Rainy Day
The East End under a roof.
Galleries, museums, libraries, indoor pools, spas and the handful of wineries with a real tasting room. Grouped by who you are with: 228 places in all.
With the kids
Hands-on, built for kids
3
The two East End museums built around exhibits a child touches rather than a room they are asked to be quiet in.
Sag Harbor Custom House
Historic House · Sag Harbor
Henry Packer Dering's house, the first federal customs house on Long Island. The interior is furnished the way a Dering family day would have looked in 1800. Run by Preservation Long Island.
Libraries
15
Free, warm, open to anyone who walks in, and thirteen of these fifteen run a children's story hour.
John Jermain Memorial Library
Library · children's story hour · Sag Harbor
The most beautiful library on the East End, and the easiest to use: quiet study carrels under the dome, Wi-Fi that doesn't ask for a password, and a temporary card at the desk if you have a lease. Open past 7pm four nights a week.
East Hampton Library
Library · children's story hour · East Hampton
One of the most beautiful libraries on Long Island, with a serious local-history archive on the second floor and comfortable reading rooms that stay open late. Temporary cards are issued same-day to anyone with a lease.
Indoor pools
5
The East End has very few of these: five, all open to non-residents on a day pass.
Bookstores
2
Two independents, both carrying a children's section along with everything else.
Without the kids
Galleries, museums & historic houses
90
Room after room out of the weather: commercial galleries, art museums, and the historic houses whose interiors are furnished, not just preserved.
Parrish Art Museum
Museum · Water Mill
The Herzog and de Meuron barn-inspired building holds the definitive collection of East End art, from William Merritt Chase to the living painters still working in the studios next door. Come for the permanent collection, stay for the Friday summer evenings.
Guild Hall
Museum · East Hampton
Part museum, part theater, part community hall. The three galleries rotate shows by East End artists living and dead; the John Drew Theater next door does readings and chamber music the same weekend.
Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center
Historic House · Springs
The house Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner bought in 1945 with a loan from Peggy Guggenheim. The barn studio still carries the drip floor Pollock painted on, preserved under plexiglass. Stony Brook runs the tours.
Watermill Center
Cultural Site · Water Mill
Robert Wilson's interdisciplinary laboratory on an old Western Union relay site. The outdoor sculpture walk is open by appointment year-round; the July benefit brings the international art world to the lawn.
Wellness & spas
9
Treatment rooms, saunas and salons. The answer that has nothing to do with weather at all.
Wineries with an indoor tasting room
7
Most East End tastings happen on a lawn or under an open-air stand. These are the rooms that work rain or shine.
Indoor fitness
97
Studio classes under a roof: gyms, spin, yoga, pilates, barre, boxing and dance.