Bed-and-breakfasts waning on the East End

Bed-and-breakfasts are slowly disappearing from Long Island as innkeepers sell their properties off as vacation homes. According to the Long Island Convention and Visitors Bureau, there are 50 bed-and-breakfasts on Long Island, most of which are on the North Fork, but East Hampton commercial real estate broker Hal Zwick, of Devlin McNiff Real Estate, estimated that that figure represents a 25 percent decline from one decade ago. Zwick told the New York Times that inn properties are often more valuable as residential real estate than as a business, and they tend to have what buyers are looking for in a vacation home: size and multiple bathrooms. Among the bed-and-breakfasts for sale on the East End at the moment is the 30-year-old Home Port Bed & Breakfast in Peconic, which is listed for $1.195 million. Built in 1867, the Victorian mansion has four guest suites but was originally a single-family home. Meanwhile, Southampton’s historic Village Latch Inn is listed for $25 million, and some brokers suggest that it could be turned into condominiums. Faith Hope Consolo of Prudential Douglas Elliman suggested that the main house remain a bed-and-breakfast, while a developer could replace the property’s three, smaller cottages with condos. “It is a lovely hotel,” she said. “It has been that way forever, but it is time to move on.” [NYT]