Born and raised in Hampton Bays, NY, Taylor Jayne always imagined she’d build her life in the place that raised her. But like so many locals on the East End, the dream kept slipping further out of reach.
After a decade of renting in Southampton, most recently paying $2,200 a month for a one-bedroom apartment above a garage, Jayne decided she didn’t want to spend so much money paying someone else’s mortgage.
So at age 31, Jayne and her mom started hunting for starter homes online. With Southampton’s median home-sale price hovering around $1.7 million, the hunt was hard.
But then they found it: a 700-square-foot, two-bedroom mobile home in Suffolk Pines Mobile Home Park, listed for just $185,000. At the time, the listing was the cheapest home for sale in the Hamptons, according to reports.
The trailer was a mile from Westhampton town, and a mile and a half away from the beach.
The second she stepped inside the aging 1968 trailer, Jayne says she could already picture the transformation she was going to make.
“My mom thought I was insane,” she laughed. “I literally made a presentation with mood boards and everything.”
Although Jayne and her mom tried to secure a traditional mortgage, they weren’t able to, so Jayne’s mother used inheritance money left by her late father, Jayne’s grandfather, to buy the home in cash. The sale eventually closed at $150,000, with an agreement that Jayne would pay her mom back monthly.
For Jayne, the purchase felt deeply personal.
“My grandpa was always into buying and flipping houses,” she said. “It felt like something Papa would have done.”
A Year Later, The Couple is Still Renovating the Mobile Home
The timing turned out to be perfect in another way, too. Jayne’s fiancé, Wyatt Buffington, grew up working construction alongside his father—a skill set that would become the couple’s biggest asset. Together, they gutted and rebuilt much of the trailer themselves, installing floors and windows, adding crown molding and shiplap ceilings and slowly turning the once-dated mobile home into what Jayne calls a “retro surf shack.”
“People make fun of me on TikTok for adding crown molding to a trailer,” Jayne said. “But when you’re inside, you genuinely forget it’s a trailer. It feels like a real house.”
The couple has budgeted roughly $20,000 for renovations, leaning heavily on sweat equity and help from family and friends. The kitchen and bathroom are still works in progress, but nearly every other inch of the home has been touched by the couple’s hands. They have plans for Buffington’s dad to help them do a full gut renovation of the kitchen and bathroom.
Outside, surfboards lean against the fence. Inside, the decor channels a nostalgic version of the Hamptons—less luxury influencer aesthetic, more laid-back beach town energy from decades past.
“It’s the Hamptons my parents and grandparents remember from the ’80s,” Jayne said. “I wanted it to feel elevated, but still casual and retro.”
What Started as an Investment is Turning Into a Forever Home
Today, the couple pays a $690 monthly HOA fee plus $1,250 a month to Jayne’s mother. That’s still less than what Jayne once paid in rent.
And while the original plan was to stay for just a few years before selling, the trailer has quietly become something bigger: a foothold in a community they thought they’d be priced out of forever.
One of their closest friends recently moved into the park, too. Neighbors bring treats for their dog. What started as a temporary fix now feels like home.
Still, the pressure of the Hamptons housing market looms large. In March 2026, Westhampton home prices surged 57.1% year-over-year, with median prices climbing to $2.1 million.
For Jayne, that reality only reinforces why she bought the trailer in the first place.
“This was our way of getting our foot in the door when the door felt completely closed,” she said. “Now every decision we make feels like we’re building something for ourselves instead of paying someone else’s mortgage.”
