Montauk was the oceanfront property Andy Warhol bought in partnership with Paul Morrissey in 1971, and a setting that repeatedly joined private retreat to public business. Its main lodge-like house, three smaller cottages, and the caretaker’s home gave it room for guests, renters, and film crews, but also made it a continuing responsibility: the owners sought tenants, discussed repairs and equipment, and weighed the income against the costs of running the place. The diary’s Montauk is therefore not simply an escape to the seaside. It is a beautiful house that must be maintained, rented, and repeatedly fitted around the people who gather there.

Property and Practical Management

The property’s scale shaped the business of keeping it useful. In June 1977, Vincent Fremont was showing Montauk to Louis Malle in hopes of finding a renter. The proposed terms distinguished sharply between the main house and the cottages: the main house might bring in $4,000 a month for July and August, or $26,000 for six months, while the smaller cottages were discussed at $2,000 a month. The figures show the owners trying to make several buildings earn income, not merely find one tenant for a single vacation home.

Finding renters was not straightforward. The rocky shore made swimming difficult, and some prospective tenants considered Montauk too far away. The diary’s blunt assessment that the place was not for sissies registers a contrast between its appeal and its inconvenience: the remoteness and rugged shoreline that belonged to its beauty could also deter visitors. Bianca Jagger was a possible renter, and the timing of any other rental remained uncertain while the owners considered whether she wanted the place.

The caretaker’s circumstances made maintenance concrete. Mr. Winters wore a Bad T-shirt and a Rolling Stones denim jacket while tending the property. His Jeep was so worn that a door hinge served as its accelerator pedal; he even showed Vincent a magazine clipping claiming Andy bought himself a new car every year, evidently to strengthen his case for a replacement. Andy then tried to arrange a Toyota for him. Mr. Winters was delighted when told a new Jeep was coming, while his wife, Millie, was trying to persuade him to move to Florida. Vincent worried that they might lose him. The vehicle was more than a convenience: the exchange shows how the property’s upkeep depended on the people who lived and worked there, and how their attachment could not be taken for granted.

Tenants, Negotiations, and the Owners’ Return

Montauk’s rental plans shifted among prospective tenants. In June 1977, Andy and Jed Johnson drove out while the owners were considering renting the property to François de Menil or Earl McGrath. Later, Paul Morrissey called about Robert De Niro potentially renting it. Paul favored offering him a low price to secure the rental, while Andy argued that the owners should raise the price because the existing arrangement did not bring in enough to cover the property’s operation. The disagreement made the central problem explicit: attracting a desirable tenant was not the same as making the house financially sustainable.

Halston became another renter, creating an unusual reversal in Andy’s relationship to the house. In 1981, Halston invited Andy out on his rented plane, and Andy remarked on the peculiar pleasure of being invited to his own house by the person renting it: he could feel at home while still making money. He brought Chris Makos and Jon Gould along. On arrival, however, Halston’s surprised response to seeing Chris dampened the mood for both Chris and Andy, despite Andy having told people at Halston’s about the guest. The visit exposed the difference between ownership and control: Montauk remained Andy’s property, but its life as Halston’s rented house could make even an invited visit socially uncertain.

The landscape still provided a powerful counterweight to the business concerns. On that 1981 visit, Andy noted a fruit stand local people had set up at the entrance to the property and found it tacky, but otherwise described everything as unchanged and beautiful. The observation holds together two scales of attention that recur in the diaries: the larger appeal of the setting and the small interruptions at its edge.

A Social World at the House

Montauk became a place where visitors moved between the beach, the house, and the surrounding social circuit. During one stay in June 1977, Vincent was surfing while Andy stood by the beach and encountered Dick Cavett walking a large dog. After they talked, Andy invited him to lunch. Peter Beard arrived with Margrit Rammè, who kissed him in front of his former girlfriend Barbara Allen; the two women nevertheless got along. The scene is characteristic of Montauk as the diary presents it: an informal outdoor setting in which friendships, former relationships, and new encounters became visible without the formality of a city gathering.

The house could also fill quickly. In early July, a group at Montauk included Jan Cushing, Jackie Rogers, François de Menil, Jennifer Jakobson, and Barbara Allen. Mick Jagger had moved over from Peter Beard’s place and spent time with Barbara in one of the bedrooms. In another recollection of a stay, Bob Colacello reported that Catherine Guinness had driven him crazy while he was there. These brief accounts do not turn the property into a single, fixed social scene; instead, they show a succession of changing guests, with the house accommodating overlapping friendships and frictions.

The property also appears in photographs as a place of meals, domestic interiors, and beach life. A caption identifies Steve Aronson and his Newfoundland, Magnus, on the Montauk beach in 1974. Other photographs in the same group place Bianca Jagger and Dick Cavett at lunch on the back lawn, and Elizabeth Taylor in the kitchen of the main house in 1976. Together, the images extend the diary’s written record: Montauk was not only a destination for weekend visits but a setting where prominent guests occupied ordinary spaces such as the lawn and kitchen.

Filming and Creative Work

In 1978, Montauk became a location for the filming of Cocaine Cowboys. Andy had been due to travel there to play himself interviewing Jack Palance, though the schedule changed. When he later made the trip with Catherine Guinness, they brought steak sandwiches from Burger King for Mr. Winters and Millie, along with an abstract Shadow painting and copies of Interview. Andy thought Millie might prefer the magazines to the sandwiches and Mr. Winters the sandwiches to the painting. He also tried to persuade Mr. Winters to appear in the film, but the caretaker declined. The exchange brings the movie production into the everyday life of the property: guests arrived to shoot, while the people who lived there remained free to participate or refuse.

There were many young people at the house, and twenty were out filming when Andy arrived, with more still around. Ulli Lommel and his wife, Sukey Love, joined the group; the production also involved Tom Cashin and Palance. The visitors stayed at a yacht-club hotel that Andy found unpleasant and that Palance had left after objecting to its rudeness. After dinner, the group went to a movie house in Southampton to watch footage from the previous day. Andy noted airplane shots, Palance, Tom, and the band, and observed that the film seemed to be introducing Tom’s band. The setting thus served both as a filming base and as part of a broader production itinerary, extending from Montauk to Southampton.

Montauk’s cultural life was not limited to that film. Earl McGrath discussed the cover of the Rolling Stones album Andy was working on, including whether writing should appear on it. The house and beach brought together the business of art and music, the work of film crews, and the less organized life of guests and visitors. The property functioned as both a retreat and a working environment, without keeping those roles neatly separate.

Development, Privacy, and a Changing Place

The property’s future also touched local concerns about development. In November 1983, Andy told a neighbor from the second house beyond his own that he planned a large earthwork with parked trailers. He was joking, but the neighbor took the proposal seriously and was upset, explaining that he had spent $20,000 trying to stop condominiums. Andy expected that the neighbor might send him a bill. Their exchange places the property within a changing neighborhood, where development was not an abstract issue but a source of substantial local expense and immediate tension. The mention of Lauren Hutton and Paul Simon building houses further suggests that the area was attracting well-known new residents, though the diary gives no fuller account of those projects.

Montauk also provided a setting for private encounters that could be concealed even within the shared social world. In 1982, Andy arrived after a forty-five-minute flight and got into Halston’s new car. Bianca was at the property but was pretending not to be; Jon later saw her on the beach, where she made him promise not to reveal the encounter because she was with Chris Dodd, a senator from Connecticut who was divorcing his wife. The beach, usually associated in the diary with open air and casual sociability, here became a place where a meeting had to be kept secret. That contrast captures the property’s wider role in the diaries: Montauk offered distance from the city, but its guests carried their relationships, obligations, and tensions with them.