Breitenbach Real Estate

One of the Hamptons finest builders and contractors, Jeffrey Colle, just put two of his premier estates on the market for sale. The first, a pond front masterpiece on the star studded and elegant Georgica Pond. The other is located on a 42 acre reserve in Water Mill. Both are listed at $39,500,000.

Jeffrey Colle is a building icon in both the Hamptons and NYC. Jeffrey has completed notable residences and projects for top business leaders as well as a star-studded celebrity cast of stars which includes Billy Joel, Chirsty Brinkley, Donna Karan, and Alec Baldwin. The New York Post described Jeffrey as “the premier contractor in the Hamptons.”

Jeffrey’s two latest creations are true architectural masterpieces with the belief that pure design and detail oriented construction are the most valuable aspects of a high end estate. Jeffrey Colle lived up to every inch of his long and elaborate reputation with these two new to the market estates.

The first is Jeffrey’s Georgica Pondfront estate and is often referred to as “The Pond House.” The house itself is 12,000 square ft. and is set on the idyllic setting of Georgica Pond. The sensational western sunset waterviews are magnificent. The site is set on 2 elevated acres with 203 ft. of direct water frontage and overlooks an adjacent 17 acre meadow preserve. Renowned architect Stanford White designed the original 100-year-old structure. Jeffrey Colle and his team renovated and enlarged the original structure over 3 years combing what Jeffrey calls “old world craftsmanship with state-of-the-art modern systems.”

Jeffrey carefully rotated the original house 90 degrees so the historic triple-height studio room (which faced north) is now a 30 ft. high living room looking west over the pond. The renovation took three years and was just recently completed. The result is a magnificent home which incorporates the graceful architecture of the original designer Stanford White with the golden touch of Jeffrey Colle. Every detail in the home was custom designed and all the woodwork was hand milled on site. The bathroom marble was site selected in Verona, Italy. The patina-matched tubs, counters, were carved from single-blocks of stone by master Italian craftsmen.

Jeffrey’s other newest creation “Beechnut Hill Farm” has also hit the market in nearby Water Mill. The estate is set on 42 acres in one of the last unspoiled areas of the Hamptons. The land is surrounded by hundreds of acres of farmland reserve and the house itself is a 16,800 square foot sprawling traditional estate with an imposing 225 foot facade which incorporates the meticulous handcrafted details found in European estates. The beautiful and wide limestone terraces overlook unlimited rolling vistas that are protected forever. The entry gates are made of 18th century limestone originally from a chateau in the south of France. The allee of blossoming cherry treas make the walk to the front entry and covered port corchere an experience worthy of a Prince.

Other features include a paneled double-height entry hall with sweeping curved limestone staircase; library with hand-pegged parquet de Versailles floors and quarter-sawn white oak paneling with a hand-supplied French chalk finish; diamond-paned sunroom with limestone floors overlooking the pool, large family room with oversized French doors opening to a custom quarried Turkish limestone terrace and state of the art kitchen equipped with Cornue stove, 2 dishwashers, 2 SubZero refrigerators, and top-of-the-line custom cabinetry with leaded panes and hand-blown glass.

These two Jeffrey Colle estates have set a new level for Hamptons construction. Their price tag is heavy but their pure quality and design are unsurpassed.

*Both Estates are Listed with Susan and Matthew Breitenbach

To view property listing, full property particulars, and additional photo’s please visit:

http://www.corcoran.com/matthewbreitenbach

or

http://www.smbhamptons.com

-Matthew Breitenbach

Associate Broker

The Corcoran Group Real Estate

“Proven Results in a Challenging Market: Over $50 million in Sales Transactions in 2009 so far..”

After a dreadful and very long winter, summer is finally upon the Hamptons again. With all the economic doom and gloom, this particular Hamptons summer included a lot of questions marks for the first time in the last two decades. But with a sizzling Memorial day weekend, a rebounding sales market, and a hot rental market, that doom and gloom is slowly fading and has been replaced with beach towels, celebrity sightings, and all the gossip you can handle in Hamptons magazine. The arrival of Memorial Day and June (even though the weather has felt more like Seattle), has brought high spirits to the Hamptons. Prices have come down and buyers are jumping at reduced prices and amazing values. The idea of closing and moving in for summer are all positive features. The arrival of summer has jump started a Hamptons market that was hanging in the doldrums for most of the winter and spring. With incredible values lurking and the summer in it’s infancy, expect the Hamptons market to keep rising until the fall when those pesky question marks might start coming out of the closet yet again.

