From left: The Pines, 1976; The Pines, 2010. (Photo: From left: Tom Bianchi; Ian Allen)

Of the seventeen resort microclimates of Fire Island arranged along the picturesque, deer-overrun sandbar a short train-and-ferry commute from New York City, the Pines is easily the most fabled. Imagine, as many young men have, an entirely gay beach town full of contradictions—glamorous and skanky, bacchanalian and fussy, semi-nude and upmarket—a place where, as Andrew Holleran put it in his 1978 Gatsby-inspired gay novel Dancer From the Dance, “You may lose your heart. Or mind. Or reputation. Or contact lenses.”

Now imagine being 27 and owning the bars, restaurants, and the nightclub at the heart of it all. [Read more...]