The Enchanted Forest Films in the Hamptons

Two weeks ago Friday, I drove home at noon to Three Mile Harbor through the worst rainstorm we’ve had in years.

I live across the street from the harbor and my deck faces out at a strip of pubic park that’s between the road and the boat slips. Not much happens in this park. The locals bring out lawn chairs and sit to watch the fireworks in the harbor in July. At Christmas, lighted Christmas trees are placed out at 100-foot intervals by the Highway Department the full quarter-mile length of the park.

As I pulled into my driveway this time, however, I saw that three small white tents were set up on the grass, with picnic tables underneath, suffering under this torrential downpour. By the curb, a lonely food truck from 27 EATS sat, dripping wet. Someone was trying to have a private event in all this. But there were no people about.

At 10 that night however, the rain stopped, and I looked out our window and noticed a crowd out there enjoying the delicacies from the food truck. I walked over.

Feasting on the soggy lawn was the crew of a movie being filmed aboard a yacht nearby. The film will be called The Enchanted Forest. This was the amenity for the actors, cameramen and crew. One told me they would be there all night. The filmmaker is Josh Klausner.

“Are we bothering you?” a woman in charge asked.

“Not at all,” I said. “Film away.”

In the house I Googled Josh Klausner and in five minutes learned all about it. Klausner was the screenwriter for the 2014 hit movie Date Night, which starred Steve Carell and Tina Fey. He also wrote Shrek Forever After. And now he’s written and is directing The Enchanted Forest.

He is married to the wealthy oil heiress Hyatt Bass. They sold their SoHo mansion for $42.5 million in 2014. They had bought the property in 2001, and it was later reported they were planning to convert the former film studio into an enormous four-story fortress with safe rooms, security cameras and reinforced glass windows (Bass’s mother had been held hostage in her own Connecticut home in 2007). Klausner and Bass have a vacation house in the Hamptons and share it with their two children, Jasper and Hayden.

Maybe we’re related. Klausner is my mother’s family name.