Click on image to view full PDF
What could possibly dissuade you from buying a fabulous oceanfront home in the Hamptons? Well, money for one thing. You have to be more than merely super rich to shell out $25 million, which is pretty much entry level for oceanfront properties in prime locations.
And remember, that’s where it starts. It is the equivalent of petty cash compared to the cost of top listings on the market. So if you want to run with the lions, be prepared to spend something like $62.5 million, which is the price of Linda Wachner’s home on Meadow Lane in Southampton.
If you think like an accountant that works out to a lot of money per weekend, but if you think like an investor, oceanfront has always increased in value at a greater rate than other properties.
It also buys a lot of cachet, and when you look around, you realize that quite a few people are willing to drop that much to maintain their Hamptons credentials.
Another reason for not buying a fabulous oceanfront house in the Hamptons is global warming. We are told nearly everyday that glaciers will melt, sea levels will rise, and our coastlines will be soggy, if not deluged. The situation is man-made, and not, as some conservative thinkers still claim, caused by nature. Regardless, warming is a fact of life now. And the oceans will inevitably rise. But for most of us (with the exception Al Gore of course) it is all so next year, or next decade, or next century, and hedonists that we are on this side of the Shinnecock Canal, who wants to think beyond Labor Day and the Grand Prix at the Classic?
It certainly did not bother Yahoo’s Terry Semel, who paid $43 million for Steve Schwarzman’s 8.5 acre oceanfront property on Further Lane. And that’s without a house. Well, there is a cottage on the land but it is hardly fit for a mogul.
Waterfront on Georgica Pond, Mecox Bay, and Sagaponack Pond is often as expensive, and as prestigious, as oceanfront, as we know from the recent sales of Villa Maria for $35 million and the Carter Burden estate (both on Mecox Bay) for $34 million. And even Lake Agawam, Wainscott Pond, Long Pond and Hook Pond are right up there.
For anyone who still believes a million here or there actually matters, waterfront properties on certain bays and harbors and ponds can be acquired for marginally less money. Head north to North Haven and Shelter Island. You won’t find bargains, but then again you don’t have to be a hedge fund manager to get an agent to show you properties there.
Ditto for Great Peconic Bay, Little Peconic Bay, Noyac Bay, Gardiner’s Bay (and some of the creeks and harbors and other estuaries off these bays). Great views and luscious waterfront are accessible to just about everyone in the top tiers of the moneyed class.
North Sea, most of Springs, Napeague, and the northerly parts of Montauk are a bit lower in the waterfront pecking order, so even garden variety millionaires need not despair of finding a view, a place to pull up their kayaks, and some bragging rights about owning waterfront in the Hamptons.
Try Gerard Drive, for example. This isolated stretch of beach with Gardiner’s Bay on one side and Accabonac Harbor on the other, is one of the most beautiful spots in the Hamptons. It has small cottages for the most part, and environmental laws make it hard to expand those houses, so living small with few luxuries but with big views is customary there. And you can actually find a place on the water for less than $2 million.