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Building boom in Belle Terre
New residential construction, renovations throughout affluent village
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| | | One of the new houses going up in Belle Terre and destined to modernize the face of that upscale village. Photos by D. Willinger. (click for larger version) | |
May 21, 2009 | 11:56 AM
Amid the economic turmoil, a veritable building boom is taking shape along the secluded wooded lanes of affluent Belle Terre.
Mayor Ted Lucki estimates some 15 houses — the incorporated village is comprised of a total of 300 homes — are in various stages of construction or major renovation. Many of those projects began with the purchase of an older structure subsequently demolished to make room for a modern residence.
Ask many North Shore residents to describe Belle Terre, and they mention the village's handful of ultra-deluxe digs, including the Contessa's estate and investor Robert Frey's massive brick mansion. Elsewhere, Tudor style homes, many built as far back as the early 1900s, define the exclusive neighborhood.
But much of Belle Terre is actually typified by three-bedroom cottage ranches from the 1970s. A number of those houses have been targeted in recent months for demolition to make way for 7,000 square-foot manor houses with all the amenities: three-car garage, tennis court, swimming pool, jacuzzi, extensive landscaping — most of the lots are a minimum of one acre — and even the erection of quirky statuary, from deer, a raptor and elephants to in one case a life-sized young giraffe.
Belle Terre Village Trustee Joanne Cornell-May, a real estate agent, said a full baker's dozen of houses within the affluent community are currently up for sale. So far in 2009, four have changed hands. Last year, according to Cornell-May, a total of 10 houses were sold.
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| | | | ‘You know a big, beautiful house is going there,’ Joanne Cornell-May, Belle Terre trustee and realtor, said of this property on Quail Street. (click for larger version) | | |
Much of this bullish activity — including a recent "bidding war" among developers for one particular property, "during a recession," Lucki emphasized with glee last week while taking this reporter on a tour of Belle Terre, may be fueled in part by the relatively good deals that are now available. Cornell-May, who rode along on the village tour, estimates real estate values in Belle Terre have lost about 20 percent from a year ago.
This "secondary growth," as Lucki calls the boom, is bringing a spate of beautiful new homes all along some of the residential village's main streets, the mayor said. Whereas in the past one might have expected a seven-figure house to go up along either of Belle Terre's waterfronts — the harbor or the Sound — now developers are even putting a $2 million project on Cliff Road, Lucki said.
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| | | Also on Quail Street, a newly built house. (click for larger version) | |
One large modern house nearly complete is being built "on spec," Lucki said, meaning the builder is speculating he will find a buyer at a suitable price when he is finished, a rare mode of operation within Belle Terre village.
In the meantime, the construction continues along the wooded lanes behind the historic Cliff Road gatehouse northeast of Port Jefferson. Even Frey, of Harbor Financial Management in Port Jefferson, is upgrading from his brick mansion. The investor is currently building a luxurious waterfront villa he plans to move into as soon as construction is complete — within a year or two, he hopes. Frey said this week the project did not come about as a result of the recent downturn in the real estate market, but rather had been in planning stages for about five years while estate issues were being resolved.
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