What Year-Round Living Actually Looks Like in Westhampton Beach

A Village Built on a Very Narrow Strip of Land

Westhampton Beach was incorporated as a village in 1928, within the Town of Southampton, Suffolk County, on Long Island's South Shore. The incorporated village itself is small and narrow: total area of 3.0 square miles, split between 2.9 square miles of land and just 0.1 square miles of water. That footprint reflects the place's underlying geography -- a barrier-beach community, long and thin rather than broad, sitting between open ocean and back bay. Living here year-round means living on that same narrow strip, not a separate inland version of the village that exists apart from the beach.

The village maintains its own police, ambulance, and fire departments, and children are served by the Westhampton Beach Union Free School District. Those are real, local institutions rather than services borrowed from a larger neighboring town -- a small village government running its own public-safety and school operations for a year-round population that is, as the figures below show, considerably smaller than the summer population the area is known for.

September 21, 1938: The Storm That Still Defines This Place

The single most defining historical event in Westhampton Beach is the September 21, 1938 hurricane, remembered as the "Long Island Express." It devastated the community, destroying nearly all of the summer homes standing on the barrier beach at the time, and it caused twenty-nine deaths in Westhampton Beach specifically. That is a fully resolved historical disaster from 1938 -- not an ongoing dispute or an open question -- but it is also the clearest single explanation for why this village takes storm risk as seriously as it does. A barrier-beach community that lost nearly its entire summer housing stock and twenty-nine residents in a single storm carries that history into how it has approached shoreline protection ever since.

Erosion Didn't Stop in 1938 -- It Kept Going

Beach erosion became a chronic, critical issue for Westhampton Beach beginning in the 1960s, decades after the 1938 hurricane, and it has continued as an ongoing engineering reality rather than a single resolved event. A November 1992 nor'easter destroyed more than eighty homes along the shoreline, an event severe enough to prompt renewed intervention from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In the mid-1990s, fifteen historic houses were physically relocated inland, moved off their original foundations specifically to save them from the eroding shoreline -- a direct, physical response to how far the erosion had progressed. Hurricane Sandy in 2012 required still more restoration work along the same shoreline, showing that the erosion-and-restoration cycle has continued well into recent history rather than ending with the 1990s relocations.

Put together, that is a genuinely different storm-and-erosion history than a single named hurricane or a one-time relocation program: a 1938 disaster that is fully in the past, followed by a chronic erosion problem running from the 1960s through at least 2012, punctuated by a specific 1992 storm that destroyed over eighty homes and a specific relocation of fifteen historic houses in the mid-1990s. No dollar figure for the 1992 storm damage or the relocation project cost was confirmed, so none is stated here.

Who Is Actually Living Here Year-Round

The 2020 census recorded 2,150 year-round residents in Westhampton Beach, up from 1,902 in the 2000 census. That is a real, if modest, population increase over two decades, and it is the number that matters for anyone asking what the village looks like once the summer crowds leave -- a few thousand people on a 3.0-square-mile barrier-beach footprint, not the much larger seasonal population the area is associated with.

The most detailed demographic snapshot available is from the 2000 census, so it should be read as a dated historical picture rather than a current one: 89.17% White, 4.63% African American, 1.16% Asian, and 7.68% Hispanic or Latino residents; median household income of $58,438 and median family income of $74,412; and approximately 9% of the population living below the poverty line. None of those 2000-era figures should be treated as describing the village today -- they are included here only because they are the specific figures the research turned up, and current demographic and income data should be confirmed independently.

Getting In, Out, and Around Full-Time

Year-round residents rely on real, ordinary transportation infrastructure rather than anything unique to a resort economy. The Long Island Rail Road provides service via its Montauk Branch, and the village is served by Sunrise Highway (NY 27) and Montauk Highway (CR 80). Those two roads and that rail branch are the actual connections between Westhampton Beach and the rest of Long Island for someone living here twelve months a year -- worth understanding on their own terms rather than assuming a narrow barrier-beach village has the same access patterns as a more inland community.

The Historic Houses That Are Still Standing

Three sites in Westhampton Beach are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the Crowther House, the Foster-Meeker House, and the U.S. Post Office. Given the village's documented history of relocating fifteen historic houses inland in the mid-1990s specifically to save them from erosion, these surviving, nationally listed properties are a reminder that the built environment here has been actively fought for and preserved against a real, ongoing coastal threat -- not simply inherited unchanged from an earlier era.

Costs and Numbers We Are Not Going to Invent

This page does not state a current (2026) median home price, property tax rate, or flood insurance premium for Westhampton Beach, because no such current figure was confirmed in the research behind this page. It also does not name specific local businesses, restaurants, or current Main Street retail tenants, and it does not put a dollar figure on either the November 1992 nor'easter damage or the mid-1990s house-relocation project, because none of those figures were confirmed either.

Anyone seriously evaluating a year-round move to Westhampton Beach should get current home prices, property tax rates, and flood insurance costs directly from a local real estate agent, the Village of Westhampton Beach or Town of Southampton assessor's office, and a licensed insurance agent before making any financial decision. Given the village's documented storm and erosion history, a flood-insurance and coastal-engineering conversation is especially worth having early, not after an offer is already in. Nothing on this page is financial, tax, legal, or relocation advice.

The Honest Picture for a Year-Round Move

What is confirmed here: a village incorporated in 1928 on a 3.0-square-mile barrier-beach footprint, with a year-round population that grew from 1,902 in 2000 to 2,150 in 2020, a fully resolved 1938 hurricane disaster in its past, and a chronic, ongoing erosion history running from the 1960s through a specific 1992 nor'easter, a mid-1990s relocation of fifteen historic houses, and further restoration after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. That is a distinctly different profile from a simple "smaller, more affordable Hamptons alternative" pitch -- it is a small, real, year-round community that has repeatedly had to respond to serious coastal-storm damage with real engineering and real relocation projects.

Anyone weighing a full-time move should treat that storm and erosion history as a starting point for questions, not a footnote: ask the Village of Westhampton Beach and Town of Southampton directly about current shoreline-protection projects, talk to a licensed insurance agent about flood coverage, and confirm current home prices and property taxes with a local real estate agent before deciding. Nothing on this page is financial, tax, or relocation advice.