Natural gas mogul unloads Bridgehampton beach house
Three years after putting down $110 million for a 6.5-acre estate in East Hampton, natural gas tycoon Michael Smith has agreed to sell a smaller beachfront compound in Bridgehampton for close to its $42.5 million asking price, the New York Post reported. Smith’s 1.42-acre beachfront plot at 263 Surfside Avenue hit the market in early 2018 before having its listing removed in March, according to property records. The off-market deal for the 7,360-square-foot home, built in 2011 and designed by Barnes Coy Architects, was brokered by Eileen O’Neill of Douglas Elliman and Ryan Serhant of Nest Seekers International. The modern home, which has views of the Atlantic Ocean and Sag Pond, has seven bedrooms, eight bathrooms and an outdoor living space with an infinity pool, pool house, kitchen, pizza oven and roof deck. The Real Deal reported last year on Smith and his wife, Iris, paying another $110 million to acquire the Malibu beachfront home of Hard Rock Cafe founder Peter Morton. The $110 million paid by Smith, chairman and CEO of Freeport LNG Development, in 2016 for three separate properties on East Hampton’s Lily Pond Lane trailed only hedge fund honcho Barry Rosenstein’s $147 million purchase in the town in 2014 as the largest-ever on the East End. [NYP] — Brian Baxter
Springs General Store in East Hampton for sale at $3M
The 175-year-old Springs General Store in East Hampton is once again on the market for $2.9 million, the Independent reported. The longtime East End institution is still running as a grocery store, but also has a two-bedroom upstairs apartment with one-and-a-half bathrooms. The 1.3-acre property at 29 Old Stone Highway comes with a detached two-car garage and some vintage gas pumps no longer in use. The building was built in 1844 as a post office, according to the store’s history. Dan Miller owned the building from the 1940s to 1970. During his tenure, the painter Jackson Pollock once settled his grocery tab by giving the store one of his works (it now hangs in the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris, but the shop does display a poster of it), according to the New York Times. Pollock was killed in a 1956 car accident not far from the store. In 2003, Kristi Hood took over the store, which is leased from the building’s current owners, who took control of the property in 2015 after the previous landlord was unable to come to an agreement with Hood about a new rent. News reports about the store hitting the market have not said why its current owners, who reportedly paid $2 million for the property four years ago, now want to part ways with it. Tina Plesset and the husband-and-wife team of Phelan and Kammy Wolf at Sotheby’s International Realty have the listing. [The Independent]
East Hampton’s Arc House, bought with illicit funds, to hit market
A roughly 6,400-square-foot home in East Hampton that was purchased four years ago with the proceeds from a ticket-selling scam is about to come up for sale, Bloomberg reported. The U.S. Marshals Service has seized the Arc House, known for its unique architecture, as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s prosecution of Joseph Meli, who pleaded guilty in late 2017 to defrauding investors in a ticket-selling Ponzi scheme. The Real Deal reached out to the listing broker, Flushing-based Paul Luciano, and the property manager at Colliers International, but did not receive a response about the property’s potential asking price or timeline for sale. The home at 50 Green Hollow Road was built in 2010 and designed by Maziar Behrooz, who reportedly drew his inspiration from an airplane hangar. It has a 30-by-60-foot living room with 16-foot-high ceilings at its apex, as well as four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a pool and a flexible layout that has space for an art gallery. The home hit the market in 2013 seeking nearly $5 million before having its price cut down to $3 million in late 2015, when Meli’s wife, Jessica, acquired the property. A civil case against the couple, which Jessica Meli settled last year, claimed that funds from the ticket scam were used for personal investments, such as the Arc House. Jessica Meli settled that case in November. [TRD]
Water Mill new build to host summer design showcase, fundraiser
