The Harborfront Inn, a 35-room hotel located on the water in the heart of Greenport Village, has sold for $9.5 million.
The 26,000-square-foot hotel, which was built in 2003 and opened the following spring, had been on the market for nearly 30 months before it was purchased this week by the same company that owns Sound View in Greenport.
The deal, which closed Tuesday, gives Eagle Point Hotel Partners prime waterfront lodging properties on both the Long Island Sound and the Peconic Bay.
“My purchase of this hotel is a reflection of our commitment to an amazing community in an amazing part of the world,” Eagle Point Hotel Partners principle Erik Warner said in a statement.
Broker Kristopher Pilles of North Fork Commercial said Eagle Point is the “right buyer for this legacy property.”
“Just like with Sound View they will take the property to the next level and be another reason so many people discover the North Fork,” he said.
Harborfront Inn was founded by the Kontokosta family, who sold the property in an effort to focus on their nearby winery, which boasts the easternmost North Fork tasting room and is the only one located on the Long Island Sound. Kontokosta Winery opened on North Road in 2013, but the grapes were actually planted more than a decade earlier, prior to the opening of the Harborfront.
Brothers Michael and Constantine Kontokosta also sold the 18-room former Cove Place Inn in Aquebogue last year.
Harborfront has nearly twice as many rooms and features an outdoor heated pool, gym, view of the harbor, two private function rooms and a private deck all located just west of Mitchell Park.
“We built it from scratch,” Michael Kontokosta said of the Front Street hotel. “It’s been great to be able to bring a lot of people to Greenport.”
Mr. Kontokosta estimated that upwards of 100,000 visitors have stayed at the hotel over the years and several longtime staff members have stayed with the business from the beginning. “It wouldn’t have happened without them,” he said.
Mr. Kontokosta noted that the sale comes at a period of great change for Greenport, which the hotel has benefited from, with 100% occupied rooms through December.
“It’s grown a lot,” he said of the village. “The interest in Greenport certainly in the last five years has peaked.”
The heightened market for lodging in Greenport is evident in the recently proposed expansions of the nearby Greenporter Hotel and American Beech in a community where The Lin Beach House and The Menhaden also opened in 2018.
Mr Kontokosta said he’s excited that the Eagle Point team purchased the business.
“They’re amazing professionals,” he said. “They did an absolutely outstanding job on renovating and operating Sound View and the Halyard. They really knocked it out of the park there. I think they’re the perfect purchasers for the Harborfront.”
A hotel investment firm based in Manhattan, Eagle Point first arrived on the North Fork in January 2016 when it closed on the 5.5-acre Sound View complex, which includes the Halyard restaurant. The company had previously completed projects in Maui, New Orleans and Napa Valley, among other prime tourist destinations.
The $9.5 million sale is sure to be one of the highest commercial transfers of 2019 on the North Fork and ranks among the biggest sales of the past few years.
