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The next victim of the wrecking ball—or, more accurately, an excavator—may well be the old Caleb Halsey farmhouse in Water Mill.
The farmhouse was built around 1785 for Mr. Halsey, a descendant of one of Southampton’s original settlers, and later moved from 258 Halsey Lane to 186 Crescent Avenue. Today, the Crescent Avenue estate is owned by Andrew Zaro. He has put the house and property up for sale for almost $23 million.
An application to demolish the farmhouse is scheduled to be considered on June 17 by the Southampton Town Landmarks and Historic Districts Board. Mr. Zaro has filed for a building permit to replace the old house with an 8,000-square-foot house, along with a tennis court, pool, poolhouse and volleyball court. Because the farmhouse was never landmarked, there is essentially nothing the Landmarks Board can do to prevent it from being torn down.
Mary Gwen Tyda, a member of the Halsey family, had in 2012 hoped to move the old house back to the nearby Halsey Farm, from which it had been relocated around 1929, when Lawrence Halsey sold it to Hendricks V. Duryea for $200. But that effort fell through, according to Sally Spanburgh, who chairs the Landmarks Board and has been endeavoring to save the house since the time of its sale, around January 2012, to Mr. Zaro by John Sergent for $13,75 million.
Ms. Spanburgh noted at that time on her preservation blog, Southampton Village Review, that, despite the charms of the roughly 4,000-square-foot, five-bedroom and five-bathroom farmhouse—“a lovely traditional home that retains a significant degree of integrity”—the “breathtaking” site on which it rests will most likely ensure its destruction.
A Corcoran listing notes the potential the 2.5-acre parcel holds for a “significant compound” including an “expansive new house.” The estate is on a peninsula with what are described as “heroic 180-degree water views across Mecox Bay to where the waves crash against the ocean shore.”
Filed in April, a building permit application notes that an existing pool and pool house, as well as a paddleball court, would be demolished in addition to the main house. A guest house and a garage with an artist’s studio would remain.
Ms. Spanburgh said Ms. Tyda’s hopes to relocate the old farmhouse, for which she would have paid moving costs of between $20,000 and $100,000 herself, were thwarted by an expanding list of demands that she pay for site work not related to moving the house.
Mr. Zaro could not immediately be reached for comment on Sunday.
Also on the market, at last count for almost $33 million, is his house at 493 Rose Hill Road in Water Mill. A hit-and-run accident on Rose Hill Road in 2012 claimed the life of Sister Jacqueline Walsh—police believe at the hands of an employee driving a car belonging to Mr. Zaro that was later found in a driveway on Crescent Avenue.
on Jun 9, 2014