Hamptons Cheat Sheet: After ‘Trump bump,’ Joe Farrell taps Saunders to market $200M portfolio, East Hampton still tops for renters… & more

Updated: April 12, 11:53 A.M.

After ‘Trump bump,’ Saunders to market $200M in homes
Prominent Hamptons developer Joe Farrell has hired Saunders & Associates to market 19 of his properties worth a combined $200 million, including his Sandcastle mansion in Bridgehampton that once hosted Beyoncé and Jay-Z, the New York Post reported. Farrell, of Farrell Building Co., considers the mansion his dream home and is asking $49.995 million for the property. The 17,000-square-foot home has 10 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, a baseball field, a planetarium and a bowling alley, among other amenities. It previously listed for $59.9 million in 2009. In 2018, Farrell’s then 18-home inventory sold in a quick six months. “I call it the ‘Trump bump,’” he told the Post. “Inventory sold so fast that I had to work quickly to replace it.” A 17-member team from Saunders will seek to quickly move his portfolio again, the company’s founder, Andrew Saunders, told the outlet. Farrell, who earlier this year secured $65 million in financing for a luxury rental project in Central Islip, is building two more homes in Bridgehampton at 51 Sandpiper Lane, which the Post reported will be his personal residence, and 65 Sandpiper Lane, which has an ask of $14.9 million. [New York Post] Correction: This item has been amended to reflect that the asking price for the Sandcastle is $49.995 million. 

East Hampton piques interest of would-be summer renters
The most popular East End locale for summer renters is East Hampton, according to Zillow Group’s Out East platform, which analyzed user search data to figure out where renters are looking. Out East noted that April is when about a quarter of all summer rentals in the Hamptons are snatched up. More than one in 10 searches for summer renters on Out East were for East Hampton, though interest in the town has waned. The area made up 18.7 percent of all searches in 2018, but only 12.7 percent this year, according to Out East. There are 1,500 homes up for a full summer stay. The median ask on such homes is $65,000, though some are $10,000 below the broader Hamptons’ median of $75,000. Montauk again took the second spot on Out East’s list. Sag Harbor, however, leaped two spots into third, knocking down Southampton and Amagansett. Sag Harbor has more than 650 full-summer rentals with a median price of $65,000. Like Sag Harbor, Hampton Bays saw a sudden surge in interest, premiering on Out East’s top 10 list in the seventh slot. The median asking price in Hampton Bays is $45,000 for a full summer rental. There are roughly 90 properties up for rent. [Out East]

Southampton rehab center snags $58.8M in HUD financing
Greystone & Company has agreed to provide a $58.8 million, U.S. Housing and Urban Development-insured refinancing loan to the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation & Nursing, according to MultifamilyBiz. Fred Levine, a managing director with the New York City-based real estate financier, said in a statement that the FHA refinancing has a 35-year term and will consolidate the property’s existing debt. Long Island Business News reported that the Hamptons Center, a 280-bed facility that occupies nine acres at 64 County Road 39 in Southampton, opened in 2006 and offers short- and long-term care. The Hamptons Center also has two separate Alzheimer’s disease and dementia care units. The Real Deal reported in February on developers throughout the Tri-State area moving into managed care projects. [MultifamilyBiz]

Lakefront home in Montauk trims $2.5M from its initial ask
A 4,500-square-foot home on the lip of Lake Montauk is back on the market, but with its ask lowered to $7.95 million, Behind the Hedges reported. The property at 22 Old West Lake Drive first came on the market in May 2017 with a $10.5 million price tag, according to Curbed. The home was designed by AIA Archi Award-winning architect Robert Young and built in 2005 by Bridgehampton-based Atlantic Collaborative Construction. The house has seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a wine cellar, a 50-foot lap pool and large windows. One bedroom also has four built-in bunk beds. The listing for “Montauk’s iconic lake house” with Jenny Landey and Rylan Jacka of Sotheby’s International Realty notes that the main house is “an aggregate of smaller, informal living spaces” that creates “a variety of views and experiences.” The 1.3-acre property, which is actually two parcels put together, also has a 1,800-square-foot guest house and a private beach where owners can moor their boats. [Behind the Hedges]

Filmmaker’s Water Mill home sale highlights spate of local trades
The Mel Generation-Skipping Trust sold a 6,300-square-foot home at 139 Halsey Lane for $7.25 million to a limited liability company, 27east reported. The home has seven bedrooms, eight-and-a-half bathrooms, an open-air summer living room, tennis court, pool and gardens over 2.8 acres. Marilyn Clark and Eve Combemale of Sotheby’s International Realty have the listing. Nearby, a 129-year-old home at 396 Cobb Road sold to another LLC for $5.1 million. Built in 1890, the 4,445-square-foot home has four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms, library, wrap-around porch and a guitar-shaped pool. The property, listed with Douglas Elliman, also has a separate artist studio with its own bathroom above a two-car garage. A new construction, six-bedroom home listed with the Corcoran Group at 881 Deerfield Road recently sold for $4.6 million, according to 27east, which also reported earlier this month on the $2.6 million sale of late British filmmaker Anthony Harvey’s home at 134 Kellis Pond Lane. Harvey, known for editing Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” died at 87 in November 2017. [27east]

East Hampton’s 90-year-old Bee Cottage hits market for $3.5M
Stephanie Clark, an artist and ex-wife of Clark Construction honcho Christopher Clark, has listed her Bee Cottage at 11 Fithian Lane in East Hampton for $3.49 million, according to the New York Post. The outlet noted the move came a month after Clark paid $5.9 million for a Miami Beach home. The Bee Cottage was build in 1929 in a Palm Beach stucco style. Prior owner Frances Schultz used her restoration of the home as the basis for her memoir, “The Bee Cottage Story: How I made a Muddle of Things and Decorated My Way Back to Happiness.” When Clark bought the property for nearly $3 million in 2017, she sought to put her own spin on the place. The 2,478-square-foot home has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a covered terrace and “too many custom details to list,” according to its listing with Angela Boyer-Stump of Sotheby’s International Realty. [New York Post]

Bel-Aire Cove Motel in Hampton Bays to be sold for $1.06M
The Southampton Town Board voted this week to buy the Bel-Aire Cove Motel in Hampton Bays for $1.06 million and raze the property to prepare it for development, Newsday reported. The long-awaited vote had been in the works since last summer, when local officials sought to buy the establishment from its current owners, who were coping with a variety of code violations ranging from bedbugs to electrical issues. Some Hampton Bays residents had voiced their opposition to the plan and sought to have the property at 20 Shinnecock Road purchased with Community Preservation Fund money, which would have required the land to be returned to its natural state, according to 27east. The 4-1 vote in favor of purchasing the Bel-Aire Cove, which provides low-income housing on a year-round basis, could see it be redeveloped into 12 condominium units or a 22-room boutique hotel, Newsday reported. [Newsday]