Where do Philadelphians spend the summer? The obvious if grammatically imaginative answer – “down the Shore” – is also mostly accurate. But it was not always so, and of course it depended on which order, class, and phylum of Philadelphian was being discussed. The Social Register, for instance, the long-time directory of social families, had and still has in one format or another a summer supplement called “Dilatory Domiciles” (like so many things it is not what it used to be, but it is wonderfully named: as though they are in on the joke). And how else would you find your favorite founding family between Memorial and Labor Days?
It might surprise the modern reader to know that the favored destination by far of the true Philadelphia upper class was once – and, for some, still is – Maine, specifically Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island. In fact, so popular was the village among this set that it was alternatively and affectionately known as “Philadelphia on the Rocks.” But, as regrettable and inevitable as it is for proper Philadelphians, Things Change, and it is the current state of affairs we will examine: just in time for summer.
“Fanfare for the Uncommon Man”
But first a Prelude, or, if you prefer, an Overture: to the many semiquincentennial celebrations I plan to attend this summer. Just before “going down,” as they say, to self-investigate the Shore, I was invited to the season finale concert of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra. In honor of the 250th, the program was, felicitously, all American: The Star-Spangled Banner as arranged by Igor Stravinsky, initially Russian, then French, then American, and usually controversial under any banner; New England Triptych by William Schuman (not to be confused with Schumann, of course, who would not have been admissible); The Testament of Freedom by Randall Thompson; and the Third Symphony by Aaron Copland (who else for such a program?). Additionally, during the beautiful pre-concert reception, a quartet of even younger performers played one of my favorite pieces, the plucky second movement of Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major; and so, exactly as in the Revolution, the French came to the Americans’ aid and really pushed the whole thing over the edge.
The main concert was led by Louis Scaglione, PYO’s CEO, President, Music Director, and conductor, an extraordinary accumulation of titles that has been more than earned. He is approaching thirty years of service to this remarkable organization, itself nearly ninety years old, and under his leadership PYO has become one of the most respected and selective youth orchestras in the nation. It now serves nearly a thousand students at a time, many of whom go on to Curtis, Juilliard, and other leading conservatories, and from there into the Philadelphia Orchestra and many other prominent places. It is difficult to even count the number of students who have passed under Maestro Scaglione’s baton; harder still to truly fathom his impact on Philadelphia’s classical music world and, through it, the nation’s.
“The Myths of Avalon”
In The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s classic retelling of Arthurian legend, the famed isle exists as a kind of parallel world, accessible only to priestesses initiated in the sacred mysteries: they row out onto the lake, “call the mists”, and cross over into a magical dimension, leaving the more brutish Britain behind. Our own mythical isle of Avalon is really not so different.
Strictly speaking, it sits on Seven Mile Island, which comprises two adjacent Shore towns: Avalon and Stone Harbor. Avalon runs roughly four of the seven miles, Stone Harbor the remaining three; and whether because of this or because Avalon also juts about a mile farther into the Atlantic than neighboring barrier islands, it has adopted the rather twee town slogan “Cooler by a Mile.” (“Than what?” many ask. Officially, than the neighboring islands; socially, one assumes, than Stone Harbor. But this is far from settled stuff.) Subtle but very real distinctions exist even between these two towns, so contiguous that on foot one might not even notice passing from the end of one to the beginning of the other; but those are for another day. Here we will consider the greater distinction between Seven Mile Island and, well, everywhere else.
First, geography and demography lessons, although they may be obvious or even a priori to anyone born in Philadelphia or within a hundred miles of it. Like Philadelphia itself, where families really do stay put over many generations (as opposed to places like New York or D.C., where really they don’t), the Shore is one of the few remaining places where old stereotypes about who lives where and why remain entirely applicable and accurate. We will begin at the top of what is generally considered “the Shore”, which really means the Philadelphia Shore as opposed to the “Jersey Shore”. The latter largely refers, at least in the national imagination, to the New York-associated shore towns of MTV fame, all of them north of Long Beach Island which is itself about half New York and half Philadelphia and so serves as a kind of dividing line. (Interestingly, Long Beach Island – especially Beach Haven – was once more of an Old Philadelphia sort of place; friends from one of Philadelphia’s founding families had a house there that they all called a “cottage,” but whose grand turrets and towers quickly revealed it to be nothing of the sort).
