North Forkers have long been protective of their pristine farmland and virgin swaths of beachfront — especially from their well-heeled neighbors across the bay.
But a notorious South Forker has picked up a slice of the self-proclaimed chiller end of the East End. Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan is the buyer behind 110 acres of vacant land in East Marion, The Real Deal has learned.
Rowan’s purchase of the land for $23.5 million is the priciest in North Fork history, and adds to a string of pricey deals in the area.
The sale of the property, known as Cove Beach, may add new life to the land that has been sliced and diced over the years as different owners have tried — and failed — to develop different portions.
Behind the Hedges first reported the sale to an unknown buyer.
Once the site of a church-run summer camp, singer Bill Joel purchased 70 acres of the land in 1985 before flipping it less than two years later. In 1994, Dutch businessman Raoul Witteveen picked up 96 acres, which included Joel’s former portion and some surrounding parcels.
Previous owners had put forward plans for a 34-lot subdivision, which Witteveen shrunk to 10 while granting a conservation easement of 69 acres to the Peconic Land Trust in 1998. Witteveen’s plan allowed for a series of two-acre, waterfront parcels with beach access that could eventually be developed.
Witteveen added more pieces of land, eventually bringing the property to include 18 developable beachfront parcels, listing agent Joan Bischoff van Heemskerck of William Raveis told Behind the Hedges.
Witteveen previously sold off four parcels for around $6 million starting in 2004. But those, as well as the remainder of Witteveen’s holdings, have remained undeveloped.
Training his acquisition sights south
Rowan’s plans for the property are not clear, and a spokesperson for his firm did not respond to a request for comment.
The sale has long been in the works, according to a person familiar with the deal. Starting in 2024, entities that appear to be tied to Rowan picked up three of the parcels that Witteveen had previously sold, according to public records. Another 16 properties sold to similar entities — all LLCs prefixed with “NFH-JC” — in January.
The billionaire has been buying up properties in the area for more than a decade, starting with a Sag Harbor restaurant purchase in 2013. He’s since bought up motels and restaurants, including Duryea’s in Montauk, a three-generation, family-owned seafood shack that he outfitted with slick, modern upgrades and a pricey new menu for a waterfront eatery to entice the Hamptons elite.
One of his hotels, a four-key boutique affiliated with the restaurant called Duryea’s Sunset Cottages, was charging $2,900 per night during peak nights last summer.
In 2020, Rowan made what appeared to be his entrée into the North Fork when he opened up Duryea’s Orient Point, just several miles from his newly acquired land.
Rowan’s jump into the North Fork with a record-setting deal is a continuation of a post-pandemic rush into the area that has seen real estate prices explode in the last several years. The median home price broke $1 million for the first time in the third quarter last year, according to a report from appraisal firm Miller Samuel.
In January, a waterfront property in Southold sold for $12.4 million, setting the record for priciest single-lot home sold on the North Fork. That deal came just three months after a bayfront Cutchogue home set the then-record for most expensive home sold when it closed for $11.2 million.
The area has benefited from still being relatively cheaper than the Hamptons while maintaining the same proximity to the city and the beach, according to Corcoran’s Sheri Winter Parker.
“It was just a matter of time,” she said of the hamlet’s burgeoning popularity. “That’s why prices keep increasing year after year.”
But residents have also pushed back on the recent flow of money into the area.
“There’s an enormous tension between the local people and the very wealthy people who have been purchasing on the North Fork,” said van Heemskerck. “People are afraid that they’re going to lose what’s left on the North Fork, and they’re afraid of what wealthy people can do with their money.”
He pointed to a different wealthy landowner, Stefan Soloviev, as evidence that a large-scale land purchaser will not necessarily disrupt the farming feel of the area. “He’s been one of the most real farmers that you can possibly imagine,” he said.
But a recent proposal to turn 372 acres of farmland between Cutchogue and Peconic into almost 50 luxury homes from Soloviev, who owns hundreds of acres of land across the East End, raised the hackles of residents warning of “South Forkification.”
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