An Abandoned House in Bridgehampton Catches Town’s Attention

[caption id="attachment_55058" align="alignnone" width="800"] The abandoned house at 65 Audubon Avenue in Bridgehampton. Stephen J. Kotz photo[/caption]

By Stephen J. Kotz

A quiet side street a block away from the Bridgehampton Club golf course, where even modest houses sell for a couple million bucks, is not where you’d think you’d find a derelict house with an overgrown yard, gaping hole in the roof, and an unfenced pool half full of stagnant water. But that’s the case at 65 Audubon Avenue, where a 1,600-square-foot, one-story traditional home is slowly rotting away.

The house, which neighbors say has been abandoned for eight years and is apparently in foreclosure, has been on the radar of Southampton Town officials for some time, said assistant town attorney Richard Harris.

He said after the town exhausted its efforts to try to track down the last known owner of record, Vekrum Kaushik, a Manhattan businessman, and get him to take responsibility for the house, it decided to take action.

After hearings in July and August, at which neither Mr. Kaushik or his representatives showed up, the town said it would have town workers cut the lawn and trim back hedges, secure the building, and place a tarp over the hole in the roof, and fence in and drain the pool, which neighbors say has become a breeding ground for mosquitoes. As of this week, it did not appear any work had been done on the house.

Fire marshal John Rankin told the board at the August 9 hearing that he had tried to inspect the property but did not get far because it was so overgrown. “There are two LP gas tanks in the weeds. I can’t access them to determine if there is any gas in them,” he said. “I can’t even see the pool. There is a tarp that is laying in the weeds. I can’t see the pool. I can’t even get to it.”

Sandra Taylor, a neighbor, told the board, she thought the house posed a “danger to the neighborhood” for no other reason than the condition of the pool.

Mr. Harris said there was little concern that the house would become Bridgehampton’s version of the Morpurgo house, which has been crumbling for decades. He said the cost of securing the house would be added to the tax bill. He said taxes had been being paid by the mortgage company, although that company had recently informed him it was no longer servicing the loan, so that bill remains unpaid as well.

Although the house is decaying, he said it was unlikely the town would order it torn down. “It has to be really egregious for the town to take a building down,” he said. “It has suffered damage, but we think it can be saved.”