A 15-acre waterfront compound in Cutchogue’s Nassau Point section sold for $8.9 million on Friday, making it the highest bayfront residential sale in North Fork history.
The property, known as Glendalough, was built by Canadian investment banker William Justus Keugh Vanston in the 1920s and has since passed through three generations of his family. The area was largely undeveloped when it was built, according to his granddaughter.
“He had this prime choice of an amazingly beautiful spot,” his granddaughter Jay Braatz told the Wall Street Journal in 2015. She added that the property, located on Vanston Road, is “one of the best places in the world to watch a sunset or host a barbecue on the beach.”
The bayfront estate includes eight bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms and a clay tennis court, according to an online listing. The property also features a three bedroom guest cottage and a boat basin.
The home had been listed for $12.4 million when the Journal story was published and was most recently listed for $9.2 million.
Carol Szynaka of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty, who held the listing along with Mariah Mills, noted the property is surrounded by preserved land owned by the Nature Conservancy and other private residences. That seclusion along with the sheer size of the property helped it fetch such a large price tag.
“It’s really the beach and the privacy,” Szynaka said. “You have 1,000 feet of bayfront overlooking Robins Island.”
Sheri Winter Clarry of The Corcoran Group, who represented the buyers in the sale, said the new owners had not determined their plans for the land. She declined to identify them.
“They’re taking their time figuring out what they are going do,” she said, adding that they were drawn to its beauty. “It was one of these properties we had our eye and it had a really beautiful landscape.”
The biggest residential sale in North Fork history was a 135-acre estate on Indian Neck Lane in Peconic, which sold for $19.5 million in 2008.
The Cutchogue sale will surely be one of the biggest residential sales of the year on the North Fork.
The highest sale of 2016 was a property on Bridge Lane in Cutchogue, which sold for $6.25 million. The biggest sale of 2015 was the Peconic estate of sculptor Owen Morrel, which sold for $6.6 million.
2016 was a strong year for North Fork real estate sales. The median home price pushed up to $494,125 that year, a 1.88 increase over $485,000 the previous year, according to a report prepared by Town and Country Realty.
