The Maidstone

The name collision that sends couples to the wrong front desk

This is the first thing to fix, because it wastes weeks. The Maidstone Club is a private members club in East Hampton and it is not a wedding venue open to the public. The Maidstone is a sixteen room boutique hotel and restaurant at 207 Main Street, in a house the hotel describes as built over 150 years ago and completely renovated in 2017. Different buildings, different owners, different answers when you ring.

The confusion is compounded by the hotel's own trading history. It now operates as LDV At The Maidstone under LDV Hospitality, and events are handled in house. Older listings filed under the plain Maidstone name, or under a c slash o Maidstone address, may carry packages and contacts that predate that arrangement. If a package sheet reaches you from a source other than the hotel, ask when it was written.

Practically, that means one thing on your side. When you enquire, use the hotel's own events form or its published events email. Confirm at the start of the call that you are speaking to the hotel on Main Street rather than to the club.

A garden that seats 110 and a dining room that seats 48

The hotel publishes room by room capacity, which is more than most Hamptons properties do. The Outdoor Garden takes 110 seated or 160 for a standing cocktail reception. The Main Dining Room takes 48 seated or 100 cocktail. The Bar is offered for smaller cocktail hours. There is a cottage collection of two level cottages, and a full property buyout that covers restaurant, bar, garden, cottages and guest rooms.

Those figures do the planning for you. This is a garden wedding with a house attached, and the garden is the reception. If your list runs past 110 seated, you are into buyout territory and spilling across spaces rather than filling one room, which is a different kind of evening and a different kind of quote.

The Knot lists the venue in a 151 to 200 guest band. That band matches no single space the hotel publishes, and it appears to describe a full property buyout rather than a room. We are printing both figures and naming both sources rather than reconciling them, because the hotel's own room numbers and the marketplace band are answering different questions.

The buyout is the product, and its rate is not on the page

A hotel of this size does not really sell you a ballroom. It sells you the building for a night or a weekend, and that is what the full property buyout is: restaurant, bar, garden, cottages and guest rooms under one contract. The hotel also offers preferred group room rates for weddings held on site or nearby, which is the practical benefit of booking a wedding at a place your guests can sleep in.

None of that carries a published rate. The events page describes buyouts as available on request with no figure attached, and there is no rate card, no minimum, and no deposit schedule in public view. The Knot listing does not fill the gap either, showing no starting price, no per person cost and no food and beverage minimum.

That is unusual even by Hamptons standards, where opacity is normal. It also means that any comparison you try to run between this hotel and a catering hall on the same weekend will be missing its most important variable until you have a written quote. Get the quote itemised: room block terms, food and beverage, service charge, and the buyout fee as separate lines.

A house over 150 years old, and the date the hotel will not give

The Knot describes the property as a historic house constructed over 150 years ago and completely renovated in 2017. The hotel's own site talks about the property's history but publishes no build year, no architect and no original owner. So the renovation date is firm and the construction date is approximate, and we are not going to convert an approximation into a year.

The renovation matters more than the age for planning purposes anyway. A 2017 refit of a nineteenth century house on Main Street tells you the wiring, the bathrooms and the guest rooms are recent, and it tells you the footprint is what it always was. Old houses do not gain function rooms in a renovation. They gain finishes.

The Knot also separately lists a sunroom, sixteen guest rooms and three private cottages, which the hotel's events page does not itemise the same way. Neither source contradicts the other, but the room count is worth confirming if you are planning a block.

What a rain date actually costs you here

This is the constraint that ought to decide the booking. The garden seats 110. The indoor dining room seats 48. There is no published rain plan, no tent offer in writing, and nothing on the events page addressing weather at all.

So on a wet Saturday in June, a wedding built for 110 in the garden does not move indoors intact. Either it becomes a much smaller seated dinner, or it becomes a standing reception in the dining room and bar, or someone finds a tent. All three are workable and all three should be agreed in writing months in advance, with the cost sitting on a line in your contract rather than in a conversation.

There is also no published end time. East Hampton village noise rules may bear on an outdoor garden reception, but the hotel publishes nothing on the subject, so we are not going to characterise the rules for you. Ask the hotel what time amplified music has to stop in the garden, and get the answer in the contract.