PHOTO STORY: Campobello, the Fire Island House Where Memories Were Made
Campobello was the House in Cherry Grove, Fire Island, Where Anything Could Happen
For eighteen summers, Campobello was home.
On the quiet west side of Cherry Grove, close to the path leading toward the Sunken Forest, stands Campobello — the house where koitz spent his summers, mostly on weekends, and photographed many of the people who became part of his world.
It was also here that several interviews for In the Meat Rack, the documentary he directed with trans filmmaker Parker Sargent, were recorded. The house became, in a way, both a home and a backdrop to the life koitz was documenting.
But Campobello was never really a private place.
The door was open. Anyone could walk in, almost at any time, and they were welcomed — usually with a glass of pink Prosecco, or perhaps several glasses. It was koitz’s favorite.
There were parties. There were long afternoons and late nights. People came to celebrate birthdays, milestones, friendships — or simply the fact that they were there. That day. That weekend. That summer.
For a while, Campobello seemed to hold all of it: the laughter, the photographs, the stories, the unexpected encounters, the sense that something might happen at any moment.
Some of the photographs that would later appear in koitz’s 2020 coffee-table book, koitz Gay Fire Island, were made here too.
The house is still there.
But koitz, his husband, and the friends who filled Campobello with life are no longer in that house.
And perhaps that is what makes those eighteen summers feel even more suspended in time.
Because Campobello was never just a house. It was a place of welcome. Of friendship. Of celebration. A place where the door was open, the Prosecco was pink, and almost anything could happen.
And for those who were there, it still does.
