Treasure Island Drive—one of the best streets in the Amagansett Dunes—is a small lane that begins at Bluff Road and terminates at Marine Boulevard on the ocean, with deeded ocean access via a walking path across the dunes for all owners.
This home is located approximately 500 feet from the ocean beach and offers views over preserved duneland behind the house. Like many other lots in the Amagansett Dunes, this one is tiny, only .14 acre.
The house, which was constructed in 1998, is about as large as possible for this lot, at approximately 1,900 square feet. It contains an open living/dining/kitchen area with fireplace, three bedrooms, and two baths. Outside, there is a small brick patio overlooking the dunes and an outdoor shower.
Although small, this playful house is not ordinary looking and contains many of the features found in a child’s archetypical imaginary cottage. There are multiple attractive rooflines accentuated by colorful paint, dormers and overhanging porches, plus a roof deck and rooms that break the façade irregularly.
One can imagine that a similar-sized, but much more ordinary home, could have been built on this lot, resulting in a much lower sales price. This house, while not much more expensive to build than other common designs, is a fine example of good design that adds real value to the property.
Because of the “design premium” built into the sales price here, it is hard to say exactly what this sale means in terms of lot value. But using a rough figure of $400 per square foot, this sale values this .14 acre lot at more than $1,300,000.
This contemporary home was built in 1995 and is typical of many homes of its era. It is boxy, low-slung and sheathed in vertical siding, with small windows in the front and sliding doors in the back, which open up to a wooden pool deck.
Homes such as this were built all over the Hamptons from the 1970s to the 1990s, and while many are in disrepair as their flat roofs have a tendency to leak, this house is in excellent condition. These flat-roofed wooden contemporary houses have fallen out of favor in recent years as today’s modern architecture typically contains much more glass, stone and steel. These stronger materials allow today’s architects to create larger spans for much bigger window and door openings, while greatly increasing durability.
During the last year we have seen a great many older contemporary homes on 1-acre lots such as this one purchased in the $3- to $4-million range, only to be torn down and replaced by either new modern homes or traditional houses. Lots in the best south-of-the-highway neighborhoods with older homes have become extremely desirable, as the general attitude among those who could buy a house for $8 to $10 million seems to be that they would rather build one themselves.
This property is an excellent example of the desirability of such properties; the seller purchased it in 2009, at the bottom of the market, for $2,700,000. This sale—with no work done to the house—represents a quick gross return on investment of more than 20 percent, not including transaction costs, taxes and maintenance.
This large traditional home was built in 2001. At 8,000 square feet, it is large enough to contain six bedrooms, nine baths and all the amenities typical of large estate-style homes—multiple formal and informal living spaces, an eat-in kitchen, library/den, dining room and screened porch. Outside, there is a large swimming pool with brick patio, pool house, garage and tennis court.
This home is located on a small cul-de-sac that takes access from David’s Lane, one of East Hampton Village’s most beautiful and historic streets. While lots on David’s Lane and many other East Hampton Village streets are typically less than one acre, the lots on Sarah’s Way tend to be much larger, and this lot is 1.8 acres.
Sarah’s Way was developed within the last 15 years, with this lot, which the seller purchased for $1,900,000 in 2000, being a typical example. Assuming a construction cost of $400 per square foot, plus another $800,000 for pool, patio, garage, tennis and landscape, this sale values this lot at approximately $3 million if it were vacant.
Interestingly, a land value of $3 million today is almost exactly the same as $1.9 million in 2000 if we assume a 4 percent inflation rate over the last 10 years. If this valuation is correct, it is significantly less than similar lots that have been selling south of the highway in Southampton Village, the Georgica neighborhood of East Hampton Village, and the “farmlands” corridor between Water Mill and Wainscott. In each of those neighborhoods, a value of at least $3 million per 1-acre lot, and perhaps $4 million for a 2-acre lot, is well established.
A great deal of inventory in and around East Hampton Village remains for sale and while prices have stabilized in the village, particularly south of the highway, the high inventory levels may be preventing some property values from rising to the level of nearby hamlets.
27east on Jan 3, 2011