A recently-built Water Mill mansion that hit the market earlier this year at $10.995 million will open for the summer as a showcase for 20 interior designers as a Holiday House Hamptons fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation held by luxury design publication Hamptons Cottages & Gardens, Long Island Business News reported. The three-story, 12,500-square-foot home at 90 Wild Goose Lane has nine bedrooms, 10 bathrooms and three half-bathrooms. The featured designers “decorated a different room loosely inspired by a theme, in a design that is indicative of their style,” said a spokesperson for the event. One designer created a bedroom around the theme “dreams,” while another built a bridal suite around the phrase “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” The showcase will debut with a June 22 gala and remain open six days a week through August 4. The 1.5-acre property on which the home sits last sold in April 2015 for $3.85 million, according to Zillow. All Seasons Contracting currently owns the home, which includes a tennis court, hot tub, pool, pool house, solar-powered technologies and a three-car garage. Dawn and Frank Bodenchak of Sotheby’s International Realty have the listing. [LIBN]
Foster Crossing estate in Southampton lists at nearly $20M
A 2.02-acre estate in Southampton that has never before hit the market listed within the past week at a $19.995 million ask, 27east reported. The 7,445-square-foot residence at 72 Foster Crossing was built in 2002 and has eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms, two half-baths, a classic library and multiple entertaining spaces, including a theater, billiards room, large playroom, a gym and a columned wraparound porch. The master suite also has its own sitting room, fireplace and balcony. Mark Baron of Saunders & Associates, who has the exclusive listing for the property, told 27east that since high-end Hamptons homes priced above $20 million have gone through several rounds of price cuts in recent years, he deliberately set the ask at a more reasonable sum. “The intention with this piece of real estate was to price it in this current market, so that we have the expectation of it trading close to the asking price,” Baron said. “In fact, we already have had significant showings within the first weekend of listing the property, which again is indicative that it is well-priced.” [27east]
Southampton opens lottery for 65 affordable housing units
A lottery for 65 recently-built affordable rental apartments in the Town of Southampton has begun accepting applications, 27east reported. The lottery, which closes on July 5, is for 37 apartments at Speonk Commons and another 28 at Sandy Hollow Cove in Tuckahoe. Acro Management Company will run the lottery and screen the winning applicants. The available units include 52 studios or one-bedroom apartments and 13 tw0-bedroom apartments. Most of the units are designated for households earning up to 60 percent of the area’s median income: $52,080 for a one-person household, $59,520 for two people and $74,480 for a family of four. Seven units are available for applicants earning 80 percent of the area’s median income. A dozen apartments have been set aside for applicants with disabilities, two of them for people who work in Southampton. One unit is slated for a veteran. The names of winning applicants will be drawn at random next month during a public event at Southampton Town Hall. The two developments in the lottery were built by the Southampton Town Housing Authority and Georgica Green Ventures, a Jericho-based company that builds affordable housing. In 2017, the Suffolk County legislature authorized spending $2.15 million to put toward buying the land for both sites. [27east]
Bridgehampton home sells at steep price cut amid spate of trades
A waterfront home on a 1.8-acre property sold for $10 million amid a quartet of sales in Bridgehampton, according to 27east. The 3,500-square-foot home at 422 Dune Road had initially hit the market for $16.5 million in 2016, but late last year saw its ask cut down to $12.95 million, according to Trulia. The property has now been sold by a limited liability company called Three Waters to another LLC, ML Bridge, per 27east, which cited sales data from the Real Estate Report. The Dune Road home has four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms and a pool on a patio with a spiral staircase leading up to a rooftop terrace. Saunders & Associates’ Terry Cohen, who came in at No. 4 in The Real Deal‘s recent ranking of top Hamptons luxury brokers, and Mark Greenwald had the listing. Nearby, 27east reported that Penny and Robert Lieberberg sold a six-bedroom home at 748 Ocean Road to an LLC called Yankees 18 for a little more than $8.9 million. Built in 1999 by Fountainhead Construction and designed by Scott Phillips, the property has a pool, pool house and an underground passage that links it to a 3,800-square-foot barn with its own media room and guest quarters. The Corcoran Group’s Susan Breitenbach also recently sold 114 Rose Way for $5.05 million, while Compass handled the $4.2 million sale of 114 Lockwood Avenue, according to 27east. [27east]