Intriguing Hamptons Houses <600K

PRIME HOUSE-HUNTING SEASON is almost upon us. With cold weather, the dilettantes and Sunday shoppers disappear. Most won’t think about country real estate again until April. Meanwhile, the serious players remain in the game, knowing that winter is the best time to look, find, and negotiate.

I combed the listings and turned up three properties I would check out, were I in the market right now with half a million to spend.

Click on the live links below for more pics and info on each property.

• This early 19th century house in Springs, above and below, is owned by a young couple in the landscaping business. They bought the house 6 years ago and renovated it, even jacking up the house so its old foundation of locust posts could be replaced with a modern steel one. 2 BR, 1 bath, 1,100 square feet, 1/2 acre, wood stove, separate studio, 595K.

• This cedar-shingled 1959 cottage in Noyack, near Sag Harbor, below, was featured in a recent issue of Ty Pennington at Home magazine (amazing that it’s still publishing!) 1,500 square feet, 3 BR, 1.5 baths, 1/2 acre, water view, mooring rights, 595K. Taxes: $3,739/year.

• Got farm animals? The 100-year-old Amagansett cottage, below, is on almost an acre and has been twice reduced. 1,000 square feet, 2 BR, 1 bath, wood stove, detached garage, 570K. Near the RR tracks, but there are only a couple of trains a day. Anyway, whaddya want for half a million plus? This is Amagansett! (Also only a mile from the ocean.) Taxes are $1,008/year – can’t beat that.

 

 

 

 

Shul on the Hill

I MAY HAVE FOUND MY SYNAGOGUE here on the East End (I say ‘may’ because I’m still shopping around).

I went to Yom Kippur services at Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor, the oldest synagogue on Long Island, and found the unpretentious building very much to my liking (I have a habit of choosing a house of worship largely for its architecture). I also liked the gender-neutral prayerbook and the way the rabbi, Leon Morris, made the service personal and very moving.

The building, which dates from 1898, is sweet, sitting on a hill in a neighborhood of vintage cottages (see one example, below). It has been in almost continuous operation since 40 or 50 fresh-off-the-boat Jewish craftsmen, with their families, were brought out directly from Ellis Island in the late 19th century to work in the watch factories of Sag Harbor.

I love the elaborately carved wood decoration above the altar, the vibrant (relatively recent) stained glass windows, and the fact that the main sanctuary only seats about 100 people, with High Holiday overflow in an annex.

The shul (Yiddish for synagogue) doesn’t require tickets for Yom Kippur, the holiest and most crowded of Jewish holidays. “We don’t turn anyone away,” said Howard Chwatsky, a longtime congregant and this year’s treasurer.

It’s a warm and welcoming place for a wandering Jew like me.

BOTTOM FISHING: Sag Harbor Village 499K

“TURN THIS DOWAGER INTO A VILLAGE QUEEN!”

That’s the best of the headlines of the half-dozen HREO (Hamptons Real Estate Online) listings for this plain Jane, century-old 3 BR, 2 bath house in the rose-arbored, clapboard-shingled, fanlight-studded, shutter-bedecked, once-proud whaling village of Sag Harbor. (Now it’s the funky but chic “un-Hampton,” conveniently located right in the middle of the Hamptons, but at a safe physical and psychological distance from them.)

This is my favorite kind of investment house. This is what gets my blood racing (how ’bout you?) “Neglected.” “Not been maintained.” “Needs TLC.” “If you like projects…” This crone is decrepit, and that’s not all it has going for it:

• It’s on Jermain Avenue, one of the oldest and pleasantest streets in the Village.
• It’s in bad, bad shape, but look at it this way: it hasn’t been too badly f*cked up. One broker of several I talked to hinted darkly at “structural problems,” which probably means “Please don’t waste my time and gas if you’re not from the renovators.” Invoking structural problems is no way to sell a house. That’s about as scary a description as they come, but “structural problems,’” as I found out when I bought an 1810 building in Philadelphia, CAN end up being no big deal and cost little to fix (or not). I tried to get more info by calling a couple of other agents (it’s an open listing) and here’s what I heard: “I haven’t been down in the basement.” “No one has had it inspected yet.” Sounds highly negotiable to me.
• The house is an estate sale. It was owned by an elderly couple, who died recently in their 90s. It’s cluttered with old people’s stuff, a turn-off any would-be investor/homeowner needs to get past. It was on the market while the couple was alive, failed to sell, taken off, and recently put back on by their heir. What does that mean? Even more negotiable.

• What looks like clapboard in the photos is actually vinyl siding, the one ‘improvement’ they apparently did make. No upside to that. The heating system (oil hot water) works. The house needs plumbing and electrical upgrades, duh. Taxes are a mystery at this point (the homeowner had veterans and senior exemptions), but one broker estimated they would be around $4,000/year.
• There’s a garage in the back, right on the property line — which would never be allowed today — but it’s legal. The garage is in decent shape, with old sliding doors.

If you could get a Sag Harbor Village Victorian like this one for 450K or even less, well, you’d have turned the clock back quite a few years, with better interest rates.