Toward the conclusion of an April 2022 article in The Star, it was noted that Irwin Levy of Springs and Esperanza Leon of Wainscott were about to launch a podcast called “Our Hamptons,” on which they would talk about local history. “Hopefully,” Mr. Levy told The Star, “it’ll be interesting enough for people to want to drop in.”
Drop in they have, from as far away as Canada, Germany, and Japan. This month, the podcasting team marks the three-year anniversary of “Our Hamptons,” and on Monday they released Episode 81, an exploration of the preservation of Barcelona Point and the Grace Estate in East Hampton Town’s Northwest Woods.
“It’s about history. It’s about preservation. It’s about sense of place, here, on eastern Long Island,” Mr. Levy, of the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society, says in the podcast’s introduction. The team has considered topics including the Brooks-Park property in Springs, the Leisurama houses of Montauk, auto racing in Bridgehampton, ice boating on Mecox Bay, the fish factories of Promised Land, and Jack Lenor Larsen of LongHouse Reserve, where Ms. Leon is head of education and community engagement and Mr. Levy is a docent.
“Our Hamptons” is a labor of love, the show’s creators and hosts say. There is no advertising, no benefactor to please. Neither Mr. Levy nor Ms. Leon brought prior experience to their podcast. But a shared love of local history, sense of place, and folklore brought them together in this newish means of communication.
“When I sold the business,” Mr. Levy said of the pest control company he owned in Great Neck, “my retirement plan was not golf. First of all, I don’t play golf.” He and his wife have lived in Springs, either part or full time, for 36 years, “and I’ve always been passionate about the community. Not so much where Beyonce had dinner, but the history and sense of place. People come here and think this place is the beach and Nick and Toni’s, and they don’t recognize anything else. They’ve never heard of the Walking Dunes, they don’t know a Miller from a Bennett from a Dayton. This really resonates with us.”
Mr. Levy, a guitarist, knew of the online music superstore Sweetwater. “I bought a microphone for $70 or $75,” he said. “That was my big investment.”
Ms. Leon had been on Bonnie Grice’s program on what is now WLIW-FM. “I remember Bonnie saying, ‘You should have a show.’ “ But “I never thought of pursuing that,” she said. “I’ve done some public speaking, and the older I get it becomes easier. But I’ve always loved a conversation, beyond a lecture or monologue. This format is so great.”
The future podcasters met at Ms. Leon’s East Hampton gallery, Solar, which she founded in 2000. Mr. Levy was an early client, “and I knew of his affinity with this place, it was deep in him,” Ms. Leon said. “We would have conversations, and it led to him one day asking if I’d be interested in doing a podcast based on the conversations we were already having. I said, ‘Irwin, if we’re having fun, I would be happy to.’ “
The team records the podcasts from their respective residences via Zoom. Editing is minimal, and the podcast is then uploaded to Spotify, which distributes it to other platforms, Mr. Levy said. “There was a learning curve to it, but like anything, you figure it out.”
There is no shortage of topics, they say. “We haven’t stayed in a specific lane other than focusing on the East End,” Mr. Levy said.
Topics emerge “through our conversations,” Ms. Leon said, “and then in our research, one thing leads to another. I’ll read an article, find something that piques my interest, I mention it to Irwin. He really is the producer, he takes care of the research, pretty much. He takes care of the production. The idea comes organically — reading articles, looking at Instagram, things like that.”
“Early on, we didn’t have guests,” Mr. Levy said. “Now, we have guests more frequently. As people have gotten to know us, we’ve had people reach out to us to be on, which is gratifying.”
They look for “things that are a little bit off-radar,” he said. “We get a lot of material from the Star archives. Our sweet spot tends to be like 1960s-70s-80s, before the real ‘Hamptonization’ started. My own coming of age.”
“One thing I really like about ours is the simplicity of it,” Ms. Leon said. “It’s very barebones, just conversation. We have an intro and the ending, and that’s it. There’s no interruption. I, as a listener, really appreciate that. I listen to other podcasts and feel I lose the thread because you get these interruptions. I’m glad we’re doing this the way we are.”
“We’ve gotten better,” Mr. Levy said. “I can hear it.” The podcasters often reflect “on what a world this is, where two people can sit in their dens over Zoom, broadcast something, and it’s listened to all over the world. For me, this was ‘The Jetsons.’ It’s so personally rewarding.”
“It’s very gratifying to be talking about these subjects Irwin and I find very meaningful and we know others enjoy,” Ms. Leon said. “It’s not nostalgia, necessarily, but [listeners] are left with a good feeling, even when we talk about very serious subjects.”
“From Day 1 we’ve always said, when this ceases to be fun, that’s when we’re going to stop,” Mr. Levy said. “As long as it’s still fun, we’re going to keep doing it. And it’s still fun.”
