Dune Road Lifestyle announced today the formal launch of The Out East Vibes Podcast. Produced by the Hamptons-based creative and media company, the podcast features interviews with celebrities, VIPs, influencers, and notable Hamptons residents on topics ranging from global arts and culture to everyday life in the Hamptons.
Conceptualized in the spring of 2020 by the Dune Road Lifestyle creative team, the podcast is launched with the mission of creating a supplementary means of access to the life and culture of the Hamptons during this unprecedented time in history. With many Hamptons weekenders unable to make their usual trips during summer 2020, the podcast serves as a way for them to stay connected to the latest happenings in the area.
As an ally to local businesses in the Hamptons, Dune Road Lifestyle also sees the podcast as a means of supporting local entrepreneurs during this tough commercial environment. The podcast intends to feature owners, chefs, artistic curators, and others affiliated with local Hamptons hotspots to share stories of how they got their start, their creative direction, and what their plans are for brighter times ahead.
Dune Road Lifestyle also enjoys strong relationships within the celebrity, VIP, and influencer communities, and is proud to be able to feature the voices of some of the US’s most notable people who call the Hamptons home—if only for just part of the year. With the influx of the nation’s glitterati to the east end of Long Island, the podcast anticipates featuring various people of high interest discussing what draws them to the Hamptons year after year.
The Out East Vibes Podcast is hosted by Dune Road Lifestyle Creative Director Rex Chatterjee. Rex, a graduate of Cornell University and Columbia Law School, founded Dune Road Lifestyle in 2018 as a way to give back to the Hamptons community he grew to love over the course of countless summer weekends spent “out east.” A native of New York City, Rex now splits his time between Brooklyn and Amagansett, New York. Of the podcast, he notes that “Between offices in the city reopening after months of the shutdown, and restrictions related to COVID still in-place across the state, a lot of folks just aren’t going to be able to make it out to the Hamptons this summer. And that saddens us, for them, and also for the places that rely on their business to survive. It’s a tough time for sure, and we certainly don’t have all the answers, but we wanted to do something to help bridge the divide for this summer and beyond.”
Dune Road Lifestyle was founded by Rex Chatterjee in August of 2018. The company’s initial offering was an online guide to the best restaurants and bars in the Hamptons, styled as “The Dune Road Lifestyle Hamptons Guide.” Each year since its original publication, the “Guide,” as it has come to be known, is reviewed, revised, and republished just prior to Memorial Day Weekend. The Guide’s scope of coverage has expanded as well, now including coffee shops, hotels/resorts, fitness options, spas, and retail boutiques. In addition to the Guide and the recently launched podcast, Dune Road Lifestyle also features a blog focused on news and events related to the Hamptons and specifically catering to a millennial audience. The company is also very active on Instagram, at the username @duneroadlifestyle.
At the bottom, Dune Road Lifestyle is a labor of love for those involved, a part-time respite from challenging careers in other fields. In addition to his role as Creative Director of Dune Road Lifestyle, Rex serves as managing principal of Chatterjee Legal (a New York law firm) and of Titan Grey (a global risk management consulting firm). Other team members hold day jobs as fashion publicists, film & TV producers, digital strategists, and more. The part-time, all-volunteer model has allowed Dune Road Lifestyle to grow organically, without the burden of heavy cash-flow requirements to stay afloat. “We wanted to be selective and curated in our approach to generating content for our site / Insta. We wanted to focus on building something people love, before figuring out the monetization aspect. Otherwise, you end up with more ads and advertorial content than content with real value, and that’s something we intend to never be,” says Rex of the company’s development strategy. “Our site started out as a tool to highlight places of value and filter out noise. We owe it to our audience, and to ourselves, to never forget that.”
