Property of the Week: The Apaquogue, East Hampton

This building is a treasure. It was the first boarding house built in East Hampton, featuring high ceilings and a big wraparound porch to catch the ocean breezes. (Some of the rooms still have numbers on the doors!) It is now being sold for the first time in a hundred years!

First, a bit of history. Abraham Candy (1801-1880) settled in East Hampton about 1829 and was a teacher (and sometime principal) of Clinton Academy. He was also a farmer. In the mid-nineteenth century Candy began accepting summer boarders at his farm on Apaquogue Road. Candy’s property was acquired after his death by E.A. LaForest in 1882, but the boarding house burned in the fall of that year. (Abraham Candy is buried in South End Cemetery.) In 1884, the LaForests opened the Apaquogue on the same site, a boarding house with 22 guest rooms. The Apaquogue continued as a hotel until 1912; it was later adapted as a summer home, which it still is today. In World War I, the house housed Belgian children evacuated from the European war zone.

Marilyn Clark, who along with Frank Newbold (both at Sotheby’s), is listing the house, says of the current owners, “They are selling because family has grown, now live in different cities and don’t get to use as often as they would like.”

The house is now 10,000 square feet, with 16 bedrooms, 7 baths, and 3 fireplaces. There is a very generous four acres of land (or so), so plenty of room for rolling lawns for croquet. No pool or tennis, but obviously there’s room for both. Asking price for all this is $16.9 million.

The grand old lady looks a little tired on the interiors, but, as Clark says, “The new owner could restore the house, move it on the property and expand, or build their own new 10,500 square foot house and make their own history.”

For more, click here. 72 Apaquogue Road, East Hampton