Morpurgo House on the Auction Block — Again

[caption id="attachment_51728" align="alignnone" width="800"] An overhead photo of the derelict Morpurgo House as seen from the roof of the John Jermain Memorial Library. Jason Crowley photos / Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities[/caption]

By Douglas Feiden

The crumbling and long-abandoned Morpurgo House at 6 Union Street is in foreclosure and will be sold at public auction on the steps of Southampton Town Hall on the morning of June 24.

An attorney for the property’s mortgage holder made the disclosure during a public hearing on the fate of the house before the Sag Harbor Board of Trustees on Tuesday, May 31.

It was confirmed in a legal notice of sale published late last month indicating that a court judgment of foreclosure and sale had been filed against Captain Hulbert House LLC, the owner of record of the derelict structure, and that an auction would be held to satisfy roughly $1.1 million in debt.

The announcement by Joel Zweig, a lawyer representing Atlantic View Holdings LLC, the mortgage holder, came as a surprise to board members who were unaware of the latest development and had been moving to demolish the house.

Those efforts will continue. But trustees tabled further action until the next board meeting on June 14 to review new documents in the case, and determine whether to go out to bid for a demolition contractor or pause until after the auction is held.

It won’t be the first auction for the troubled property: There have been at least three others.

Tucked behind the John Jermain Memorial Library, the Morpurgo house, named for two eccentric sisters

[caption id="attachment_51727" align="alignright" width="200"] A view from above.[/caption]

who owned it until 2007, has long been deemed unfit for human habitation, and in April, trustees passed a resolution calling for demolishing and securing the eyesore, which they termed “unsafe, dangerous and a fire hazard in imminent threat of collapse.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Zweig had been pursuing foreclosure proceedings on behalf of Atlantic View’s investors, alleging in court filings that the Captain Hulbert entity hadn’t paid down its mortgage.

Acting Supreme Court Justice James Hudson agreed: On March 19, he signed the foreclosure judgment, though the village was apparently unaware of it at the time. And on May 26, a legal notice appeared in The Southampton Press saying that pursuant to the judgment, court-appointed referee Michael Ahern would sell the premises at auction.

The order for the unpaid mortgage was $947,000, plus interest and expenses, which Mr. Zweig said brings the tally to some $1.1 million.

“Whatever is sold above that amount would revert back to Captain Hulbert or else be subject to any liens existing on the property,” the attorney told trustees. “So any action prior to that auction would be a little premature and risk recourse.”

Trustee Ed Deyermond asked, “What if nobody bids?” In that case, Mr. Zweig said his client would take ownership and invest funds to secure the property.

But he said there had been significant interest in the property since the legal notice ran, and four brokers and two individuals had already contacted him about a potential purchase.

Built in the 1850s, the two-and-a-half story, three-bay, Italianate frame residence once boasted clapboard cladding and eyebrow windows and operated as the Lobstein Boarding House, starting in 1870, according to the National Register of Historic Places.

Its troubled history includes a decades-long fight between sisters Anselm and Helga Morpurgo, two unsuccessful court-ordered auctions and a third, in October 2007, in which the residence sold for $1.46 million.

It later became entangled in a mortgage fraud scheme that landed an ex-Suffolk County legislator in jail and changed hands between different investor groups amid earlier efforts to foreclose on the mortgage.

What happens next? “In a perfect world, on the day of the auction, a multimillionaire will come forward and say, ‘I’m buying it, and I’m restoring it, and I’m going to start tomorrow,’” said Sag Harbor Mayor Sandra Schroeder. “But if nobody’s going to buy it and restore it, then I would want it gone. It’s simply not worth the risk of fire or someone falling.”

Asked if the village would consider a purchase, the mayor offered a flat, “No.”

Meanwhile, Anthony Brandt, chairman of the Board of Historic Preservation and Architectural Review, weighed in on the structure’s fate, saying, “I believe this thing should be torn down as soon as possible…I think it’s beyond repair, and I don’t believe the village would be wise to preserve it.”

Other preservation advocates advised trustees not to give up on the house yet.

“The village can, and in our opinion, should make every effort to make repairs to this contributing historic resource and only consider demolition as an absolute last resort,” said Jason Crowley, preservation director of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities.

Not too many years ago, the Bulova Watchcase Factory was also deemed “unsalvageable,” a statement read on behalf of Save Sag Harbor noted. Community Preservation Fund money, or eminent domain, could be used to “convert the building into a house museum with upstairs office space for the library,” the group said.

In the past, a “reading park” alongside the library’s eastern flank has been floated as a possible community use for the site.

“Both options have merit for the library,” said Catherine Creedon, JJML’s director, in an interview. “A reading park would be a community space at the halfway point between Mashashimuet Park and the Long Wharf, a natural place to read a book and catch your breath, and a buffer between the library and the residences.”

And if CPF funding were available, the library would welcome a restoration of the house, she said.

But she added, “Having just completed a major restoration of our own, we have to first make good on the promise that was made to the community and move forward with programming and services, rather than take on a major new construction project.”

Ms. Creedon also said, “The library has not pursued ownership of the property, but I think it is good stewardship to look at whatever resources might be available to us.”