Ms. Kahan, 26, posted her TikTok video as a joke, but the responses were serious. “People were like, ‘How do I find these friends?’ or ‘How do you do it?’” she said. She takes an honest approach: “You have to find some sort of connection, like a friend of a friend,” she said.
The thinly veiled casual hellos might feel suspicious to the lucky owners of a summer house (or people with primary homes in summer-positive locales).
“When I post pictures of my Hamptons house, now I get 10 to 12 different people messaging me to be like, ‘Oh my God, let’s catch up,’ or ‘I need to see you this summer. When can we get together?’” said a fashion entrepreneur who has a seven-bedroom house in Sag Harbor.
The entrepreneur, 39, who requested that her name not be published for fear of offending the people of whom she spoke, has had her Hamptons house for three years, and said the messages were becoming an annual occurrence. “I can just tell when people I haven’t heard from in six months are texting me all the time right before Memorial Day weekend,” she said.
She has had more people reach out this year than ever, and she thinks looming recession fears are a factor. “People aren’t spending as much money on travel,” she said. Indeed, the Hamptons currently has double the number of homes available to rent than it did last year, as prospective tenants cut back. According to the U.S. Travel Association, an industry group, hotel room demand is below March 2019 levels for the first time in months (even if AAA is estimating an 11 percent increase in air travel over Memorial Day weekend compared with last year’s also hectic summer — perhaps those travelers are flying to stay in friends’ or family’s homes).
Some people with summer homes are finding ways to avoid playing host altogether.
In July 2020, Lindsay Tyrpien, 33, a creative director of an art gallery in SoHo, bought a 1920s farmhouse in Livingston Manor, N.Y., a picturesque town about two hours upstate. She and her wife, Magdalena Tyrpien, 34, a biotech executive in Manhattan, did a gut renovation of the 1,200-square-foot space and decided to knock out the second bedroom altogether; instead they have one very large bedroom and office space. (The couple also rents out the home.)
“We are both so busy in our professional lives that we cherish being able to spend that time together,” Lindsay Tyrpien said. “It’s just nice to go up there and be by ourselves and not even have the option to host.”