-Matthew Breitenbach

Associate Broker

The Corcoran Group Real Estate

“Proven Results in a Challenging Market: Over $50 million in Transactions in 2009 Alone”

As a broker at Corcoran, I usually see most of our rental inventory rented by April. At that point, you see some late lookers hoping to get a nice, clean, and well priced summer rental. This is year is obviously different from most. Thanks to some movement in the Hampton’s sales market (three high end marquee properties were rumored to be in contract last week), the rental market has gradually started to pick up. There is some hope. More and more rental properties rented each week. Unfortunately though, the weather prediction for this years rental market is that instead of April being the month where we all prepare for the upcoming summer it will be the month where the renters and brokers are scrambling. All the renters that usually are active in the market in November, December and into Januaruy and Feburary are most likely waiting. Waiting for those landlords to start to lose it, to get nervous, to realize this might be the first year in many that they may not rent their summer home. It could be that a California gold rush for rentals is about to happen in April and May. It could be that the renters aren’t coming, but I can’t imagine too many New Yorkers skewering and sizzling in the city during a plus 80 August saturday.

What we do know is that The Corcoran Group held a rental expo last Thursday March 19 in New York City. The event was a huge success and the amount of interest the expo drew could only be positive. The conclusion - that even though the statistics are down, there are many renters still interested in the Hampton’s this summer no matter the economic down turn.

I attended this event as well as a strong contingent of Corcoran’s top east end brokers. The event was a huge success and did help bring some positivity to what has a been a bleak and depressing rental season so far. The people came in droves. The end tally was 500 plus. Lookers and landlords alike all showed up to talk to the brokers. Everybody that came through the doors wanted to get a sense of what was going on a hundred miles to the east. The positivity came from their interest. No matter the market. The Hampton’s real estate market is always intriguing and for some reason people always want to be here for the summer. I found myself in these type of conversations often at the rental expo. Positive feelings were radiated and a sense of hope for the 2009 summer season seemed more within reach then ever before.

Overall, the expo was a great success. There was a fantastic media buzz. The people came out in force. Even in these economic uncertain times and with the Hampton’s real estate market with more question marks then ever, we were all able to gather in a location, have a few glasses of wine, and talk person to person about not the media driven rumors about half priced sales and rentals in the Hampton’s, but talk about the great values of the present Hampton’s, especially in the rental market.

The conclusion - no matter what the media says, people will be summering in the Hampton’s in 2009 once again.

-Matthew Breitenbach

The Stephen Talkhouse is a place of magic. Walking around the dimly lit bar and stage area I get an eerie vibe, the kind of feeling I got the first time you walked into the old Yankee stadium or the archaic coliseum in Rome. I like to think of the many magical moments that have happened here and recreate them in my mind. I wish I could interview the walls for hours on end. I place my hand on the walls and run them across the old wood bar and I like to think I can feel the vibes of the Talkhouse walking through my fingertips and titillating the nerves in my spine. It’s as if the place wants to tell me a certain tale, yet it’s never enough to satisfy.

I like to walk around the Talkhouse and look at the walls. I like to see all the bands that have come and gone. The most memorable are hung on the wall in horizontal fashion like the ghosts of Christmas past. Their signatures scribbled on framed photo’s, a symbol that bands come and go, the music may change around us, but the Stephen Talkhouse will never change. Each band that has ever performed there is in a way etched into Talkhouse lore. Their sounds have traveled and gone, but their energy remains. The Talkhouse is a house haunted by the ghosts of musicians.

I love this place. I repeat that every time I step through that old steel door way and my eyes catch the glimpse of the dimly lit Christmas lights and old Phil the bartender with his bandanna standing there pouring a fresh round of Jose Quervo shots. The lighting almost makes the place drastically dark, but the dim lighting is not for a romantic occasion. The talkhouse is raw. The raw visuals of the Talkhouse go right along with the raw energy that often radiates from the patrons, musicians, and bartenders. There is a certain individuality about everything within the Talkhouse. When I step outside even for a second, I take a deep breathe and I suddenly feel like I just stepped outside of some kind of vortex. The vortex is contagious and addicting. The bumping kick drum and driving bass lines make the Talkhouse shake and awakens the blood in my veins. I can hear the bump from the parking lot when I pull up. It makes me smile that some band is trying to bring the old structure down. “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down” plays the big bad wolf.

The bump. That vibration. It is the Talkhouse calling. I can never seem to get away from the place. I always step inside for some more and that big bad wolf never does blow the house totally down. The band stops playing and the sounds stop, but the energy always seems to remain.

I strongly recommend the next time your in the Hamptons to visit the Talkhouse. The Talkhouse changes with the seasons, but it is always a great experience. The winter brings out a lot of the year round musicians. The bar is less crowded and the Talkhouse becomes a great spot to get away. The summer brings summer crowds and some prime time bands, but the feeling of the talkhouse, like the music it produces, never changes.

-Matthew Breitenbach

The rental market has begun to heat up and I don’t recommend running to the phone to call your real estate broker. I am not a proprietor of such drastic measures. I do recommend that you consider starting to get your summer ‘09 plans in order because the Hamptons rental market has finally started to breathe again.

