Lots Are Selling At Two Trees In Bridgehampton

The market is alive and well at Two Trees, a 115-acre subdivided property north of the highway in Bridgehampton. Owned by Brooklyn-based developer David Walentas, the property has seen a lot of action over the last few months, most recently with the sale of two lots last week.

Overlooking a pond, the lots each average about 3 acres and were sold for $5 million apiece. On June 3, Mr. Walentas would not reveal the buyer or buyers, but offered that he had also encountered some “serious interest” in his 65-acre horse farm and another lot; however, that contract has not been signed. The horse farm, which was home to the annual Mercedes-Benz Polo Challenge, is on the market with Douglas Elliman for $25 million.

Meanwhile, back in February, builder Joe Farrell, whose houses are now prolific in the Hamptons, purchased five lots for $12.7 million. Located on Polo Court toward the south side of Two Trees on Hayground Road, each house he is building will sit on a 2-acre lot and range from $8.9 million to $9.9 million.

And, on the other side of the farm, Brown Harris Stevens announced last month that Mr. Walentas will build 12 new estates on Two Trees Lane. Eleven of the homes will be on lots of 1.8 to more than 3 acres, and one will offer “9.7 acres of open space and bucolic farm views,” according to a press release. Architect Eric Woodard is on tap to design one of the initial four houses, while Fleetwood & McMullan Architects is working on the other three, one of which is now complete. The houses start at $9 million.

“I knew Francis Fleetwood a long time. I knew him in Florida, I knew him here,” said Mr. Walentas at his Bridgehampton property on May 29, not long after Mr. Fleetwood’s unexpected death on May 8. “He builds great shingled, classic houses, high quality. So that’s what we wanted to do here, we wanted to treat the farm as a quality development.” His homes are reminiscent of designs in the early 20th century but adapted to meet modern-day needs.

The new houses will have 7 to 8 bedrooms and 8 full baths with a varying number of half-baths. Amenities include an elevator, finished lower level, attached heated 3-car garage, an outdoor fireplace, a sunken tennis court and a 50-foot-long heated pool.

“I think the porches are kind of the main features here,” said Christopher Burnside, associate broker with Brown Harris Stevens, noting the expansive outdoor spaces. Later, he added, “Everywhere you look you’ve got a view of something. Every house is strategically positioned on the property where none of the houses are really going to impede on the others’ views.”

Before it was a horse farm, the Two Trees property was known for generations as the Carwytham Farm Home, a dairy farm where cows grazed up until the 1950s. It was run by the Baldwin family until Daniel Baldwin, a potato farmer who had added some stables and riding rings to the property, sold the 115 acres to Mr. Walentas for $2 million in 1992.

“We’ve been out here forever, and we had a house here for 42 years, and before that we would visit friends, so we’ve been coming out here for a long time,” said Mr. Walentas, adding that he lived on a farm as a kid. Learning to ride horses was “one of my fantasies,” he said, and that’s exactly what he did, using one of Neil Hirsch’s polo ponies. “I didn’t even know what polo was, I had never seen a polo match, but we put in the polo fields.”

Peter Brant and Mr. Hirsch ultimately founded the Bridgehampton Polo Club, which held matches at Two Trees and which recently announced that due to the recent sale of property at Two Trees Farm, it will no longer be able to accommodate the two summer tournaments, the Monty Waterbury Cup and Hampton Cup, held in July and August.

Ten years ago, Mr. Walentas filed a 19-lot subdivision plan to divide up his property, which won approval from the Southampton Town Planning Board last year. “Then I tried to sell the whole property as one because I didn’t really want to develop it, but there were no real buyers,” he said. “So I said, ‘Great, we’ll put in the roads and we’ll build houses and sell some lots.’”

He is also building a home for himself in Southampton. Once everything at Two Trees is sold, “I’m going to my beach house, my nursing home,” he said with a smile.