Buying in Brookhaven hamlet

 Nature lovers can find their paradise in the hamlet of Brookhaven. Just east of Bellport, this South Shore community is bounded by the Great South Bay and the lower reaches of the Carmans River, as well as the Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge. Beaver Dam Creek runs 2½ miles through the middle of the hamlet.

"It's wildlife heaven," says Garry King, associate broker at Marylou Swan Realty in East Patchogue. "You can watch ospreys do acrobatics and see rabbits and plenty of deer," King adds. Tracy Boucher of Coach Realtors in West Sayville agrees. "It's a beautiful country setting."

Squassux Landing, operated by the Brookhaven Village Association, offers inexpensive, no-frills docking.

At Hamlet Organic Garden, a certified Community Supported Agriculture farm, vegetables, herbs and flowers are grown.

Neighborhoods feature homes of various styles and sizes. The historic district along and off Beaver Dam Road -- with its 18th and 19th century homes -- is 2-acre zoned. Other areas are 1-acre zoned. Prices generally range from the $200,000s up to $1.5 million.

The hamlet often attracts people who work at Brookhaven National Laboratory as well as second-home buyers from Manhattan, says resident Chris Schaeffer of Eileen A. Green Realty Corp. in Bellport.

Preservation efforts by Post-Morrow Foundation, the Brookhaven Village Association and the Bellport-Brookhaven Historical Society have helped the community retain its bucolic ambience, King says.