Montauk Yacht Club sale most expensive ever in Hamptons

Safe Harbor Marinas spent $149M to buy hotel from Gurney’s

32 Star Island Road in Montauk, LI with Safe Harbor Marinas CEO Baxter Underwood

32 Star Island Road in Montauk, LI with Safe Harbor Marinas CEO Baxter Underwood (Google Maps, LinkedIn)

Hospitality property sales have not been setting many price records since a certain virus spread across the world in 2020, but one did in Montauk.

Safe Harbor Marinas spent $149 million to buy the Montauk Yacht Club from Gurney’s, Behind the Hedges reported. The acquisition was last year, but the price had not been previously revealed.

It’s a record in numerous ways. The highest price for a Hamptons hotel sale had been another deal last year, for the 96-room Marram Montauk. That property traded for barely half as much as the Montauk Yacht Club, which regained its former name after operating as Gurney’s Star Island Resort & Marina in recent years.

The $149 million was the most lucrative commercial Hamptons sale last year and might have been the most ever paid for a property on the East End. Barry Rosenstein paid $147 million for an East Hampton estate in 2014.

Gurney’s recouped its Montauk Yacht Club investment and then some. It purchased the property in 2018 for $56.7 million and put another $13 million in the property, which had sold in 2007 for $34 million.

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The transaction involves more than the 35-acre Montauk Yacht Club. It includes four Star Island Drive lots and three attached piers, along with the motel property at 88 South Elmwood Avenue.

The peninsula that stretches out onto Lake Montauk includes 107 guest rooms and villas, three pools, a pair of restaurants, several bars, tennis and pickleball courts and a private beach. There are also more than 200 boat slips.

Three years ago, real estate investment trust Sun Communities, the largest marina owner in the country, acquired Safe Harbor Marinas. Rising boat sales in the pandemic have led to consolidation in the sector.

Holden Walter-Warner

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