The Hamptons · Montauk, New York
Smart Home, Lighting & AV in Montauk.
The oceanfront is a VE zone, Ditch Plains is being rebuilt with state money, and a nor'easter can take the beach at Hither Hills in a night. A Montauk system is designed for the storm first and the season second.
Montauk, Specifically
Designed for the Storm.
Montauk is a hamlet of about 4,300 year-round residents at the end of Long Island, and it takes the weather first. FEMA maps virtually the entire oceanfront as a VE zone; the state put $2.5 million into rebuilding the dunes at Ditch Plains in 2024 after repeated winter storms, a nor'easter cut a six-to-eight-foot drop into the beach at Hither Hills, and the Town has weighed zoning relief so owners in the flood zones can raise their houses.
The design answers follow: equipment above the flood line, marine-grade everything outdoors, a generator through the Town's permit, battery backup on the rack, and a network with a second path, because Optimum is the only wire out here and a February 2025 incident put more than 21,500 East End customers in the dark.
01 · Shore
Above the VE Line
Living space, the rack, the transfer switch, and the outdoor electronics sit above the base flood elevation. Speakers, cameras, and fixtures outside are built for salt and wind.
02 · Power
Backup That Is Expected to Run
A February 2025 transmission incident and the nor'easters that follow make a generator and a battery-backed rack part of the design, sized for the network, the cameras, and the house.
03 · Connectivity
One Wire, So Plan for Two
Optimum is the only wired provider in Montauk. The network carries Starlink or a second carrier as automatic failover, so the house and its cameras stay reachable from the city.
At a Glance
Montauk in brief.
- Lots
- A Town working group found that a majority of residential parcels in East Hampton are undersized for their zoning district, so many Montauk lots are legally nonconforming, which shapes additions and where equipment can go.
- Flood zones
- FEMA designates virtually the entire Montauk oceanfront as a VE zone with inland low areas as AE, and the Town has considered relief from its height rules so owners in those zones can raise their houses after winter storms flooded Ditch Plains.
- Erosion
- In August 2024 the state announced $2.5 million to rebuild dunes and add sand at Ditch Plains Beach after repeated storm erosion, on top of a separate $11 million Army Corps project; a 2025 nor'easter left a six-to-eight-foot drop at Hither Hills.
- Market
- Montauk's median sale price was $1,750,000 in the second quarter of 2025 (Miller Samuel for Douglas Elliman); the hamlet has about 4,318 year-round residents across roughly 18.5 square miles.
- Electric service
- The Long Island Power Authority's grid, operated by PSEG Long Island, serves Montauk; a February 2025 transmission incident left more than 21,500 customers from Montauk to Wainscott without power.
- Internet
- Optimum is the only wired internet, phone, and cable provider in Montauk, with no Verizon Fios; Starlink works across the region.
Sources: Behind the Hedges, the Town's floor-area formula; The East Hampton Star, flood-zone exemptions; WSHU, Montauk beach restoration, August 2024; ABC7, Hither Hills erosion after a nor'easter; Miller Samuel for Douglas Elliman, Hamptons sales Q2 2025; Montauk, New York (Wikipedia); Long Island Power Authority, about LIPA; The East Hampton Star, February 2025 outage; HTE, internet providers in the Hamptons.
Reading for Montauk
Guides and work nearby.
What We Install and Service
Every System. One Keypad.
Lighting & Shades
Lutron HomeWorks, Ketra and Rania light, Palladiom keypads, and shades that disappear into the ceiling.
Lighting →Whole-Home Control
Crestron and Lutron on one set of keypads and touchscreens, programmed the same way in every house you own.
Residential →Cinema & Music
Dedicated theaters, media rooms, and music in every room without a speaker in sight.
Residential →Network
Enterprise Wi-Fi and fiber sized for a large house, guest houses, and the far end of the lawn.
Networking →Security & Gate
Cameras, access control, gate intercom, and an alarm that a UL-listed central station answers.
Security →Outdoors
Landscape lighting and outdoor sound on one buried infrastructure, on the same keypad as the house.
Outdoor →Upgrades
Older Crestron and Lutron systems brought current, reusing the wiring already in the walls wherever possible.
Upgrade paths →Support
Monitoring, remote fixes, and priority response under one plan.
Cave Watch →Questions From Montauk
Montauk, Answered
Who installs Lutron and Crestron systems in Montauk?+–
Cave Group does. We are a Crestron Elite Gold Partner and Lutron Gold Dealer with an office in Long Island City, and our Hamptons work includes a Southampton waterfront residence completed in 2024. We work the full South Fork out to the Point.
What changes for an oceanfront house in Montauk?+–
The house, the rack, the transfer switch, and the outdoor electronics sit above the base flood elevation, everything outside is marine-grade, and the generator is placed and permitted with the flood line and the Town's rules in mind. Ditch Plains and Hither Hills have both lost beach to recent storms, so we design for the storm rather than the season.
How do you keep a Montauk house running when we are not there?+–
With monitoring and redundancy. Cave Watch watches the network, the control system, audio-video, and lighting around the clock and fixes most faults remotely; central-station alarm monitoring and live guard video monitoring stack on the same plan. The network carries a second connection, often Starlink, and the rack sits on battery backup, so a winter outage does not leave the house dark to us.
What internet is available in Montauk?+–
Across much of the East End, Optimum is the only wired provider and there is no Verizon Fios. We confirm what reaches the address, and we design the network with Starlink or a second carrier as automatic failover, so the cameras, the remote access, and the house itself survive a cut.
Do you take over systems another company installed?+–
Yes. We assess and document what is there, recover or rebuild the programming, replace what has reached end of life, and bring the system under a Cave Watch support plan, so the next problem has a phone number.
Nearby
Other Hamptons villages and hamlets we serve.
Start Here
Walk the House With Us.
Bring the drawings if the house is on paper, or the list of what no longer works if it is already built. We will tell you what we would do, in what order, what it would take, and what still has to run when nobody is home.
Start a Projector call · +1 (888) 712-2283 · [email protected]