The Umbrian landscape and the negotiations to purchase a hamlet on behalf of Big Daddy seem a world away. I have left the hilltop towns, the medieval squares, the friendly locals and that pleasant evening light for a destination at the opposite end of the spectrum - the Hamptons.

Resting on a thin strip of land at the tip of New York's Long Island, this is the weekend/summering location of choice for discerning Manhattanites. I used to visit as a child during the 1980s, when it still felt like a rural idyll, settled by artists, including Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Willem de Kooning. My parents would take me to visit Alfonso Ossorio, an artist and patron, at his estate The Creeks in East Hampton. We spent our days cycling past corn fields and sipping on coke floats in Bridgehampton's Candy Kitchen. But when Ossorio died in the 1990s the house was sold to Revlon owner Ron Perelman. That's a good indication of how the Hamptons has changed over the years.