptons?

AS: I was born in Sea Cliff, Long Island, so I’ve been coming to the Hamptons since I was a kid. But I’ve had a house year-round in Montauk for 12 years, which I now share with Todd Bush, the best hairstylist on the East End!

 

 

KDH: Please describe your Hamptons home and decorating style? Favorite item in the home?

AS: Our house is fisherman chic! It’s a small shack called Captain Dusty’s, named after its former owner, with wood-paneled walls, a basement full of fishing rods, and a shelf of books that hasn’t been touched since the 50’s. For me as a writer, the history of the house is endlessly inspiring. My friend, Spotted Pig owner Ken Friedman, also loved it so much, he used the house as inspiration for The Rusty Knot in New York…

 

 

…Our décor additions are all modern ones, like the Montauk landscape and underwater photographs all over the house by the amazing art photographer and my friend, Phillip Graybill [above]. My favorite item is probably our T-shirt silkscreen collection. We make a new summer T-shirt every year and the well-used, wood-framed screens dotted with paint splatters are art in themselves.

 

 

KDH: What makes your Montauk home so special?

AS: Our backyard is a private oasis surrounded by grape leaves, with the scent of the sea and nothing but the sound of birds and the occasional buzz of small planes taking off from the Montauk airport. And at night, we all get the darkest, starriest skies.

 

KDH: How do you spend your “down-time” between writing books?

AS: Between books, I post regularly on my site TheLifeOptimist.com and send out a “Vitamin Optimism” email with a positive life practice to try each week. Writing is both my work and my hobby, and it flows best out here.

 

 

KDH: Personal style: do you have a Hamptons “uniform”? Which designer do you wear the most out East?

AS: My Hamptons uniform is pretty simple: I’m always wearing a bathing suit—usually a Kushcush bikini—because I love a spontaneous swim in the ocean or bay [or your pool if you’ll have me], and I want to be ready for it. Then it’s either a sundress or a pair of shorts and a tank, with a J. Crew label on me somewhere. But sometimes I’ll just open the dresser and throw on something I tucked in there ten years ago and forgot about!

 

 

…I also wear a lot of local gear: A hat from Air and Speed, my beach tote from The Whalebone Creative, maybe a T-shirt from the best-named spot in town, The Munch Box, which has some of the best fried chicken and clams in town. And I always carry a Montauk hoodie with me for when the sun goes down.

 

KDH: What is your favorite Hamptons restaurant, got a favorite dish & drink you get every time?

AS: My number one, the-tide-will-stop-if-I-don’t-have-it is the smoked marlin dip at St. Peter’s Catch. We’ll make olive-oil drizzled bread rounds, and [after burning the first batch of rounds and making ourselves a second] we top each one with marlin dip and a pickled jalapeno from the market. Smoky, spicy, tangy and crunchy…it’s an astounding bite. But a summer is also not complete without a Herb’s chicken cutlet sandwich, some of Frieda’s pulled pork tacos at The Hideaway, and a tuna melt at The Dock. My favorite dish out is sharing some seafood bruschetta at Harvest with friends, ideally at a table on the patio that’s landscaped by local Dee Quinn and feels like you’re sitting in a fairytale.

 

 

KDH: Describe your perfect Hamptons day in detail?

AS: Ooh, this is fun! Okay, I wake up early to the scent of fresh-baked bread we pre-made in the bread machine [and ideally didn’t forget to put the mixing paddle back in after we last cleaned it, which leaves us with a lump of inedible dough]. But it’s a perfect day, so the bread is steaming good! With my coffee, I write for three hours while everyone gets their morning on…

 

 

….Then we toast our fresh bread and top it with ripe tomatoes from the garden for breakfast. I head to Ditch Plains where I swim in the ocean, watch the surfers, and flip through The Montauk Sun to find good reasons why those four-million-dollar houses for sale really aren’t right for me anyway. For lunch, I hit the Westlake Clam and Chowder House and sit at the bar with Nick for a Corona, a dozen clams, and a bowl of New England Clam Chowder or a sushi roll. Then I read in the hammock, take a dip in my friend Pam’s pool, or grab paddleboards and head out onto the bay on Navy Road...

