If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD216.67), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
Sound food, sound surrounds and a very sound sleep. You’ll find it all at Sound View Greenport, an old-school, stilted motel stretched across a quarter-mile of private beach on Long Island’s North Fork. It’s set in the Hampton’s country cousin, which is fast becoming a destination for clued-up gourmands, and this seaside stay makes a fine base to explore NoFo’s offerings, with its beachy rooms panelled in blonde wood, chic subway-tiled bathrooms and views of the Long Island Sound that stretch all the way to Connecticut.
11am, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 4pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £218.74 ($273), including tax at 26.075 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional resort fee of $1.00 per room per night on check-out.
More details
Rates include a Continental breakfast.
Also
There are two ADA rooms, which each have ramp access, wide doors, a roll-in shower with a handheld shower head, grab bars and accessible towel bars (a shower seat is also available, on request). The lobby and restaurant are also fully-accessible, but there is limited accessibility at the beach, and the pool area is unfortunately not suitable for those with mobility issues.
At the hotel
Private beach, bikes to borrow (seasonal), free WiFi throughout. In rooms: Welcome gift, Nespresso coffee machine, TV, mini-fridge, and Malin + Goetz bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Rooms feel like ship cabins, with blonde-wood panelling, nautical colouring, and views out over the Long Island Sound. Families and groups are best suited to the suites, which sleep between three and five people, but couples looking to get steamy should opt for the King Sauna Room for its cedar-wood sauna.
Poolside
The pool is flanked by retro red loungers and white parasols, with Jack’s poolside bar in easy reach. There’s a private pebble-dashed sandy beach onsite, too, which can be accessed directly from all rooms.
Packing tips
John Ross’s book The Story of North Fork Wine makes an excellent beach read for grape-loving guests, detailing the development (and drama) of the local wine scene over the last 150 years.
Also
A peek in the minibar will reveal the hotel’s own brand gin, vodka and rum, as well as their own merlot and rosè made in collaboration with local vineyard Macari.
Sound View Greenport donates $1 for every night booked to Suffolk County’s Cornell Cooperative, a local non-profit educational agency which helps to strengthen families and communities, protect the environment and foster economic development in the area. Additionally, the hotel’s owners are taking active measures to save their quarter-mile beach from coastal erosion.
When the sun’s got his hat on, opt for the sea-facing terrace at Halyard, or one of the Adirondack chairs around the fire pit at Low Tide Bar for a dreamy duet of s’mores and sundowners.
Dress Code
‘Lana del slay’ your look, with Americana-inspired ‘fits. Think picket-fence gingham, classic preppy polos, country-club tennis whites, and a hearty helping of nautical stripes.
Hotel restaurant
The hotel’s main restaurant, Halyard, is housed in a ship-like stilted building which hovers over the Long Island Sound. Here, you can expect American seafood – most of which comes directly from the North Fork and Atlantic Seaboard – cooked up using French techniques and paired with pretty sunset views. The menu changes seasonally but the scallops, lobster and swordfish tapas are always popular choices. For casual comfort food and light bites to go, Jack’s Shack and the beach’s Low Tide Bar have you covered with burgers, fresh ceviche, gazpacho and lobster rolls.
Hotel bar
The piano bar is a rustic, wood-panelled saloon with rich mahogany Chesterfields and a 16-foot-long bar lined with captain’s stools. It’s also where the hotel’s vintage baby grand lives, which is fitting, really, since there’s live music most nights. Head here Thursdays to nab a burger with your pour of Buffalo Trace bourbon. Otherwise, choose from local brews, wines or not-so-classic cocktails – take the ‘Some like it hot’, for example, a neon-green (and thoroughly spicy) take on a margarita made with tequila, sambuca, star anise, cooked salt, and homemade habanero tincture, house cordial, and jalapeño cucumber pure. Jack’s Shack is a one-stop shop for poolside pours, and named after the hotel’s original owner, Jack Levin, who’s beach concession stand was one of the area’s biggest attractions post-World War II. And if you prefer toe-in-sand sipping, Low Tide Bar has you covered for beachside hangs with cocktails and canned drinks, festoon lights, fire pits and a live soundtrack come weekends, which, just like the Osmonds, can be a little bit country or a little bit of rock ‘n’ roll.
Last orders
Halyard serves lunch Friday to Sunday between noon and 3pm, while dinner runs daily from 5pm to 10pm. Piano Bar pours from 5pm till late.
Room service
There’s no room service as such, but on request you can get your meals to-go.
You’ll find Sound View Greenport spread out along miles of rolling North Fork coastline and surrounded by Long Island vineyards and up-and-coming eateries.
Planes
JFK Airport, New York City’s main hub, is around a two-hour drive away from Greenport, while New Jersey’s Newark airport takes just under three. But if you’re travelling from within the States, you can land a little closer at Queen’s LaGuardia or Long Island’s MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma. From the latter, the hotel is just over an hour away by car.
