Luxury hospitality startup will summer in the East End
Airbnb, meet your match in the Hamptons. Hospitality startup Onefinestay will roll out a portfolio of luxury vacation homes for rent in the East End, the company announced this week. In partnership with Bespoke Real Estate, the firm will offer vacationers a hand-picked collection of houses valued at $10 million or more, such as a six-bedroom on Ocean Road in Bridgehampton that asks nearly $250,000 a month or an 18,000-square-foot Southampton mansion available for $1.9 million a month.
The Hamptons will be the first of 40 markets that Onefinestay has set its sights. [TRD]
Two Apartment Buildings On One Street may be too crazy for Southampton
The site at 85 North Phillips Avenue
Everything in moderation, right? Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said he’s hesitant to approve plans for a 44-unit apartment complex in Speonk because the town is still in the midst of considering a 38-unit complex along the same side of North Phillips Avenue, 27East reported. The former, to be developed by Marc Chiffert of CAEC Engineering, would contain at least four affordable units. “The community has made it pretty clear to me that they don’t want to see any increases in density,” Schneiderman said. [27East]
Q4 dip in sales just a symptom of Trump anxiety: experts
Hamptons real estate players are mostly unruffled by the somewhat steep drop in the number of home sales between the fourth quarter of 2015 and the same period in 2016, citing the election as the cause for the “pause” in sales. In 2015, there were 624 homes sold in the fourth quarter, according to the Long Island Real Estate Report. In 2016, that number fell to 396. “[B]uyers were focused on world events such as Brexit, the sluggish financial markets and the pending presidential election. ‘Uncertainty’ often causes buyers to pause,” Tim Davis, a top broker at the Corcoran Group, told 27East. Most, in fact, are optimistic for 2017. “City sales in the high-end luxury sector have picked up significantly and the Hamptons always follow suit,” Andrew Azoulay of Douglas Elliman said. [27East]
Brown Harris Stevens’ fire-torn office in Sag Harbor can remain standing
Brown Harris Stevens has already moved on, and it seems the site of its former office in Sag Harbor at 96 Main Street might also be okay after all. Two-story structure, 75 percent of which was destroyed in the December fire, will need temporary bracing to remain standing, according to a report by a consulting and forensic engineering firm. Thus far, the building owners have not received permission from their next-door neighbor to access the property from the adjacent structure. [EHS]
Venus Williams’ favorite tennis court and Hamptons party pad sold for $12M
What makes this Water Mill house special? For starters, it’s apparently the only pad in the Hamptons with a rooftop tennis court (with U.S. Open-quality layered rubber). But it’s also where Venus Williams held a pre-Wimbledon party last June, featuring a court lounge curated by her own interior design firm, V*Starr. The home at 100 Crescent Avenue sits on a 2.1-acre lot and contains seven bedrooms, 8.5 bathrooms, a gym, theater, wine room, and elevator. It spans 13,000 square feet. Outside, there is a heated pool that waterfalls into a spa. [27East]
The Real Deal is headed back to Long Island
Hope you didn’t miss us too much. TRD is headed back to the Island for our second Long Island Market Report, to be circulated alongside the March issue. It will feature a roundup of real estate news in Nassau and Suffolk counties and our definitive rankings on the top residential brokerages and priciest listings, as well as a look at new developments on the two Forks. [TRD]
Correction: An earlier version of this post misidentified how many home sales there were in the Hamptons in the fourth quarter of 2016. It’s 396.