 

 

….For sunset, we hit the Montauket to applaud the setting sun. Then we make dinner at home, open a few bottles of wine and play board games or get our dance on at “Club Rug” in our living room under the disco ball. To end the perfect day, I’d make a quick stop at Liar’s for a beer overlooking the moonlit harbor. Then I’d sleep well so I could wake up and do it all over again.

 

KDH: Do you like to entertain at home? Who cooks? What’s your “go-to” dinner plan?

AS: We love a group cook at Captain Dusty’s: One person shucks corn while another chops garlic, etc. My favorite dinner actually starts at 8 a.m. when we head out fishing on The Flying Cloud, which we do once every week or two. Captain Fred E. Bird brings the boat out to the lighthouse where we fish to the sound of old jazz music and Captain Neil Nixon filets our fluke, porgy or sea bass…

 

 

 

 

…For dinner, it’s fish tacos: We sauté our fresh-caught fish and make homemade pico de gallo and black bean salsa, then set out corn tortillas, cilantro, onion and lime and a few bottles of hot sauce and cold beer. It is beach meal perfection!

 

KDH: What is your little secret about the Hamptons?

AS: My secret is that I stumble on a new secret every year, because this town just never ends! I love getting lost in it. This year, it was biking the dirt road trail of the former Old Montauk Highway from Deep Hollow Ranch through Camp Hero and along the bluffs to the Montauk Lighthouse. I love sitting on the rocks at Montauk Point with a picnic to watch the waves and surfcasters before pedaling back.

 

 

KDH: Do you have one new summer purchase you have been obsessed with?

AS: There’s no working television in the house, so we play a lot of cards and games, and every year we add a new one. This year it was Catch Phrase, which we’ve been playing for hours and hours…and hours at a time. One afternoon this summer, we got so into it, we took the game in the car with us so we could keep playing on our way to dinner. Yep, “obsessed” about says it.

 

KDH: Which new restaurant/pop up have you liked most this summer?

AS: I like Swallow East for its laid-back vibe and live reggae during the week, and Moby Dick’s, which borrows part of the Rick’s Crabby Cowboy space. There’s nothing like having a drink on the harbor with your feet in the sand…

 

KDH: If you could invite three people to Captain Dusty’s for dinner [dead or alive], whom would you choose?

AS: I’ll go with Steve Martin, Tina Fey and positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which should make for a fascinating and funny conversation. And I think they’d appreciate the petrified fish staring at them from the walls while we eat!

 

KDH: Name one thing you would NEVER do in the Hamptons?

AS: Wear high heels. The beach, to me, is about being barefoot, or as close to it as you can get!

 

 

 

KDH: Who would be your ultimate dream interview [dead or alive]?

AS: Boy, I would have loved a sit down with Nora Ephron, who also had a place in the Hamptons. From page one of Heartburn, I was hooked on her. It would have been amazing to hear about her writing process and see her brilliant mind at work in person.

 

KDH: Share some scoop on a current writing project?

AS: I’m planning a third book on happiness and still working on a novel I only write when I’m in Montauk; it’s been five years in the making and still needs a few summers’ work on it, yet. Ironic that I haven’t reached “The End” at The End? Aw shucks, guess I’ll have to keep coming out here to finish it!

 

 

KDH: Who was your favorite person to interview and why?

AS: As for my favorite interview, that’s tough, there have been so many good ones. I adored talking to Queen Latifah, who was smart as a whip and funny as all get out. It’s a bonus when I get to walk away from an interview like that being personally inspired while also getting the story. And interviewing The Biebs was fun, mostly because of how bananas my friends’ kids went over it! Joan Rivers was hysterical….

 

 

…I also love talking to people with a Montauk connection, like Christina Ricci, who told me about her childhood years on East Lake Drive and Rebecca Romijn, who spends time out here with her husband’s family. And the hilarious Emma Stone said the weeks she spent out here filming Paper Man in Montauk were some of the best of her life. Really, I think anyone who spends a decent amount of time out here feels the exact same way!