September 23, 2026

Deep-Dive: The Reform Club — The Hamptons' Anti-Gurney's

The Hamptons hotel that remembers everyone's name

Somewhere between Amagansett's Main Street and the ocean, The Reform Club sits on a small lot that used to hold a different kind of building. Seven rooms. A bar that opens in the afternoon. A courtyard with a pool. A front-of-house staff that — from the moment you check in to the moment you leave — operates as though you're a member of an actual club you didn't realize you'd joined.

Related: see our newer guide on Deep-Dive: The Menhaden — Inside the North Fork's First Michelin Key.

This is not a new-old observation. The Reform Club has been trading on the club-without-the-gate premise since it opened. But it's worth writing about at length because the premise has held up — and the category of hotel it represents (genuinely small, genuinely independent, designed to feel like a clubhouse rather than a hotel) is getting rarer everywhere on the East End.

What's there

Seven rooms. Built into a 1900s Greek Revival structure with a pitched roof and shingle siding. The rooms are quietly done — Refined Americana, in our taxonomy, with the navy-and-linen palette and the antique-meets-contemporary furnishing that reads British-club-without-the-hunting-scenes.

A courtyard bar and pool. The bar is the social core of the operation. It's not enormous — maybe twenty seats inside, another fifteen on the patio — but the drink program is serious and the crowd is usually a mix of guests and returning regulars who've treated the Reform Club as their Amagansett base for years.

A small gym. A reading room. No restaurant proper — dinner is either at one of Amagansett's restaurants (Nick & Toni's, Estia's Little Kitchen, the Reform Club's own casual bar menu) or ordered in.

The "club" premise

The Reform Club describes itself, informally, as a private-club-style hotel. That doesn't mean members-only or gated — you can book a room like any other hotel. It means that the operating philosophy is closer to a clubhouse than a hospitality venue. Staff know your name quickly. Staff know which drink you had last time. Staff know your dog's name.

The effect, practically: a three-day stay feels more like staying at a wealthy friend's house in Amagansett than like a transactional hotel stay. The scale (seven rooms) makes this possible. At 30 rooms, this kind of intimacy breaks. At seven, it holds.

Staff-to-guest ratio is part of the trick. But more of it is operational choice — the Reform Club doesn't try to run every service a larger hotel runs, so the staff that exists can focus on knowing the guests.

Who runs it

The Reform Club is independently owned and run by a single ownership group — not Lark, not Faraway, not Main Street Hospitality, not Auberge. Within our ≤5-property rule for independent coverage, the Reform Club is comfortably inside.

That matters because the "club hotel" format is the kind of concept that doesn't travel well. Try to run a Reform Club in three locations, and by the third you've broken the operating intimacy. The category is self-limiting.

Who it suits

Couples on a third or later Hamptons trip. If you've already done Southampton's hotels and East Hampton's main options, the Reform Club is the introduction to the more specific, harder-to-find Hamptons experience.

Guests who travel without kids. It's not officially adults-only (unlike Baker House 1650) but the operational feel is decidedly adult. A stroller in the courtyard would feel wrong.

Repeat customers. This is the hotel you book three times a year, not once. The club format compounds — the second stay is noticeably different from the first because the staff already knows you.

People who prefer bars to restaurants. If your ideal Hamptons afternoon is a long drink at a well-run bar rather than a tasting-menu dinner, the Reform Club's rhythm fits you.

Who it doesn't suit

First-time Hamptons visitors. You don't yet know what the alternatives are. Book Topping Rose House or The Roundtree Amagansett first, get the lay of the land, come back to Reform Club on a later trip.

Families. Not suited to children. See above.

Travelers who want full hotel amenities. No spa. No full restaurant. No concierge-level programming. The Reform Club is deliberately stripped-back of the services you'd expect at a 50-room hotel.

Travelers on a tight budget. Peak-season rates run $900-1,400 a night. Off-peak drops meaningfully but still sits at the higher end of the category.

What the Reform Club gets right that other Hamptons hotels don't

The single most distinctive thing about the Reform Club is that it has, for its entire operating history, resisted the temptation to scale. It could have added ten rooms on the back lot. It could have opened a full restaurant. It could have added a second property in East Hampton or Sag Harbor. It has done none of these things.

That restraint is the thing. The Reform Club is one of the few Hamptons hotels that has deliberately chosen to stay small enough to remain itself. Most hotels, when they hit product-market fit, expand. The Reform Club appears to have decided — and the ownership operationally proves this — that the fit is the size.

How it compares

Against Baker House 1650: Baker House has six rooms, adults-only, a proper spa, a more historical/literary aesthetic (Tudor building, 1650 construction). Both are small-scale. Baker House is more atmospheric; Reform Club is more social. Pick Baker House for a quieter couple's weekend, Reform Club for a more social one.

Against The Roundtree Amagansett: Roundtree has 21 cottages on two acres, a different scale entirely. Quieter, more architectural, more "retreat." Pick Roundtree if you want space; Reform Club if you want density.

Against Zey Hotel: Zey is ten rooms in Southampton, art-forward, different energy. Pick Zey if the Southampton art scene is your interest; Reform Club if you're specifically Amagansett-focused.

Against Gurney's Montauk: completely different categories. See our Montauk Lighthouse hotels guide for why Gurney's isn't in our editorial coverage.

The reservations reality

Peak July-August: essentially impossible without 90-plus days of advance notice. September-October weekends: 30-60 days out. Winter: ample availability, and the Reform Club in a quiet February with the fireplace going is, weirdly, one of the best versions of the hotel.

One honest thing

The Reform Club charges club-hotel prices, and in exchange, it runs at a club-hotel level of attention. That exchange works for a specific kind of traveler. If you're the kind who notices when the same staff member pours your drink on your fourth visit, the Reform Club's price is worth it. If you treat hotels as interchangeable overnight stays between restaurants, it isn't, and you should stay somewhere less effortful.

Within its category — small, deliberate, independent, clubby without pretense — the Reform Club is the best version of the format on the East End. Book it when you're ready to become a repeat guest rather than a one-time one.