The Hedges Inn will rise as a hotel again.
Photo: Shutterstock
The threat of a Zero Bond outpost in East Hampton has passed like a cloud, and life there is cheery again. At least, to the neighbors terrified that Eric Adams’s favorite nightclub would, after a brief and contentious experiment this summer, take over the 1873 Hedges Inn and bring with it more noise, traffic, and possibly Kardashian types. Scott Sartiano’s short-lived night club turned restaurant closed in September and is now vanquished for good.
On Tuesday, Women’s Wear Daily reported that the hotel has sold to a couple that the town seems to agree will be a wonderful fit: New owners Sarah and Andrew Wetenhall run the similarly quaint 1947 Colony Hotel on West Palm Beach — a boutique off the beach painted pink, with rooms decorated in Lily Pulitzer tropicals. The Wetenhalls say the idea of buying the bed-and-breakfast came about quite organically: They’re friends with the owner of the Hedges and “very much part of the Hamptons community.” The pair also has a home in Sag Harbor — where Sarah sits on the Ladies Village Improvement Society, the East Hampton Historical Society, and the board of the Southampton Hospital Foundation.
Their plans for the hotel are just as conservative: serve three meals a day, with nightlife offerings limited to trivia. (“It’s a big hit” at the Colony, Sarah Wetenhall told the reporter.) They also say they will close this fall to update rooms — but don’t call it a renovation. “I think that’s frankly too big of a word,” she told Women’s Wear Daily.