Dans Hamptons

Marilyn Monroe often said that the two years she spent living in Amagansett on the Stony Hill Farm on Hamlin Lane were the happiest years of her life. Yes, the woman who, in 1999, was proclaimed “People Magazine‘s Sexiest Woman of the Century,” spent two wonderful years out in the Hamptons. Marilyn had come to New York in 1956 to study acting with Lee Strasberg. After running around the bases in a very short marriage to Joe DiMaggio in 1954, ending in what DiMaggio called a “conflict of careers,” Monroe fell into the orbit of Playwright Arthur Miller, of Death of a Salesman fame, who married her on June 29, 1956. Living in New York City, the couple rented a simple farmhouse on the Stony Hill Farm then owned by the Potter family for the 1957–58 seasons. The home was about 1,500 sq. ft. at the time, perched on a hill laden with old white oak trees, with a pleasant view of the pastures below. Today, the first home in that pleasant view belongs to Alec Baldwin.

So blissful was that time, that Marilyn called herself MMM for Marilyn Monroe Miller. She was often seen driving her black, 1956 Thunderbird convertible around town with Hugo, the pet Basset Hound she and Arthur kept both in the Hamptons and in the city. No one can say for sure if they also brought their pet parakeet, “Butch,” out for the summer, but, most likely, they did. Arthur enjoyed driving his Jaguar, although, after the rain, it was a bit testy to drive on the still unpaved Stony Hill Road. Marilyn prepared for the movie Some Like It Hot while spending the summer in the Hamlin Lane Farmhouse. Sam Shaw took snappy photos of Marilyn, phone in hand, looking every bit the woman she was. In fact, the very small school desk where Marilyn sat in those photos is still in the house, now owned by Joe and Lucy Kazickas, who were kind enough to give me a tour of the farmhouse recently. Now, the farmhouse is more than three times its original 1,500 sq. ft. and the Monroe-Miller bedroom is a guest bedroom. The Monroe-Miller bathtub still remains in the bathroom next to the guest room. The original space that was the farmhouse kitchen is more of a mudroom space, with the original back door still there. At the time, there was a wood-burning stove in the house – the beautiful, wide-planked pine floors are still there. In the corner of the Kazickas‘ dining room is a framed collection of three Sam Shaw photographs of Marilyn seated in the corner of the very same room. In the photos, her foot is inches away from a pine knot in the floor that is still there today. The icehouse that the simple farmhouse had, has been converted into a deluxe sauna with showers and a seating area with a television. In the back of the home, the magnificent old white oaks still shade the summer sun as they did for Marilyn, Arthur and Hugo. In some Sam Shaw photos, Marilyn poses among the oak trees, which, in all these years, have changed very little from the dignified presence they were 50 years ago. Yes, it has been 50 years since Marilyn posed for Sam Shaw‘s camera at the Stony Hill Farmhouse. Born June 1, 1926, as Norma Jeane Mortenson, Marilyn would be turning 81 years old if she hadn‘t died in 1962, at the age of 36. Before his death in 2005, Arthur Miller requested that he be driven around Amagansett and the Stony Hill farmhouse. His sister and her son still have a residence in Amagansett.

On the radio, Elton John still sings about her and her pictures still show up whenever the words “glamour,” “beauty” or “movie star” need illustration. In our minds, Marilyn Monroe will forever be thirty–something, vibrant and truly American.