Southampton pays $2M to preserve nine acres

Southampton (highlighted section shows 9 acres on Old Harbor Road)
Southampton (highlighted section shows 9 acres on Old Harbor Road)

The town of Southampton has bought nine acres of land in the hamlet of Bridgehampton in order to preserve it, according to a release from East End brokerage Town & Country Real Estate.

The acreage off Old Harbor Road was listed at $2.15 million, but was sold for $2 million, said Rick Slater of Town & Country, who had the listing and also represented the buyer. The land will now be free of development.

Southampton purchased the land with money collected through the Community Preservation Fund of Suffolk County and the town of Southampton. Through the program, more than 10,000 acres in the East End have been preserved to date, the release said.

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Meanwhile, the East End’s real estate market has seen better days. The median sale price for a Hamptons home fell to $750,000, from $817,500, in the first quarter of 2013, an almost 8.3 percent drop from the same period the year before, a Town & Country report showed.

Last month, Suffolk County, home to the Hamptons, accidentally missed an interest payment on its debt of $76.1 million in public improvement bonds. —Mark Maurer