Some recent rentals done by Susan and Matt Breitenbach:

*Rented for the Year Last Month

*Rented for Summer ‘09 Last Week

*Rented for Year Over the Presidents Day Weekend

Last year’s rental market began with a bang. Brokers were busy in early November working with rental customers. The sales market was hiccuping, but the rental market picked up the slack as the inventory of good rentals were gone by January and February. Last year you were nuts if you waited until spring to look for a rental. People began coming out to the Hamptons for all sorts of times and time lengths. There were rentals and houses for everybody. Corcoran ended up renting almost 100% of their inventory. This year is a different story being written and very silent and solemn tone has crept over the entire rental market. This tone though has started to change.

Last year brokers were singing this tune, “sales are down but the rental market is strong.” When sales continued to slump and the economy continued to worsen over the coarse of the year this phrase became old news. November ‘08 was a much different month then November ‘09 in the Hamptons rental world. The Hamptons rental market was dead quite at the tale end of ‘08 and even into January ‘09. It was not until the tale end of January until the rental market started to take in air again and breathe. February has started to see rental action and last week’s President Day’s weekend was an extremely busy weekend in the world of Hampton’s rentals. So there is hope at least for now and if I was someone considering renting in the Hamptons this summer, I would start to get the wheels moving on my plans. I would maybe think about getting on the horse and going for a ride.

-Matthew Breitenbach

When I propose to my customers that “now is a great time to buy even when the economic forecast is dark and gloomy with more chances of snow,” they look at me like I am crazy and ask “why?”

“Well it really is!” I respond.

Listen. I know the economy is scaring the living daylights out of everyone. Even a man like myself who is a broker in one of the most successful real estate markets in the country has had seeds of doubt. The Hamptons real estate market hasn’t seen a time like this in many moons. The exceptional growth and strength of the Hamptons real estate market has been proficiently heading upward at amazing leaps and bounds throughout the last decade. The most shocking figure to me is that even since 2006 that Hamptons real estate market was still growing. While the rest of the country was starting to catch a cold economically, the Hamptons still boomed along. Even in the later parts of 2007 and throughout the first half of 2008, the Hamptons market was still far from cooling. As recent national economic figures have stated, the economy has been in a recession since last December and during this time the Hamptons market has grown not detracted. It did not just grow slowly either, it set records in upper tier sales and the 2008 rental season was the best in history. The Hamptons real estate market does not have a glass chin. The Hamptons real estate market is like Muhammed Ali in his prime. The Hamptons market like Ali could take punch after punch and not go down. An investment in the Hamptons has the best chance of rapid appreciation no matter the economic climate.

Right now is one of the best times to buy in the Hamptons within the last decade. There are just incredible deals and values that people haven’t seen in years. You just have to find them.

Many sellers in the Hamptons have enough funds to weather this economic catastrophe. Many Hamptons sellers are smart investors and very successful in whatever profession they were in or still are in. They do not need to flex there price or drop their asking rapidly because they simply probably don’t need the money. Because the Hamptons has so many of these “type A” sellers who don’t really have to sell is why you are not seeing a huge decrease in prices in the Hamptons. Why many buyers think, “why not wait until prices deflate and drop?” I strongly believe that is the wrong approach. Why wait for something that may never happen? The Hamptons have lowered slightly and may lower a little more so, but at the end of the day the Hamptons is the Hamptons.

There are great deals out there and sellers who need to sell. You just have to look. The best deals I am seeing are in “new construction.” Many builders kept building throughout the last two years because the Hamptons real estate market seemed to be weathering any economic report or any economic doom and gloom that was sweeping the nation. The Hamptons stood strong and kept taking everything on the chin. The builders kept building deep into 2007 and even into 2008.

It took a catastrophic collapse on Wall St. to slow the Hamptons real estate market. I strongly believe that the Hamptons real estate market has only got the wind knocked of it. It’s going down to it’s knees to get it’s breath. It’s then going to rise to it’s feet and be stronger then ever. That’s why now you can really find something incredible at an incredible price before the market rebounds. The best deals are the new construction spec houses. Right now there are amazing homes south of the highway, some of even pondfront like this home below that you can get for way under what the market value for the home was 6 to 12 months ago. When the market recovers you’ll be sitting pretty. You would have scored an amazing deal.

*This Newly Constructed Spec House listed with Susan Breitenbach overlooks gorgeous Sagaponack Pond. The home is located deep in Sagaponack south, close to ocean beaches. It  was originally $9.995.000 and is now available for $5.995.000. A new construction spec house of similar qualities and characteristics traded down the street last summer for $19 million.

As my father always told me,

“Buy into the teeth of the market not the meat.”

