Beechwood Organization plans 26 homes for Westhampton Beach
A rendering of one of the homes the Beechwood Organization plans for Westhampton Beach. Credit: Beechwood Organization
The Beechwood Organization said it plans to build 26 single-family homes in Westhampton Beach in the next year, including 22 in a development near the village’s LIRR station.
The 22-home development on Depot Road, located on the former site of the Wholistic Tennis Academy, will be called Country Pointe Estates. Starting prices will range from $2.7 million to $3.6 million across the developers' three models, which all have six bedrooms and five full bathrooms.
With limited land available for development in the Hamptons and a shortage of homes on the market, Beechwood expects plenty of interest for homebuyers when it begins sales in the next few weeks, said Michael Dubb, founder and CEO of the Beechwood Organization. He expects to finish construction in spring 2023 and estimated property taxes on the homes would be around $20,000.
“When you drive around the village, you don’t see for sale signs in front of homes,” Dubb said. “It’s new construction, so people don’t have to fix it up and can have the houses finished to their taste. New construction comes with warranties. It’s not the same mystery as buying a resale.”
In addition to Country Pointe Estates, Beechwood is developing a four-parcel site called Oneck Landing in Westhampton Beach. It has already sold the land for two parcels. A .98-acre site sold for $2.2 million and a 1.31-acre site sold for $4.6 million, with plans to build houses on the land at an additional cost. It has listed a separate 1.1-acre waterfront parcel for $6.5 million. A fourth parcel, which includes a five-bedroom, more than 5,700-square-foot home, is on the market for just under $7 million.
The median sale price in the broader Westhampton area was $1.3 million last year across 428 sales, or 7.8% higher than the median in 2020, according to data compiled by Town and Country Real Estate. The report includes only single-family houses and defines the Westhampton area to include Westhampton Beach, Remsenburg, East Quogue, Quogue and Quiogue. There are currently 38 homes for sale in Westhampton Beach, according to OneKey MLS.
Jericho-based Beachwood has been a prolific residential builder across Long Island, with recent developments opening in East Meadow, East Rockaway, Plainview and Yaphank. It has built 129 homes in the Hamptons, including the 69-unit condo community Bishops Pond in Southampton Village.
The developer said this week it has now sold all 20 units at The Latch in Southampton Village, which includes 19 condominiums and a single-family home, on Hill Street. Sales ranged from $2.6 million to $7 million. The development included the preservation of the exteriors of two turn-of-the-20th-century buildings, the Latch building and Terry Cottage, that were designed by renowned architect Stanford White of the firm McKim, Mead and White.
Beechwood is contending with volatile prices for building materials, such as lumber, as it looks to begin selling the homes. The price of lumber futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have fallen nearly 20% in the past month to $1,054.30 per thousand board feet on Wednesday. In the first week of March, prices had soared above $1,450. Still, lumber prices have nearly doubled since mid-November.
Dubb said higher oil prices also increase the cost of construction because of the number of building materials that are petroleum related. He said he is in the unusual position of hoping for a slowdown in demand from homebuyers, so that building costs drop.
“The best we can do is order materials well in advance and try to buy the dips in the market,” Dubb said. “You couple that with labor shortages, and it’s quite challenging.”
Dubb said Beechwood doesn’t pass along higher construction costs to homebuyers after they’ve agreed to purchase homes but builders in other parts of the country have started including escalation clauses to account for fluctuations in construction costs.
“We have to absorb that risk,” Dubb said.
Jonathan LaMantia covers residential real estate and other business news on Long Island. He previously covered the business of health care for Crain's New York Business.
