Eye, eye Cap’n! There’s a mutiny amongst members at a swanky Hamptons country club.
A group of longtime members of Amagansett’s ultra exclusive Devon Yacht Club are suing the elite spot and its leadership, alleging they were booted for rocking the boat by opposing a controversial redevelopment project—and claiming one board member even threatened to “gouge out” an opponent’s eye.
The club — founded in 1908 by the Proctor family of Proctor and Gamble and the Lever family of Lever Brothers — is located in the ritzy Devon Colony which has been home to Paul McCartney, billionaire Michael Novogratz, businessman Mickey Drexler, Alec Baldwin, and seen renters like Bill and Hillary Clinton and Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller.
It’s initiations fees are believed to be around $100,000.
The choppy waters began several years ago when the club laid out a renovation plan expected to cost tens of millions of dollars.
Some members, who have dubbed themselves the “Whistleblowers,” vigorously opposed the plans, arguing in emails and petitions and at town halls and meetings that it would go far over budget and require the club to be closed for multiple sailing seasons.
According to the suit, one email from a group member made one high-ranking official of the board so angry that they threatened to “gouge out [the author’s] eyes” if they sent another like it.
Longstanding members Blake and Janet Fleetwood, Rod Richardson and his wife Elizabeth Halliday filed a suit on March 9 in the Supreme Court of the State of New York against the club and its board members for fraud, breach of contract, intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress, reputational harm, and other charges over the club’s alleged “retaliatory suspension and expulsion.”
The group alleges that disciplinary meetings held against them “were conducted arbitrarily and in bad faith, with deficient charging materials, inadequate notice, vague and pretextual allegations, and undisclosed or shifting accusations raised before and during hearings.”
Eventually Blake and Richardson were expelled from the club. The suit charges their wives were “unlawfully deprived” of membership rights “solely because of their marital relationships” and “despite the absence of any allegations of wrongdoing by them.”
The “Whistleblowers” are asking to have their membership reinstated, compensatory damages for “reputational harm, emotional distress, loss of membership rights, and other injuries,” and seek the removal of certain board members “for willful, malicious, and bad-faith conduct and breach of fiduciary duty.”
By September 2025, the development plans were estimated at $35 million.
An article that month from the East Hampton Star stated that several members had issues: “A surprising 41 percent of those voting — who reportedly represented 95 percent of the club’s “eligible membership” — opposed the proposal (known internally as the Long Range Plan).”
A source tells us the club is known for it’s exclusivity and secretiveness, though it is well known amongst the monied set who are into yachting.
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