The Reform Club vs The Reluctant Panther
The Reform Club and the Reluctant Panther are, for travelers who've been to both, mentioned in the same breath. Both are small. Both are serious. Both reject the resort-hotel model entirely. Both have become quiet benchmarks for what "independent small luxury" looks like in the Northeast when done at full conviction.
They're also very different hotels, in very different places, serving very different weekends. Here's the honest comparison.
The one-sentence version
The Reform Club is a seven-room clubhouse in the middle of Amagansett. The Reluctant Panther is a 20-room Relais & Châteaux inn in Manchester Village, Vermont.
If that's all you needed to decide, you already know which fits. For everyone else:
The properties
The Reform Club is seven rooms in the middle of Amagansett, Long Island — a half-mile back from the beach, a block from the main commercial strip. The model is explicitly clubhouse: a small lobby that functions as a sitting room, a bar that's the social center of the building, a collection of rooms that feel more like private club accommodations than hotel rooms. The ownership has a private-club ethos even though the hotel itself is publicly bookable. Small, dense, urban-in-miniature.
The Reluctant Panther is a 20-room inn in Manchester Village, Vermont — a classic 19th-century New England mountain village. The hotel occupies a connected series of historic buildings around a main house, with a restaurant that holds Relais & Châteaux membership (the highest tier of small-luxury credentialing). The model is explicitly country inn: individual rooms in different buildings, long evenings in the restaurant, an innkeeper's posture about service.
The towns
Amagansett is a Hamptons village — smaller and quieter than East Hampton, more farm-adjacent than Montauk, with a main-drag cluster of restaurants and shops and a beach five minutes in either direction. In summer it's busy; in winter it's quiet but not closed. Real year-round population.
Manchester Village, Vermont is a historic New England mountain village at the foot of Mount Equinox — preserved wooden-sidewalked streets, the Equinox estate next door, outlet shopping on one end of town and serious restaurants on the other. Ski country (Bromley, Stratton both nearby). Smaller year-round population than Amagansett; more seasonally driven by ski and foliage weekends.
One is ocean-and-farm; the other is mountain-and-village. The towns themselves are a huge part of the choice.
The restaurants
The Reform Club's food-and-drink program is centered on its bar (which is where you'll spend most of your evening hours) plus cafes and restaurants a short walk away in Amagansett proper. The hotel is not a food destination in the Relais & Châteaux sense; it is a drinking-and-clubhouse destination.
The Reluctant Panther's restaurant is one of the reasons to book the hotel. The Relais & Châteaux membership is based on the restaurant as much as the accommodations. Plan to eat there. It's the weekend's anchor.
If food is the primary deciding vote: Reluctant Panther, clearly. If clubhouse atmosphere is the primary deciding vote: Reform Club, clearly.
The seasons
The Reform Club is busier in summer (Hamptons season) and quieter, but still operating, in shoulder and winter. Summer requires booking months in advance.
The Reluctant Panther is busier in fall foliage and ski season, and in its own shoulder. Summer weekends in Manchester are quieter than in Amagansett by a meaningful margin.
These are anti-phased, in a useful way. If Manchester is booked for fall foliage, Amagansett is quietly in its best weather. If Amagansett is impossibly booked in August, Manchester has availability.
The rooms
Reform Club rooms lean clubhouse-coded — darker palettes, layered textiles, a sense of being in a member's pied-à-terre rather than a hotel room. The size varies; some are compact in the small-luxury-European way.
Reluctant Panther rooms lean country-inn-luxury: larger on average, more traditional, fireplaces in many rooms, a more classical palette. If you want a room you'd actually want to spend extended morning hours in, the Panther usually wins on pure square footage and architectural warmth.
The price
Roughly comparable, with both hotels sitting in the $500-900 range for standard rooms in peak season, higher for suites. Reform Club peaks harder in summer; Reluctant Panther peaks harder in foliage.
The decision tree
Pick the Reform Club if:
- You want the Hamptons quietly — Amagansett, not Southampton or Montauk.
- Clubhouse atmosphere matters more than restaurant formality.
- You want to walk to dinner at multiple restaurants rather than eat at the hotel.
- A pool and a beach are close-by attractions.
- You're doing a shorter weekend (one or two nights).
Pick the Reluctant Panther if:
- The restaurant is a primary driver of the trip.
- You want classic New England country-inn hospitality.
- Mountain scenery matters more than ocean.
- You're pairing the stay with skiing, foliage, or Vermont specifically.
- You're doing a longer stay (two to four nights) where eating at the hotel every night sounds good.
The honest tiebreaker
For travelers doing a first small-luxury independent weekend in the Northeast, we'd lean toward the Reluctant Panther — simply because Manchester Village and the Green Mountain landscape are more visually distinctive than Amagansett's flatter geography, and the restaurant is a more complete experience.
For travelers who already know the Hamptons and want the small version, or who specifically want the clubhouse-energy model, the Reform Club is unmatched in what it does. There isn't really a direct equivalent anywhere else in the region.
For the specific weekend of "we're going for our anniversary and we want to be treated extremely well," either is right. The question is whether you want to be treated extremely well in a Vermont dining room (Panther) or at a Hamptons bar (Reform Club).
How they compare to the other small-luxury options
- Granville House (Great Barrington, Berkshires) — five rooms, Michelin Key, more food-focused and less clubhouse-coded than Reform Club; more relaxed than Reluctant Panther. A third alternative for the same kind of weekend.
- Troutbeck (Amenia, Hudson Valley) — larger, more literary, more estate-coded. For travelers who want the Panther's restaurant energy plus 250 acres of land.
- The Charlotte Inn (Martha's Vineyard) — the island Relais & Châteaux property. Closer in spirit to the Panther than to the Reform Club.