Vacancy.(The Talk of the Town)(rehab centers)

One recent morning, Joseph McKinsey sat on the porch of the Ram's Head Inn, on Shelter Island, and laid out his vision for transforming the grounds into a high-end rehab center. McKinsey, sixty-three, an Amagansett-based businessman who made a fortune in computer products, sees an opportunity in the bifurcated landscape of rehabs. The West Coast establishments resemble luxury hotels. The best known--like Promises and Passages, both in Malibu; Cirque Lodge, in Sundance, Utah; and Cottonwood de Tucson, in Arizona--offer such amenities as one-on-one therapy sessions and personal gyms. At the East Coast's better-known rehab centers, such as Silver Hill, in Connecticut, and the Caron Foundation, in Pennsylvania, the grounds are comfortable, in a vaguely collegiate way, but there is a no-frills aesthetic. McKinsey's idea is to create a West Coast-style rehab center in the East--a place where New York City addicts can come to recover, without having to fly. The Safe Harbor Retreat, as he was calling it, would be a twenty-two-bed facility, charging thirty-six thousand dollars for a month's stay, offering many of the comforts that Promises promises, McKinsey said, but "within a more traditional, Betty Ford-style approach."

McKinsey continued, "You'd have hiking, sailing, kayaking, tennis, just as there is now." He gestured around the grounds and said, "You'd have the same kind of people--you could walk in here and see a group of alcoholics and a group of regular customers, and you wouldn't know the difference. And, instead of having ten thousand people a year coming through, including large and noisy weddings, filling the roads with drivers who may have had a few drinks, you would have two hundred and sixty-four people in a year, who wouldn't have cars."

McKinsey, who noted that he was in his twenty-fourth year, seventh month, and seventh day of sobriety, wore a light-blue linen shirt, khakis, and brown woven loafers with no socks. He explained that, last year, he had read in the newspaper that the Ram's Head Inn was for sale, for seventeen and a half million dollars, and realized that it was perfect--secluded, beautiful, comfortable, and on an island, which all the experts he had talked with thought was key psychologically. ("Once you step on that ferry, you are going to a different place.") He explored the option of buying it, but couldn't get the money together, so he made a deal with the owners, James and Linda Eklund, to lease the buildings and the grounds for five years.

McKinsey's only remaining hurdle was to convince the community that ...