12/02/08

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Priciest homes in the 'burbs: Wealthy L.I. enclaves going strong

137 Murry Lane in Southampton sold last year for $32.8 million.

Go to charts: Top 10 highest-price Nassau and Suffolk county properties sold in 2007

Long Island may be seeing an uptick in foreclosures and a decline in overall home prices, but the high-end market is continuing to see record sales.

The so-called Gold Coast of Nassau County (which stretches from Great Neck to Huntington) and the Hamptons in Suffolk County are real estate echelons unto themselves.

An estimated 53 homes sold for above the $10 million mark in 2007. Financier Ron Baron generated the biggest headlines for the purchase of an oceanfront home on Further Lane in East Hampton, for $103 million in May.

Until January, when hedge fund manager Louis Moore Bacon paid $175 million to buy the Forbes family ranch in Colorado, the purchase was the most expensive residential real estate transaction in the country.

Records were also set elsewhere in the Hamptons in 2007: a Bridgehampton home fetched $37.5 million, a Montauk home yielded $35 million, and two Southampton homes went for over $32 million, according to Suffolk Research Service and the Corcoran Group.

While Nassau County did not best its 2006 record of $14.4 million, which was taken by a home in Oyster Bay, the Gold Coast had two homes that sold for $11.1 million — one in Mill Neck, the other in Brookville. In addition, a property in Kings Point went for $12.5 million and set the 2007 Nassau sale record, according to the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island.

"Long Island isn't an affordable place to live," says Pearl Kamer, chief economist of the Long Island Association, a business and civic organization. "But not everything is as high as the Hamptons and the Gold Coast."

Indeed, last month MLSLI released data showing that the median home price on all of Long Island, including Queens, saw a 4.6 percent decline from January 2007 to January 2008, to $417,000.

Suffolk saw a 6 percent decline in its median price to $397,500, while Nassau fared better with a 2.2 percent decline to $440,000.


New Nassau numbers

Some of the Gold Coast's most expensive homes lie in Kings Point and Sands Point — at least for 2007, that's where six of the 10 highest-priced homes were clustered.

The area has been a destination for the wealthy since the 1920s, when the mansions that inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" glittered in all their glory. (Kings Point and Sands Point provided the fodder for the fictional West Egg and East Egg that divided Gatsby and Daisy).

Kings Point, home of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, had four of the 10 highest sales in 2007. Three of them were on the same street.

The record-breaking $12.5 million sale was at 190 Kings Point Road in January. The 15-room contemporary home sits on a 1.5-acre waterfront site. Two others on the street fetched $7.7 million and $7.65 million.

Another, on nearby Shore Drive, sold for $9.5 million.

"There's not much new construction in Kings Point, but there are mansions of 6,000 to 7,000 square feet that were built starting 30 years ago," says Nahid Akins, executive director of the Great Neck office of Prudential Douglas Elliman's North Shore Group.

Meanwhile, in Sands Point, just east of Kings Point, estates are listed at $1.7 million to $20 million. For example, on Cornwells Beach Road, a 16-room waterfront mansion with a guest house is on the market for $19.95 million.

Karen Newhouse, executive director of the Port Washington/Sands Point office of Prudential Douglas Elliman's North Shore Group, notes that in Sands Point, "you can get every style from ranches on slabs to waterfront estates with custom mansions."


High-end Hamptons homes

On the other side of Long Island is the Hamptons, where driving down certain roads can often lead to as many celebrity sightings as in Hollywood.

Suffolk Research Service reported that the median home price on the East End hit $717,000 in 2007, increasing from $625,000 in 2006. Spending $10 million, $20 million or even $30 million on a prime piece of property is becoming more commonplace.

Rick Hoffman, regional senior vice president for the Corcoran Group, says: "The $10 million-plus market goes up every year … there are hundreds of properties on the East End that would sell for $10 million or more."

Hoffman says there were 50 sales of $10 million or more last year, 15 of which passed the $20 million mark, and 18 of which sold for between $15 million and $19 million.

Still, Baron's $103 million purchase of 40 oceanfront acres, on East Hampton's Further Lane, managed to make even jaded jaws drop there. The property, which was sold by oil heiress Adelaide de Menil and her husband, Edmund Carpenter, was actually two adjacent parcels — 260 Further Lane for $58 million and 278 Further Lane for $45 million. Eight historic homes were removed before the deal closed.

Now Corcoran has two properties on the market for more than $60 million. Three Ponds Farm, a 60-acre estate on Bridgehampton's Scuttlehole Road that includes an 18-hole U.S.G.A.-rated golf course and 14 gardens, is listed at $68 million. But that was reduced down from $75 million after it sat on the market for several years with no takers. And on Southampton's Meadow Lane, a nine-acre oceanfront property with a shingle-style mansion designed by Francis Fleetwood is listed at $62.5 million.

"Southampton and East Hampton always lead the sales," says Paul Brennan, region manager of Prudential Douglas Elliman. "Since the early 20th century, the playgrounds of the wealthy have been Southampton, Palm Beach and Newport."

On Southampton's Meadow Lane, three properties sold for more than $30 million and one went for nearly $24 million in 2007.

And in East Hampton, a deal at 12/14 Tyson Lane hit nearly $30 million.

Noel Berk, a principal at Mercedes/BERK Private Real Estate, which specializes in Hamptons and Manhattan properties, says one of the things perpetually driving up prices is the limited supply of properties, a fact that has much to do with strict land preservation requirements.

But as far as breaking the $103-million record in 2008, Berk isn't holding her breath.

"That East Hampton property was one of the largest in the Hamptons, and given the quieter atmosphere in the Hamptons right now and given the minute availability of large oceanfront properties like that one, that will be a record that stays a while," she says.