Trains
The famed Long Island Railroad makes travelling around New York State fairly easy; the trains run from Manhattan’s Penn Station all the way up to Greenport and take around two hours.
Automobiles
Once you’re out of the city, the drive to Greenport follows a scenic route, and a set of wheels will be a blessing if you’re planning to explore. There’s parking available at the hotel for $23 a night.
Worth getting out of bed for
There are more than 40 vineyards sprinkled across Long Island’s North Fork, whose rolling green terrain is more like the Loire Valley than anything this close to the Big Apple. But, if you’re more of a spirits drinker, Matchbook Distilling Company, a bespoke distillery and incubator, makes for a fun day out; tours include a gin workshop, where guests can make their own mother’s ruin using hundreds of botanical extracts. There are enough microbreweries for days spent hops-hopping and enough trendy eateries to fill a chic foodies guide book, which is perhaps why it’s dubbed by some as the ‘Brooklyn of Long Island’. By others, it’s known as the Hampton’s country cousin, which is probably on account of the lesser-known Fork’s vast and varied farmland. Pick your own lavender in East Marion’s Lavender by the Bay, a fragrant, family-owned, 17-acre slice of Provence on the East coast, or take the kids to Harbes Family Farm for a barnyard adventure with farm animals, bounce pillows, a trike track, obstacle course and hedge maze. Greenport village is full of pretty ice-cream parlours and colourful carousels, as well as small boutiques and vintage-furniture shops. From here, you can also catch a ferry over to Shelter Island for kayaking, paddleboarding and topping-up-your-tan on the nearby beaches. In the evening, catch a gig at Green Hill Kitchen, the restaurant of Austrian chef Wolfgang Ban, where you can enjoy smoked sausages and a tune or two in a rustic, Bavarian-style beer hall.
Local restaurants
Long Island’s North Fork is a dream come true for gourmands, who are spoilt for choice when it comes to eating well. In this department, one of the area’s main draws is its oysters, which you’ll find by the literal bucket-load at Little Creek Oysters, a tasting market housed in a nautical harbour-side shack on Greenport’s East End. Diners who can shuck their own eat for half price, but don’t worry if not, one of the local harvesters will gladly teach you. If you’d rather leave the prep to the professionals, be sure to reserve a table at North Fork Table & Inn, a sleek and seasonal restaurant helmed by Michelin-star-awarded chef John Fraser which serves contemporary American cuisine in a historic country home. Here, you’ll find dishes like fava bean agnolotti with minted ricotta, summer squash and Mecox Sigit cheese; or lemon-verbena pavlova served with rhubarb jam and Paumanok sauvignon blanc syrup.
Local cafés
If you’re serious about your artisan brews, begin your day with a coffee at North Fork Roasting Co. It’s a five-minute drive away in Southold (or an hour’s walk around pretty Hashamomuck Pond) but the caffeine hits are worth it; beans are roasted on-site and served with crumbly hazelnut biscotti. Closer to home, Bruce & Sonmakes a fine spot for brunches of blueberry scones, turmeric granola and an elevated take on the classic BLT made with sourdough bread, sugar-cured bacon, butterhead lettuce, tomato, and spicy mayo.
Local bars
Brixs and Rye is an intimate neighborhood spot where you’ll find the who’s who of Greenport – and their weekend-break counterparts fresh in from the city – sipping on Evan Bucholz’s masterful cocktails and tucking into a slice or two from the connecting 1943 Pizza bar – a dreamy combo. For sound wine with sound views, you can’t do much better than Kontokosta Winery, a waterfront tasting room showcasing the Kontokosta family’s small batch, award-winning wines.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this seaside hotel in New York State, and unpacked their Buffalo Trace bourbon and North Fork wines, a full account of their American break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Sound View Greenport in Long Island…
Long Island’s lesser-travelled North Fork has been dubbed by some as the Brooklyn of the peninsula, and with good reason. With more than 40 wineries, a healthy number of microbreweries and a gastro-scene that prioritises seasonal, ‘slow’ food, it’s no wonder city-slickers are swapping their usual Hamptons jaunt for a walk on the wilder side. At the heart of the North Fork’s newfound scene, you’ll find Sound View Greenport, an old-school seaside motel reaching out on stilts over the water from a quarter-mile pebble beach. On any given day you’ll find NoFo’s coolest locals sipping their Long Island Ice Teas from a mahogany Chesterfield in the hotel’s wood-panelled saloon, or roasting s’mores around the beach’s fire pit soundtracked by area’s best acoustic acts. Inside, the hotel’s mid-century roots are masterfully merged with maritime influences, with captain chairs, Turner-esque oil paintings, blonde-wood panelling, and – true to the hideaway’s name – sound views all around.
