Calverton

Like most hamlets and villages up and down the East End, Calverton’s history has links to farming. Its crop of choice: cranberries. Those tart treats thrived in swampy bogs along the Peconic River. In 1953, however, the Navy bought up 6000 acres of land—including a mansion owned by the grandson of entrepreneur Frank Winfield Woolworth—before partially converting it into thousands of feet of jet testing runway. Aircrafts such as F-14 Tomcats and E-2C Hawkeyes passed through Calverton before heading off to the skies beyond. The presence of both cranberries and the military has scaled back; Calverton today is an unassuming hamlet, a hair west of where the North Fork begins to split from its southern sibling. Yet, Calverton still embodies some of that region’s sought-after qualities. Sometimes, a suburban-rural atmosphere near enough to water and with plentiful access to serene nature is all you need.