East Hampton may buy Ben Krupinski’s airport lease, Martha Stewart’s former Bridgehampton bungalow reborn as boutique hotel & more Hamptons real estate news

East Hampton looks to buy hangar of late East End builder
A year after the sudden death of Hamptons builder Ben Krupinski in a plane crash off Amagansett, officials in East Hampton are negotiating with those handling his estate to buy out a lease on the largest hangar at the East Hampton Airport, 27east reported. Krupinski first leased the hangar, which is known as the East Hampton Executive Terminal, for $50,000 in 1996. Annual increases bumped the rate up to $104,000 by 2018. In 2016, Krupinski extended the lease until 2026. The town board voted in May to approve using $275,000 of the airport’s surplus funding reserves to buy Krupinski’s lease. But officials are still in negotiations and the money has yet to be appropriated, according to 27east. The roughly 10,000-square-foot hangar has attached offices with another 2,000 square feet. The terms of the lease require that the property undergo an “environmental audit” before East Hampton can take it over. The lessee also has to fix any environmental issues at the site before it is turned over to the town. The hangar is not part of a 47-acre swath that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation declared last week to be contaminated by hazardous waste and a Superfund site. The contaminated portions, located around the airport, will have to be cleaned up by the state and local authorities. As for the late Krupinski, two longtime staffers assumed control of his construction business, but earlier this year his estranged daughter was found dead at 52. [27east]

Boutique hotel with famous past opens in Bridgehampton
A Bridgehampton bungalow that used to belong, at different times, to celebrity homemaker Martha Stewart and fashion icon Donna Karan, has been turned into a summer hotel, according to architecture and design publication Dezeen. The opening of A Room at the Beach, also noted by The Real Deal in its recent rundown on East End hospitality happenings, comes after co-owners Charles Lemonides and Lucy Swift Weber revamped a former 10-room cinder block structure at 2668 Montauk Highway. The building had been used by Stewart and her daughter, Alexis, as a vacation home during the 1990s. During that time, they added two rows of redwood trees to the 1.5-acre lot. At a different point in its star-studded history, the property was also owned by Karan and her daughter, Gabby Karan de Felice, who modified the guest bedrooms and built an outdoor pool. During the latest round of renovations, Lemonides and Weber upgraded the plumbing and converted the laundry room into a sauna, but largely left the bones intact to comply with local regulations. Most of those changes are cosmetic. The cinder block walls are now covered by cedar wood, and a new wood patio now runs the length of the building. Most of the guest rooms at A Room at the Beach are five-by-five meters with bathrooms behind sliding partitions. [Dezeen]

Joe Farrell cuts price of Bridgehampton mansion by $10M
Weeks after hosting Rudy Giuliani’s 75th birthday party at his amenities-packed Bridgehampton mansion, prominent East End developer Joe Farrell has reduced the price of the home to $39.995 million from the nearly $50 million ask it had early last year, Behind the Hedges reported. The 17,000-square-foot home at 612 Halsey Lane, which Farrell has dubbed the “Sandcastle,” has hosted a litany of notable individuals over the years, including Beyoncé and Jay Z, Justin Bieber, Madonna and Russian billionaire Valery Kogan. Farrell, whose signature McMansions have transformed the Hamptons (he also secured $65 million in February for a rental project in Central Islip), has tried to sell the Sandcastle at various times over the years. In 2013, the price tag for the Sandcastle had dropped to $43.5 million, which a would-be buyer offered to pay, but Farrell demurred. The home, which sites on 11.5 acres, has 11 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms and five half-bathrooms, as well as amenities like a baseball field, two-lane bowling alley and a spa. Farrell’s decision to dial back the ask on the Sandcastle comes amid a slumping market for high-end Hamptons home sales. Terry Cohen and Christopher Covert of Saunders & Associates, which was tapped by Farrell earlier this year to market a portfolio of his properties, including the Sandcastle, have the listing. They share it with Bespoke Real Estate, whose founding Vichinsky brothers recently took the top spot in a TRD list of leading Hamptons residential brokers. Saunders’ Cohen came in at No. 4 on that ranking. [TRD]

Bravo star’s Southampton home now a $285K summer rental
Ramona Singer, the skincare peddler and current cast member on Bravo’s “Real Housewives of New York City,” wants to add another job to her resume: landlady. According to Realtor.com, Singer is looking to lease out her Southampton home for the summer. Singer is offering the 7,000-square-foot home for $135,000 in July and $285,000 through Labor Day. Singer, who bought the property at 39 Pheasant Close South for $875,000 and fully renovated it, also listed it in 2018, according to Curbed. The 7,000-square-foot home, which was built in 1994, has six bedrooms, five-and-a-half bathrooms, three floors, a two-story great room, a professional kitchen, wine refrigerator, piano room, billiards room, an exercise room and a separate staff quarters, among other amenities. Singer’s 1.4-acre property also features a heated pool, tennis court, bocce ball court and covered decks. Alison Barwick-Bissat and David Butland with the Corcoran Group have the listing, which comes as Singer prepares to leave her longtime Manhattan apartment and as her fellow RHONY star Barbara Kavovit fights to save her Wainscott home from foreclosure. [Realtor.com]

Southampton scuttles East Quogue’s bid to handle land issues
Southampton Town officials have rejected efforts by East Quogue residents to incorporate their hamlet to better handle land issues because their petition included 34 dead people and lacked sufficient “regular inhabitants,” Newsday reported. Members of the East Quogue Village Exploratory Committee launched their incorporation campaign because they wanted a “thin layer of government” for the village to better regulate land use issues, such as the proposed 118-unit golf course and luxury housing project formerly called The Hills, which has been subject to a contentious, drawn-out review process. Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman rejected the East Quogue group’s petition with 780 signatures, well over the 595 required by law. The group now has 30 days to appeal his decision, but didn’t immediately do so because, according to its co-chair, Karen Kooi, their previous efforts to list all the “regular inhabitants” had already proved to be difficult. If the group eventually succeeds, East Quogue’s village would border Quogue Village to the west and extend to the Atlantic Ocean. [Newsday]

Author, developer, footballer puts Hampton Bays home on market
Author and artist Andra Douglas, a former Warner Brothers executive who once served as quarterback and owner of the New York Sharks women’s tackle football team, has listed her Hampton Bays home at 7 Springville Circle for almost $1.5 million, Newsday reported. The two-bedroom and two-bathroom home situated on a .23-acre plot along Smith Creek also has a wraparound deck and a deepwater dock, according to the outlet. Constance Porto and Anne Marie Francavilla of Douglas Elliman have the listing for Douglas, now a managing partner of Krusen-Douglas, family-owned business that does land development work in the Tampa area. (The Sharks were sold last year to the New York Wolves.) Newsday also reported earlier this month on ballerina Valentina Kozlova selling her 1,200-square-foot Hampton Bays home for $460,000, almost $100,000 less than the property at 8 Holiday Court hit the market for last year, as noted at the time by Curbed. Elliman’s Porto, Francavilla and Carol Pugliese had the listing for Kozlova, who defected to the U.S. in 1979 from the Soviet Union. [Newsday] — Brian Baxter