Coopers Beach

Every year Dr. Stephen Leatherman, the coastal scientist better known as Dr. Beach, ranks the best beaches in the country on a long list of criteria, from sand quality and water to safety and setting. For thirty-five years the top spot had gone only to beaches in Hawaii or Florida. In 2025 Coopers Beach broke that streak and became the first northern beach ever named number one in America.

The judges singled out its soft, white Atlantic sand and the rolling dunes that create what they called the perfect backdrop for a relaxing day, a classic Hamptons beach experience. It was a striking result for a beach where the water is bracing rather than tropical, proof that a wide, clean, beautifully set shoreline can outshine warmer competition.

What sets Coopers apart is its scale and its sand. The beach is made of grainy white quartz sand, soft underfoot and bright in the sun, and at low tide the shoreline stretches hundreds of yards from the dune line down to the water. There is simply a lot of room, so even on a warm summer day the beach absorbs its crowd without feeling packed.

Behind the sand rise tall dunes covered in American beach grass, a natural wall that both protects the shore and frames it, with the large summer estates of Southampton set back beyond them. That combination, an enormous open beach backed by grassy dunes and grand shingled houses, is the picture most people carry of the Hamptons, and here it is a public one.

Southampton is one of the earliest English settlements in New York and long the heart of Hamptons summer society, and Coopers Beach is its front-row seat on the Atlantic. A day here is the simple pleasures of an ocean beach done at a grand scale: long walks on the firm wet sand at the tide line, cooling off in the surf under the lifeguards' watch, and stretching out on the soft dry sand with the dunes at your back.

Because it is an open-ocean beach the surf can be lively and the water cool even in high summer, so it rewards a little care as much as a swimsuit. The far ends of the beach quiet down as you walk away from the main access, and the shoulder seasons of late spring and early fall trade the peak crowds for softer light and near-empty sand, arguably the beach at its best.

Coopers Beach is on the ocean side of Southampton, out on the south fork of Long Island roughly ninety miles east of Manhattan, reached at the end by the town's beach road. Summer parking is limited and controlled, so the single biggest tip is to arrive early on a warm day or sort out your access before you go, because the sand fills up long before it feels crowded.

Pack an umbrella for shade, plenty of water and sunscreen, and shoes you do not mind leaving in the car. Then walk down over the dune line to the widest, whitest beach the Northeast can offer, and see for yourself why a stretch of cold Atlantic shore finally out-ranked the tropics.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.