East Falmouth served as the home base for a May 1981 Cape Cod trip whose pleasures and disappointments became inseparable. The group toured Peter Wise’s house and the surrounding area, shared meals and excursions, and waited for friends to arrive; by the return flight from nearby Hyannis, Warhol felt that the trip had brought no progress with Jon Gould. The place thus appears not simply as a coastal retreat but as the setting for a hoped-for change in their relationship that did not come.

Arrival and the House

On May 22, Warhol, Jon Gould, and Christopher Makos flew from New York to East Falmouth, where Peter Wise was waiting. The plane cost about $800, which Warhol paid by check. Peter took them through his house, including its greenhouse, and the visitors settled into assigned rooms. Vincent Fremont and Shelly planned to come after work, so the group spent the day and night waiting for them; they eventually arrived after an eight-hour drive, although the journey was expected to take five.

The surrounding water supplied an immediate image of the trip’s relaxed possibilities: Warhol noticed a large, partly painted boat that struck him as pretty and eccentric, and imagined it as a place for a party. Peter and Christopher Makos then showed the visitors around town. Peter bought chowder at Mildred’s Chowder House in Hyannis, which the diary reports was said to serve the best chowder in New England.

Excursions Around Cape Cod

The next day began late, around eleven, with apple pancakes—called “applejacks” in the diary—made by Peter, served with real maple syrup and bacon. The party drove to a flea market in Mashpee and visited the Thornton Burgess Museum, named for the writer of Peter Cottontail. Christopher Makos bought Wonder Bread, which they used to feed swans and ducks.

At Sandy Neck, they stopped at a fried-clam place for lunch. The group ate fried clams and fried fish with ketchup, alongside milkshakes and frappes; the bill, including the tip, was $35. The diary also records that the party retraced the route associated with Ted Kennedy’s accident and concluded that he was guilty. Together, these outings give the visit its itinerary: house and town, museum and wildlife, then a coastal meal, with a more serious excursion folded into the holiday.

Departure and the Unfulfilled Hope

The trip ended with a flight from Hyannis to LaGuardia on May 25. Before returning, Jon called his family in Amesbury and told the group that his grandfather had suffered a stroke and his dog had relapsed; rather than fly back with them to New York, he asked to be dropped off in Amesbury. The separation sharpened Warhol’s disappointment. He had hoped the trip would bring progress with Jon, but concluded that it had not, while Jon had gone to visit family who, as Warhol put it, adored him.

On the return flight, Warhol described the plane as suddenly flipping over and wrote that he did not care if they were killed, so unhappy was he. The diary’s account then marks a consequence of the trip that extended beyond the journey: after Jon objected to Warhol writing personally about him and threatened to stop seeing him if it continued, Warhol said he would no longer discuss him privately in the diary, presenting him instead as someone working for Paramount Pictures with whom he was pursuing scripts and films. East Falmouth therefore remains tied to a failed hope for intimacy and to a new boundary around what the diary could record.