Retro drive-in motels are catnip for property investors and would-be hoteliers. It’s no secret why: You can do them up on the cheap. Step 1: Fill with mass-produced, mid-century-style furniture. Step 2: Add some quirky-cute, retro-coded decor to the rooms (check out that record player!). Step 3: Craft a cocktail bar (extra points if it’s Tiki). And step 4, the most important one: Triple the rates.
Those kitsch motel-makeovers are fine, fun, Instragrammable and attract a cool, young crowd. But they’re a dime a dozen. So what if you did it differently? What if you poured your heart, soul, branding-knowhow and much more money into a 1950s roadside motel that had seen much better days? Well, then you’d get Three Ducks.
The newest boutique hotel to arrive ahead of the Hamptons summer season, bookings at this complete reimagining of the 1956-built Westhampton Seabreeze Motel launch today, owners Randall Stone and Elizabeth Bakhash told the Post exclusively.
“Westhampton has gone through a renaissance,” says Stone. “It captures a little bit more of that laidback execution of luxury,” chimes in Backhash.
But these Westhampton-boosters and longtime business collaborators are first time hotel operators, who only got into the game via a bit of kismet. Stone, a resident of Remsenburg, had been driving by the motel for years, even using it occasionally for overflow guests. So when the for sale sign hit the lawn last year, it seemed like destiny.
“He called me and was like, ‘This is a crazy thing, but should we do it?’” Backhash recalls. “We drove out the next day and we immediately saw the opportunity.”
For years, the duo had worked together as brand and experience consultants for companies as varied as Samsung, Audi, IHG and Hyatt. Stone had originally trained as an architect. Backhash joined a real estate development group with hotels such as The William in its portfolio. Their backgrounds gave them insight, they say, into how to do hospitality and design right. They purchased the 12-room motel in April 2024; it was asking $2.5 million.
“We just knew that this parcel, which was on set on this 1.6 acres, which is really quite beautiful, could turn into a boutique hotel in a market that is underserved,” says Backhash.
Set back off off the Montauk Highway in the heart of Westhampton (19 Seabreeze Ave. to be precise), just an hour and a half from the city, eight minutes from the beach and a few minutes from the center of town, there isn’t a similar hotel for miles. But the parking lot-fronted, bar-shaped building was worse for wear and painfully dated.
To bring it back to life they removed the unsightly parking lot and re-clad the structure in environmentally friendly Thermowood. They built a new building, dubbed the Barn, that serves as a reception area and gathering point. Their vision was to create a garden-like environment, and in pursuit of that each room now was given its own outdoor garden sitting area. Meanwhile a wildflower meadow flanks the building with a large fire-pit gathering area. The Three Ducks name references the local waterfowl that roam the area and the area’s history of duck farming — as well as the famed 1930s Big Duck monument that is just up the road in Flanders.
“It’s a place that everyone can kind of come around to in the evening after spending a day at the beach or in town,” says Stone.
Inside, the motel was striped to the studs; nothing of the original stayed. Even the roof went so that the ceilings in each of the rooms could be vaulted. Overize picture windows give a landscape view of the private gardens with built-in window benches. To bring the outside in, they selected ash flooring for its attractive natural grain and headboards covered in Arda knitted upholstery fabric by Swedish studio Front for Kvadrat that looks and feels like moss. The bathrooms feature hand-cut tone-on-tone tiles. And to ensure that the rooms never feel cramped with bulky luggage they designed a unique amenity: “beautiful and ample storage units so that guests are able to put everything away and embrace a more minimalist mindset,” says Backhash, an avid traveler whose pet peeve is that most hotel rooms never have quite enough storage. “One of the things that we want Three Ducks to do is help people reflect and reconnect with nature and with themselves. So having a place for their things is part of that.”
“We’ve gone through a painstaking design process, where, honestly, every decision has felt like life or death to us,” she adds.
Still, this design-obsessed duo have no intention of playing Basil Fawlty and they know that to please the persnickety clientele of the East End, their hotel’s success will hinge on service. To make sure they hit the mark, they’ve tapped Joseph Montag of five-star Bridgehampton hotspot Topping Rose House as their general manager.
Even so, they emphasize that the hotel is about relaxation and not the flashier, fussier, frankly exhausting elements of the Hamptons lifestyle. Think of it like a North Fork-approach to the South Fork.
So don’t come expecting a bustling restaurant or a boisterous bar (although they have applied for a liquor license). Instead, The Market will be onsite selling drinks, local savory boards, sweet snacks, merchandise, bits of the room decor, as well as The Flamingo Estate bath amenities from your room. A light breakfast of fruit, coffee and local pastries & jams is served in the Barn. Amenities sum up to bicycles for rides to the beach and a house Moke for rent.
But should all this serenity start to make you itch for that other the Hamptons, the one with the diamond watches and daringly low necklines, full concierge service is available to make your reservation dreams come true.
“It’s a celebration of the land and a return to more simple, meaningful experiences,” says Backhash. “It’s just an easy, beautiful, laidback luxury getaway.”
Prices range from $495 per night on weekdays to $795 on weekends.
