Realty Check 2016

First in Show
Coastal Living, Time Inc.’s veteran magazine, which bills itself as “the best in coastal style, travel, and food,” will be hosting its first ever Hamptons’ show house in June at 272 Brick Kiln Road in Bridgehampton. The 6,800-square-foot home replete with pool, pool house, and tennis court, will be designed by Fred Throo Architects and interior designer, Meg Braff, and will be built by developer Touch of Grey.

Titanic Teardown
“A Hamptons Teardown Sells for $53 Million.” So read a December headline in the Wall Street Journal, referring to the sale of a pair of adjacent Gin Lane parcels. Once part of the 14-acre Wooldon Manor estate, the properties weigh in at 6.5 acres. The new owner, whose predecessors include a Woolworth heiress and Merrill Lynch founding partner, Edmund Lynch, will reportedly be combining the properties to create a humdinger of an estate.

Goodbye Ray Donovan?
It seems that one of the Hamptons’ most visible celebrity couples might be leaving us. Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber, who are often seen tooling around town, have put their 5 bedroom/7.5 bath Amagansett dwelling on the market. The 6,000+ sf shingle style cottage, which boasts a soaring vaulted ceiling, bluestone fireplace, and pergola-crowned terrace, is asking $5,850,000.

2.5 Million Summer Rental
Possibly the most expensive rental listed anywhere, anytime, has been put on the market. The eight-bedroom, 18,000-square-foot beachfront mansion on Meadow Lane is listed at $2.5 million for the summer by Tim Davis. The eight-acre property with a private dock is owned by philanthropist and former advertising honcho Marcia Riklis. According to our calculations, that comes out to more than $166,000 per week. Any takers?

A LOT For A Little
An oceanfront parcel in Sagaponack has sold for circa $200,000. Yes, you read that right. The catch? The lot is unbuildable. Only two bids were submitted for the .6-acre vacant lot at 152 Sandune Court, owned by Southampton Town. The town put it up for sale with a starting bid of $102,200 on December 10. The loser was next-door neighbor billionaire Lloyd Goldman. The developer was outbid by $2,000 by Southampton Press publisher Joseph P. Louchheim, who was reported to have said: “I lobbed in a bid, just for the heck of it.”

Icon For Sale
East Hampton Point, the harborfront restaurant/hotel is for sale along with the marina and 58-slip boatyard, which it overlooks. The five-acre property, which includes 13 cottages and seven suites in the main house, is listed for $29 million. We hope any new owner keeps the historic fully rigged yacht that presides over the bar.

Bye Bye Bouwerie
Another historic abode was recently demolished, to great outcry, despite its listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Built circa 1930 for Dr. Wesley Bowers and his wife, the Spanish Revival Meadow Lane manse modeled after a villa the couple had seen on their honeymoon in the South of France, was christened by them, the “Bouwerie.” The new owner, who purchased the oceanfront estate in 2011 for more than $25 million, “referenced the precarious location and condition of the home as reasons for demolition,” according to the Southampton Press. “My God, what an interior, it was unlike any other house in Southampton,” says director of the Southampton Historical Museum, Tom Edmonds. “What a terrible loss.” The new 18,000-square-foot structure will include 11 underground parking spaces, two elevators, and 19 bedrooms. The current law does not protect houses built after 1926.

Compass Points North
Compass has added several more agents to its roster, most notably Jonathan Davis. The son of Hamptons top broker, Tim Davis, who was brought into the fold three years ago by his father, has left Corcoran for the upstart agency. Davis, the elder, made the first announcement, wishing his son “well in his new endeavor.” Meanwhile, Compass has purchased Sag Harbor firm, Strough Real Estate, for a foot in that happening real estate village, and recently announced a new location on Nugent Street in Southampton, making it the company’s third and fourth Hamptons’ office, respectively.

Move Over Wölffer
A new horse farm, which will be completed next fall, is being built in Sagaponack – smack dab across the street from Wölffer Estate Stables. Michael and Kerry Gaynor’s aptly named three-acre Heavy Horse Farm will house three Clydesdales. The couple paid $2.3 million in August for the former potato farm from Tom Dombkowski, whose family had farmed it for generations. The restored farm will contain nine buildings including an existing chicken coop, potato barn, and farmhouse. One barn on the property has a fascinating history. Named after Guglielmo Marconi, the barn was the first telegraph station on Long Island, opened around 1902. It was probably one of the first to report on the Titanic’s demise.

Trending
One Kings Lane, the uber popular digital home décor marketplace, has featured a circa-1885 Victorian Water Mill farmhouse house in its online website. Belonging to Dr. Mark Kot, of Southampton Urgent Medical Care, and his wife Kelli Delaney, founder of luxury lifestyle webzine KDHamptons.com and contributor to this magazine, the dwelling is “dubbed Maple Shade for three 150-year-old maple trees that grace the property.” The article, which showcases the seamless melding of the home’s contemporary and antique furnishings, focusing on an exquisite collection of blue and white chinoiserie, offers similar items for sale.