Olde Towne Gets A New Look In Luxury Southampton Village Subdivision

Walk through the front door and scan the spacious open floor plan with sweeping views of the back patio and lawn. Look up and take in the two-story foyer, centered by a colossal glass lighting fixture secured to a boxed ceiling paneled in mirrors.This is the dramatic entrance to the first finished spec house in the Olde Towne subdivision in Southampton Village, and the ask is $45 million.

When you're in the Hamptons, you're in vacation mode, relaxation mode," said John Kean, owner of Kean Development Company, which is developing the subdivision. "You don't want to have to leave the house."

The 18,000-square-foot home has textured walls, elaborate wainscoting, and myriad mirrors, but its varying shades of white—from furniture and throws to countertops and floors—offers a blank canvas for guests to envisage their lives of luxury.

Known as Twin Peaks, the property includes an attached cottage and a pool house for a total of 11 bedrooms, 11 full baths and two half-baths. The main house has a dizzying number of amenities: a three-hole putting green on the roof, a finished basement with a professional two-lane bowling alley, a theater, wine cellar, lounge with a full bar and billiards, and a gym with a nearby steam room, spa bath and sauna. An elevator navigates all three floors.

There are two master suites, one a junior on the first floor. The other, on the second floor, has two walk-in closets and two master baths, His with a flat-screen TV, Hers with a gas fireplace; both with Totos, innovative toilets from Japan that function like integrated bidets with jet water, dryers and heated seats.

There's also a media room, a traditional kitchen and a professional chef's kitchen with a walk-in refrigerator, double oven and two dishwashers; an outdoor walkway from a potential nanny’s living quarters to a potential nursery, a dog washing room, and a full-scale laundry room. There is the attached “cottage” where guests or a house manager could live while the rest of the house is shut down for the season. Outside sit a pool and sunken tennis court.

"It's a house that would meet everyone's criteria," said Mr. Kean. "There's nothing you cannot like about this house."

Located on a former 50-acre farm field in the estate section at the corner of Olde Towne Road and Wickapogue Road, the subdivision in which the house resides has eight buildable lots which range from 2 to 4 acres apiece. The development includes two parcels planned for open space, one referred to as The Meadows and another as The Green. Two properties have already sold, one for $11.5 million, the other for a price Mr. Kean said he could not recollect, and are currently under construction. Three more spec houses will be built, ranging in the multimillions, from $20-something to $40-something.

"We don't usually build spec houses, we usually custom-build for owners," explained Nancy Patterson, Director of Marketing at Kean Development. "In this case, we thought it might be a good idea to have turnkey options, because we know that a lot of people coming out here would like to open the door and just take a swim," skipping the many hassles that come with building a new home.

"I'll be curious to see how they sell," said Village Mayor Mark Epley. "It's great for our tax base, it really is. The people that buy those houses will have very little impact on the infrastructure out here, little impact on the school systems, and they're substantial taxpayers."

It has been a long and winding road to get here, almost 10 years to be exact. Developer Bob Gianos originally purchased the land for more than $33 million in early 2006. Locals resisted the subdivision when it was first proposed, citing concerns about losing one of the village's largest tracts of undeveloped land, no less building near the original location of the village's first English settlement.

Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund and Southampton Village officials looked into preserving the space, but the property was too expensive and the seller was not a willing participant, the mayor said.

Ultimately, the project won Southampton Village Planning Board approval in 2007. Mr. Gianos put the lots on the market several times, but the project fell victim to a failing economy and stalled. It was taken off the market and underwent some sprucing up, including the planting of more than 350 45-foot trees and more than 2 miles of privet hedge. Kean Development purchased the land in 2013.

"It feels like the old estate section," said Mr. Kean. "It feels like it fits right in."

"