Long Island is looking like a goddamn Lisa Frank painting these days, with lavender gradient sunsets, sun-dappled apple orchards and…dolphins spyhopping in the shimmering sound. I can feel your skepticism. Wouldn’t dolphins have migrated south by now, like Citadel finance bros and Palm Beach princesses? Alas, bottlenoses have been sticking around later and later because of climate change. In recent days, they’ve been spotted off Shelter Island and Montauk. The latter is now one of the top spots for dolphin sightings in the U.S., alongside more southerly locations Chincoteague Island, Virginia. Alarming, but they sure are lovely.
In today’s delightfully free newsletter, the racy candidate for New York’s 1st Congressional District and Hamptons homo hero Chris Gallant gives THC an exclusive interview on his final days of canvassing. Also in this issue: Kelly Klein complains about a T-shirt to exactly the right person. And Vitamin Shoppe founder Jeffrey Horowitz’s Sagaponack spread is for sale—again.
From Bondage to Brookhaven
In the home stretch before the midterm elections, Chris Gallant has been waking up early to meet voters at LIRR stations. As any resident knows, the stations from Bay Shore to Bridgehampton are the crux of Long Island life, full of commuters on laptops, weekenders with rolling bags, and really annoying guys watching YouTube without headphones. For the 37-year-old Democratic nominee running against the incumbent Republican Nick LaLota in New York’s 1st Congressional District, it’s a savvy way to spend time six days before the election.
“We’ve even gone so far as to go bar hopping and meeting the younger crowd,” Gallant told me when we chatted yesterday. “I never thought it would work, but my team was like, yeah, you should go do this, and it’s been working.” He’s been to Southampton Public House and several bars in Huntington. He’s focusing more on the Smithtown, Brookhaven, and Huntington areas because, as he said, “Fortunately the East End is very blue.”
It’s a back-to-the-people approach for a candidate who’s become better known nationally for racy gay bondage photos taken for a fetish brand in his youth than anything else. After the New York Post ran a story in mid-September digging up the photos—which included one where he was penetrated from behind in a cage while wearing a muzzle—he didn’t flinch. He told The New York Times that he was “kinky” as [something stronger than “hell”] and ran a campaign saying he was making politics “sexy again.” New York magazine’s party reporter Brock Colyar spent a boozy night out on the town at Almond in Bridgehampton with Gallant. The gays told Colyar, “no one cares.”
“These have no bearing on my ability to serve my country,” Gallant told me. “I can still run into burning buildings faster than most people. I can still fly helicopters.” Gallant, a volunteer firefighter, flies Black Hawks for the New York Army National Guard and has deployed to Kuwait. “I owned it and moved on. We immediately pivoted right back to gas and groceries.”
Gallant’s platform revolves around classic blue principles: affordability, campaign finance transparency, opposing AI data centers (like one in Yaphank), protecting subsidized healthcare, promoting SALT relief, town halls, and storm infrastructure.
When I asked him about one of the hot-button issues on the East End, a work force dependent on immigrant labor, he said, “Watching this administration utilize ICE as a force that is essentially terrorizing our streets is completely unacceptable.”
As for the photos that made him a post-cancellation-era poster boy, he said, “I don’t know whether it helps or hurt, but it definitely got my name recognition up.”
The House that Vitamin Shoppe Built
Founder of Vitamin Shoppe Jeffrey Horowitz has again listed his Sagaponack compound on Fairfield Pond Lane, this time for $79 million, down from $89 million last summer. The estate, co-listed by Serhant and Compass, has been owned by the Horowitz family since the mid-’90s, when they began assembling the waterfront land for about $2.7 million. Vitamin Shoppe was sold to Bear Stearns’ private equity arm for about $300 million in 2002. Over time, the Horowitz family added on a sprawling basement level including a game room, and a 9-hole golf course, which would be difficult to cobble together in today’s more restrictive environment. I’ll give you one guess where Horowitz spends most of his time these days.
Kelly, Kelly, Kelly
“I always reference her no matter what,” says Tony Melillo, the founder and designer of ATM Collection, of his close friend Kelly Klein: “Kelly, Kelly, Kelly.” Klein, the ex-wife of Calvin Klein and author of “Pools,” is suddenly of interest to a new generation thanks to her portrayal (by Leila George) in FX’s surprise superhit show “Love Story” about JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. But to Melillo, she’s a forever muse and part of a Hamptons clique that also includes Jenny Landey and Aerin Lauder. Melillo and Klein designed The Kelly T-shirt because Klein was complaining that her friend’s T-shirts weren’t quite long enough.
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