Farrell Building, the dominant homebuilder in the Hamptons, is sweeping the region and looking to return it to the big-spending days before the recession.
Joe Farrell, president of the company and owner of the $43 million, 17,000-square-foot Sandcastle estate in Bridgehampton, builds homes that attract a crowd of mostly Wall Street investors. He has more than 30 new homes under construction and has plans for several speculative homes.
He is focusing on spec homes that sell in the range of $3 million and $10 million — a contrast to the $20 million homes he was building prior to the 2008 crash, the New York Times reported. Farrell’s staff of full-time architects, contractors and subcontractors helps to crank out a new mansion within a year. The homes come complete with heated three-car garages, cedar shakes and gambrel roofs.
All but one of the seven midsize mansions at the development Farrell Court in Water Mill have sold. They were asking between $4 million and $5 million. But as of October, the land was merely a tree farm.
Some critics of Farrell Building said the brisk building pace contributes to the attrition of farmland and monotonous style of homes in the area.
“Someone’s going to build them. I just happen to be building a lot of them, and people are buying them,” Farrell told the Times. [NYT] – Mark Maurer