A lot of builders overextended themselves and bought into a meaty and healthy market. Now with the financial markets in turmoil and not as many Hamptons buyers, these once sitting pretty builders are now overextended and are more negotiable then ever. These builders want out. And like many hard learned lessons, I don’t think these builders will make these mistakes again. Next time they build, they will make sure not to get too ambitious. They won’t overextend. They will do spot projects and make sure they get their asking price. When a builder has two or three houses just sitting on the market, not to mention a tough market and dreary economic stats, you get a high chance of negotiability. The probability of getting an amazing deal on a newly constructed Hampton home has went through the roof. If you are in the market for new construction, now is the time to buy.

-Matthew Breitenbach

When you think of the Hampton’s, images of traditional cedar shingled homes and well-manicured lawns used to come to mind. But recently, a new movement has swelled up from beneath the Hampton’s dirt.

Modern homes with artistic visions are becoming less sparse in the Hampton’s, as Greene based designs with geothermal heat and fresh water swimming pools are now becoming more hip and common. The English country and Gambrel estates, which still spot properties from Further Lane to Gin Lane have worn out their welcome. Even though they do still warrant buyers and investors alike, the hot buy right now is Modern.

It has been interesting to see. As a broker, I used to find myself either marketing a newly constructed home or a plain contemporary. The newly constructed home, either being English country manor or a traditional gambrel. The plain contemporary, usually being a complete “tear down” or a home that was somewhat renovated and livable. Hampton’s real estate is becoming more and more a work of art. With the tremendous growth of the art industry and the growth of a younger, more chic group of Hampton’s buyers, the Hampton’s has expanded its real estate boundaries beyond the structural molds of farmhouses and English country estates. No longer do we just see the same old regurgitated design. Yes, they have not totally dissipated, but there is an emerging movement of originally designed homes. Historic 1800’s farmhouses expanded and renovated into modern masterpieces. Small, modern, and energy efficient green houses are not looked at as outlandish, but viewed as popular and trendy. This movement was a long time coming, and has generated much interest from buyers and the media alike because everybody was in a way waiting for something different to come along. Everybody was tired of the same old Hampton’s estate. There was a hope and hunger among buyers that a new direction and style of Hampton’s homes would rise to the surface. The group efforts of buyers, owners, and real estate brokers have brought this movement to the forefront. Modern homes are now becoming the norm, a rather low-key norm, but a trendy and rising one. These new modern combinations are equally appealing to the young artist, the number crunching investor, the family man, or a broker like myself looking to market something different.

Within the last year, I’ve had the pleasure of marketing a plethora of new and interesting properties that fit within this modern category. They have inspired my own creativity into where the Hampton’s might be headed in terms of style. These homes I speak of are not simply modern. They combine a country feel with a new and innovative modern style and design that was most likely born in the style hub that is New York City.

One that comes to mind is an old farmhouse in Sagaponack. The home’s history and how it was recently restored and expanded is a strong sign of innovative design and style arising in Hampton’s real estate. There was no cap on what could be done stylistically in terms of design. The owner, designer/architect Peter Sabbath, transformed an old 1880’s farmhouse into a half modern, half farmhouse, but entirely green production. The farmhouse itself is perched on Sunset Hill, which is one of the highest points in Sagaponack. Like it’s name dictates, the sunsets and farm field views from this elevated location are spectacular. A previous owner of this distinct property was James Joyce, the famous writer who came to fame through the epic film “From Here to Eternity.” He wrote three novels in the attic of the Sunset Hill Farmhouse.

When Sabbath bought the property he kept a lot of the typical Hampton’s farmhouse features, including the shingled exterior, windows, front porch, and natural wild flower meadow in the front yard that showcases a symbolically placed flagpole. The wild flower meadow looks natural and beautiful and is a nice change up from the more obnoxious rolling lawns that spot many front yards in the Hampton’s. Sabbath restored the farmhouse using green materials and sustainable building practices. He then added a modern expansion, which was also built with green materials and constructed using sustainable building practices.

The house is in many ways a work of art, a beautiful combination of old and new. It has been a pleasure marketing this house and a change up from the newly constructed traditional homes that I am usually hired to represent. The creation of a modern farmhouse has rippled across the Hampton’s real estate airwaves. The home was on the front page of HC & G in August, and just last week in a article on the homepage of www.hamptons.com. All the media the property has generated has been positive and has sighted Sabbath as a sort of revolutionary and pioneer.

Modern homes such as this are interesting and new. Buyers, brokers, and the media alike are equally as drawn to this new and innovative movement breaking the Hampton’s dirt. It is all very exciting to see. The Hampton’s real estate market is no longer boring, and a new flux of innovative designs and styles are breaking molds in the Hampton’s. The origins of the movement are hard to trace, but many of the pioneers I’ve encountered are stylistically sound, young, and looking for something different.

-Matthew Breitenbach