Dorothy Hom and Michael Strauss Host the Westhampton Garden Club ‘Gardens & Rooms Tour’ on July 12

On Monday, July 12th, President & Founder, Michael Strauss, and Dorothy Hom, Creative Director, are once again hosting the annual Westhampton Garden Club ‘Gardens & Rooms Tour.’

Westhampton Garden Club tours have been a beloved tradition in the greater Westhampton area since 1950, if not earlier, showcasing spectacular houses and the beautiful gardens around them. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tour’s emphasis has shifted to the gardens, and the 2024 event will include a peek inside the houses, highlighting a special room at each stop. The stops on the tour are kept a surprise. Ticket-holders don’t learn the addresses of the gardens until the day of the event when they are given a map, and the names of the homeowners are never revealed — with one exception this year. In another break from tradition, 2024 tour co-chair Dorothy Hom has let it be known that her and her husband’s Westhampton Beach garden is one of the stops.

Hom is brave to both run the tour and have her garden be on the tour in the same year, said Westhampton Garden Club President Melissa Morgan Nelson as Hom gave a preview of her garden to a reporter this spring. Hom met Nelson in 2019, when Hom joined the Westhampton Garden Club after becoming a full-time local resident. She said they joined the garden club because they want to share — and she’s met the nicest people since becoming a member. She first became involved in the tour through the 2022 tour journal, writing the blurbs about the featured gardens based on her interviews with the homeowners.

Proceeds from each tour support the club’s public educational gardens as well as scholarships and free programs. Westhampton Garden Club teams maintain two gardens at the Quogue Library — a historical garden and a pollinator garden — the native lily pond garden in Quogue and the Garden of Remembrance at the Quogue Firehouse. The club designed, oversees and funds maintenance, through Dragonfly Landscaping, of An English Garden by the Sea at the Westhampton Beach Village Green. The club is also planning gardens in partnership with the Westhampton Historical Society.