Hotel Snapshot
Every so often a beloved local landmark changes hands and the whole town holds its breath. That's more or less what happened when Blue Flag Capital acquired Baron's Cove in 2025—the Sag Harbor institution that had been a low-key glamour magnet since the late 1950s, the kind of place that once drew the likes of Paul Newman and Jackson Pollock. This June, after a breakneck seven-month renovation, it reopened as Faraway Sag Harbor: the bohemian-luxe brand's East End debut, joining outposts on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, plus a Jackson Hole property that opened the same month. I booked two weeknights to see how the 67-room reinvention is settling in, and what I experienced felt a touch more polished than the old Cove without erasing the decades of character underneath—staff in head-to-toe Alex Mill, Adirondack chairs scattered across the front lawn. Plus, that pool… just sublime.
Design & Character
The interiors come from Jenny Bukovec Studio, working under a concept the firm calls Oceanic Revival—a nod to Sag Harbor's whaling history, threaded through the brand's signature bit of lore, here a fictional oyster diver named Mother Pearl. In lesser hands this is exactly where a hotel tips into seaside kitsch. Faraway mostly stays on the right side of that line, largely because the details are so specific: closet handles cast as silver tentacles, lighting made from blown glass shells and bronze, brass-porthole sconces, mother-of-pearl tile, grasscloth and shell-grotto wallcoverings. The architecture is by Workshop/APD, and the whole ground floor is faintly scented with a bespoke Maison 21G fragrance built for the property. The best set piece is Pearl's Room, a speakeasy the team added because Sag Harbor didn't have one—an intimate, trinket-crammed lounge with anatomical mermaid diagrams on the walls and a pewter seashell matchbook holder by the door.
The Rooms
I stayed in a Harbor King Loft with Sleeper Sofa, 520 square feet arranged as a lofted king above a living area with a queen sleeper sofa—flexible enough for three and genuinely comfortable for a longer stay. The decor was the highlight; I kept noticing the art and the layered detailing, and I also really enjoyed the Tivoli Bluetooth speaker fit for movie nights and jamming out in the shower.
One honest caveat: the room is billed for its harbor views, and you get them—but my room’s living-area windows looked straight onto the outdoor section of the property’s dining area, close enough that I got in the habit of closing the blinds any time I was getting dressed or simply didn't want a patio full of diners watching me walk around in a towel. It's worth asking where your room sits if that kind of thing bugs you. Otherwise, the room came stocked with a Fellow electric kettle, a minibar of complimentary snacks, custom robes, T3 blow dryers, and Faraway's own Caravan Number 11 bath line.
Food & Drink
Dinner lives one flight up at Zagara, where the aesthetic pivots from Northeastern hideaway to Amalfi Coast, a line of olive trees running down the center of the dining room beneath an iridescent Venetian-plaster fireplace. The kitchen is run by Jarad McCarroll, who most recently oversaw the Montauk Yacht Club and was named Gault & Millau's Chef of the Year for St. Barthélemy in 2020. The menu runs from oysters with mignonette and lobster ravioli to beef tenderloin, but the thing I'd tell you to order is the house focaccia: crisp on top, buttery inside, built for mopping up the good olive oil and balsamic that comes on the side.
For lower key options, everything starts at check-in. My welcome drink set the tone—a lavender-infused vodka lemonade that I sipped while cranking out some work in the lobby area (I arrived a few hours before check-in time). The lobby bar pours from breakfast through nightcaps and is pitched, explicitly, as a place locals can drop into without committing to a full dinner.
Spa & Wellness
Wellness here is deliberately seasonal. Through the summer, the Swiss clean-beauty line ONDA Beauty runs a residency in the hotel, with a selection of its products stocked in the retail shop. I didn't book a treatment so I can’t comment on the quality of them.
And as far as the gym situation goes: I poked my head in and found it modest, a small spread of free weights and a couple of treadmills, enough to hold a routine together but not a reason to stay in. If you really care about keeping your routine up and need more of a traditional gym, the Sag Harbor gym a five-minute walk down the road offers day passes. Faraway also programs summer fitness classes through Post House if you want something more structured.
Amenities
Part of what gives Faraway its texture is a knack for the right collaborators—a hallmark of the Blue Flag playbook, where outside brands are brought in less to pad an amenity sheet than to deepen the property's sense of itself. You feel it in the small things: the scent in the lobby, the products in the spa, the uniforms on the staff. The subtlety of it all could be very easy to miss but the best part really is the fact that nothing is loud or needs to be announced.
The rest of the sheet runs deep: a padel court, complimentary bikes in adult and kid sizes, complimentary beach chairs and branded towels for the short walk to Havens Beach, seasonal fire pits, complimentary parking, and dog-friendly rooms. But the amenity I actually gave an afternoon to was the simplest—the heated pool, where I plopped on a lounger with a spritz and a bowl of fries delivered by full poolside service and lost a couple of hours without complaint. I was here midweek, so I can't tell you what a July Saturday looks like around that pool. But this is the Hamptons, and the crowd brings exactly the energy you'd expect—set your expectations accordingly and you'll have a good time.
The Neighborhood
Sag Harbor is the rare Hamptons village that stays populated all year, an unincorporated pocket built around a walkable main drag where nothing is more than a ten-minute stroll from the Faraway's waterfront perch. The hotel sits steps from Main Street's dining and shopping, with Havens Beach a short walk in the other direction. One night I wandered over to Sag Harbor Tavern—the local sibling of Brooklyn's cult-favorite Red Hook Tavern, same menu and all—and didn’t have to sell my soul for a reservation slot on Resy for what many consider the best burger in New York. (Debatable, but it is very delicious.)
And the whaling-era architecture that inspired the hotel's interiors I mentioned earlier? It’s all around you, part of what keeps Faraway feeling like a piece of the town rather than a resort dropped into it.
Fast Facts
Location: Sag Harbor, New York (the Hamptons)
Address: 31 W Water Street, Sag Harbor, NY 11963
Vibe: Maximalist maritime revival by way of Jenny Bukovec Studio
Rooms: 67
Pricing: From $524 per night, price varies depending on whether you stay during the week or the weekend
Dining & Cocktails: Zagara (Amalfi Coast fare with a wraparound terrace), the all-day lobby bar and lounge with its oyster cart, and Pearl's Room, the hotel's nautical speakeasy
Gathering Spaces: The Living Room and Patio, Zagara's private dining room, Pearl's Room, and the pool terrace
Nearest Airport: East Hampton Airport (JPX), roughly 25 minutes; John F. Kennedy International (JFK), roughly 2.5 hours. The Hamptons Jitney from Manhattan also drops you off 10 mins walk from the property
The Hamptons, New York, United States
