Morpurgo House Sold To New Developers

Just as the restoration for the historic Morpurgo House in Sag Harbor Village went under way, a new owner has come into the picture.

The property located at 6 Union Street was sold for $2.475 million in early July, a bit more than a year after the property was bought for $1.325 million at auction. According to Mitch Winston of Amagansett, one of the previous owners of the property, he and his two partners, Mark Egerman of Beverly Hills and his son, Lee Egerman, sold the property to Breskin Development of New York. Mr. Winston said that he and his partners met with the development firm’s founder, Max Breskin, while the trio was appearing in front of Sag Harbor Village’s Architectural Review Board six months ago.

“As the ARB process unfolded, our partnership realized the house would be a difficult project to build based on the historical nature of the project,” Mr. Winston said on Friday. “We’ve done a lot of projects where we’ve cleaned up certain structures and that’s my preference to do instead of building. We thought it would be better to partner with a builder or sell the property to a builder.”

According to Mark Egerman, Breskin Development will follow the building plan put together by the original three owners with the intent to restore the structure to residential use. Mr. Egerman said the building’s exterior will be restored to the original look of the residence, which has three levels above ground plus a basement. New staircases and an elevator are planned. He also said that he and his partners have only cleaned out the inside of the building and did not perform any construction before selling the property.

The partners anticipated construction taking approximately 18 months to complete and Mr. Egerman said he suspects that Breskin will follow that time frame.

“We sold it to great people who’ll do a great job,” he said.

Rob Walford, a director and partner with Breskin Development, said that the completed house will also feature a pool, a new rear section, and a yoga deck on the third floor. Mr. Walford said that the rear section of the house had to be torn down due to it falling into the ground from its old age and deteriorated state.

“We’ve never had our hands involved in anything like this before and I knew that we were up to the challenge,” Mr. Walford said on Monday. “The appeal for us was having the ability to renovate the house to its former state and that the house was in dire need of saving.”

Mr. Walford went on to say that the first hurdle to clear will be raising the home and clearing out anything that provides an unstable foundation for the house. The next steps will be building a new framing for the house and installing proper windows. He added that the most difficult parts of the project will be restoring the trim and facade of the house to its original form when it was built more than 200 years ago. Mr. Walford said that he does not anticipate there will be any changes to the original building plan, though he and Mr. Breskin will follow the proper procedure and appear in front of the ARB or the Village Zoning Board of Appeals if any changes are needed.

“Everybody wants to see this done right and people are welcome to come by and see our progress,” Mr. Walford said.