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Hard times hit high-end hospitality in the Hamptons

By
Jennifer Gould
Published June 13, 2010, 4:00 a.m. ET

Three high-profile Hamptons hotels have filed for bankruptcy.

Hamptons Resorts & Hotels, which operates the Atlantic, the Bentley and the Capri, filed on Thursday, David Waksman, a co-owner of HR&H, told The Post.

At the time of the filing, a restaurant group had a signed contract to buy the Capri for an undisclosed sum, plus a $400,000 deposit.

Giuseppi Tuosto, co-partner of Via Dei Mille, told The Post that he hoped to buy the Capri and launch a restaurant beach club there — a beach version of Via Dei Mille, the restaurant he co-owns in SoHo on West Broadway.

The Capri had a popular, celebrity-heavy nightclub, the Pink Elephant, which famously employed Rachel Uchitel, an alleged Tiger Woods’ mistress, as hostess.

Tuosto also hoped to buy all three hotels. Gross revenue for the three hotel properties was down 37 percent in 2009 from 2008, when revenues were north of $2 million, Waksman said.

The biggest problem that HR&H faced was that its loans came due in August of 2009 as the economy tanked, and its lenders were not big banks and had no incentive to renegotiate, Waksman said.

The bankruptcy should also be seen as a wake-up call.

The majority owners say the hotels were hurt by bad weather last summer and an economic crisis that translated into tight budgets, which brought an end to lavish spending for over-the-top weddings, charity galas and corporate-sponsored affairs in the Hamptons.

On top of that, owners Waksman and Ross Weiner say their investors are taking advantage of their situation. Instead of trying to restructure the loans — something that banks do but their investors don’t — the investment funds want to take over their business.

“So many people are in foreclosure across the country. The same thing is happening to private owners like us of small businesses — difficult lenders and predatory parties, our partners, are trying to take advantage of the bad economy,” Waksman said.

A bankruptcy filing gives Waksman and Weiner more control, Waksman said, adding that the hotels remain open and operating this summer.

Waksman bought the hotels 13 years ago. The Atlantic was bought first, in 1997, for $1 million, with the late Jeff Salaway, of Nick and Toni’s restaurant, and Mark Smith, Salaway’s operating partner in East Hampton. “I brought in the top restaurateur to be the face of hospitality in the Hamptons,” Waksman said.

Next were the Bentley, for $2.3 million, and the Capri, for $1.5 million. The idea was to turn a Chinese restaurant at the Capri into a restaurant/nightclub. That eventually became the storied Pink Elephant.