But back to the favorite topic of discriminating Philadelphians old and new: stereotypes. The stretch immediately south of Atlantic City, anchored by Margate, is almost entirely Jewish, Italian, or, perhaps most commonly, one married to the other and therefore both. Continuing south one finds Ocean City and Sea Isle: different flavors, the former now more Italian-American despite its dry and Methodist origins and the latter more Irish-American, but both largely descended from working-class Catholic families who somewhere along the way acquired enough money to have a Shore house and now, in many cases, have quite enough money indeed. Farther down, past Seven Mile Island (to which we will return) one reaches Wildwood, again working class in origin and, here, more visibly so in the present; it is certainly the most “wild” of the bunch. And finally there is Cape May, America’s oldest seaside resort town, a national treasure of quaint gentility and historic preservation: here it is all Queen Anne – and, probably, her ghost.
But it is to Avalon that we went, and there the main barriers to entry are not mists and ancient Druid magic but astronomical property values (it is nothing to see asking prices of ten or fifteen million dollars, if not more outlandish numbers) and the comparative lack of regular hotels which is entirely by design: practically one must stay in one’s own house, or that of a close friend or relation, in order to stay on the island at all. And that, it seems, is how they like it.
Avalon is decidedly not an Old Philadelphia place; it is not Northeast Harbor nor anywhere else in Maine; nor was it ever similar to Old New York society retreats like the Hamptons, Newport, or Watch Hill (no matter how costly it has now become). Rather it is populated by our version of an über-merchant class à la Galsworthy’s Forsytes, those who through sheer industrial wealth (in most cases multi- but not many-generational) have achieved a level of staying power and respectability that most people outside our area would consider “old money” (only a Philadelphian, or perhaps a Bostonian, would really know the difference). The aesthetics of the town are completely different, too, often for the worse: overhead powerlines, remarkably few trees; houses that are incredibly close together and all on identically sized lots (a saving grace: the houses themselves are not ugly, not even close, despite nearly all of them being built or rebuilt in very recent decades).
For these reasons those who hold the Hamptons in high esteem might think Avalon more provincial, and in a way it is: you won’t find much in the way of high culture – no museums or chamber concerts or even intellectual conversation – the kinds of things that we at the Perennial Philadelphian are typically interested in and which we have in spades back home. But it is here that the negative aspects end, and I am not ashamed to admit to Old Philadelphians or to anyone else that Avalon has quite entirely grown on me.
It is precisely by direct comparison to places like the Hamptons that one can see why: the toniest towns of Long Island are now oversaturated with celebrity, with “the scene,” with frightful places bearing frightful names like “Bagatelle” and “Le Bilboquet,” whose clientele, when they are not dancing on tables decades after they ought to be, appear to live under constant knife and needle. They are a little like fast-food franchises, these places: you get exactly the same thing whether in Southampton or St. Barth’s, and there is comfort in that for people looking to spend their time and money in predictable, sanitized spaces no matter where they go in the world.
But that is not the only unsettling thing about them: the mass-marketed social prestige of the Hamptons has produced a mass-market effect. It has attracted everyone from influencers to straight-up scam artists who descend upon the towns from God knows where, not to enjoy a peaceful family vacation but mainly to insinuate themselves; to extract value from whomever they can in whatever way they can. It is all very commercial and foreign-feeling; gone are the days of Bouviers and Beales and accents borrowed from Bryn Mawr, save in some small pockets.
It is here that Avalon wins out, here that its protective mists have maintained the veil against not Saxons but “Real Housewives” (who by my count appear to be neither real nor housewives; perhaps someone can explain that to me someday). The comparison is not close: Avalon is almost entirely made up of families whose reason for being there is simply that they are families, and that they have always gone there. It is utterly safe, wholesome, and kid-friendly, to a degree almost shocking to see in modern life. It is like an American dream we are so often told is a lie, and yet there it is, right in front of you. It is too expensive, to be sure, to be democratic, but it is also too local to be fashionable, too family-friendly to be tawdry, and this is its strange magic. It has a homogeneity, and even a monotony, that might be read as provincial from the outside; but it is also as a summer destination – and I never thought I’d say this – completely preferable to almost anywhere else.
Join me next time as I journey across: the return of the three-Martini Lunch; and a big black-tie ball right on Rittenhouse Square.