Preview:
On a recent May evening, Janet O’Brien served up Old-Fashioneds and tequilas on ice to friends at her Montauk home. The conversational menu featured what one might expect for a tony Hamptons cocktail hour: past and upcoming trips to Morocco, Manhattanites bragging about rarely stepping foot in Brooklyn and gossip about how much neighbors spent on renovations.
The setting is perhaps the interesting part: Ms. O’Brien’s home is in what they all call “a trailer park.”
Montauk Shores, the roughly 200-unit manufactured home community that overlooks Ditch Plains Beach, isn’t what immediately comes to mind when one thinks of a trailer park. The...
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There is some part of society that celebrates taking conspicuous consumption to a new level. Paying $3.5 million for a 800 square foot mobile home is not prestigious or cool -- it’s just plain stupid. Wasting money does not make you a big shot, spending it wisely is what makes you superior. Think of everything that could have been done with that $3.5 million to benefit others. You could buy 10 people a debt-free home, for example, or put 20 people through college.