Andrew Doud 0:08

Welcome in everybody. It's Thursday. I'm Andrew Dow. Time for our Happening in the Hamptons podcast, our weekly breakdown of the Hamptons Market, new listings and events on the East End. We are sponsored today by New York Title Abstract, the Hamptons leading title insurance firm. Visit NewYorkTitle.com. Now that we got the intros out of the way, let's talk about the fact that this is our first live podcast. We are streaming on Paramount's Instagram. We have Pete and Steven from Paramount Development Group joining us at their beautiful exclusive Seven Lee Lane here in Wainscott. I'm Andrew Dowd. That's Dave Retiner, that's Steve Glick, and the man on the end is going to sell this house. That's Vincent Horta Casitas, the hardest working broker in the Hamptons. How is everybody?

SPEAKER_04 0:51

Doing great. Doing good, doing good. Glad to be here.

Andrew Doud 0:54

We just gotta uh so we're doing we're doing the first live episode, which is cool. Working through a couple technical difficulties, so we're gonna be sharing some mics while we get that ironed out. But um let's talk about this house. This house is stunning. New construction, uh again, Seven Lee Lane here in Wayne Scott. The house pretty much has it all, but I'll let you guys describe to us what it is that you have to offer with this beautiful new exclusive.

SPEAKER_04 1:20

Yeah, so basically you're situated on a little over an acre over here. Uh 7,000 plus square foot house on three floors. Nice. And it's just loaded with amenities. And one of the things that we pride ourselves on is it has traditional aesthetic in a sense, but it has that modern twist uh inside and out, giving you a full transitional feel. And I think Vince can speak to this as well, but I feel like that's where the market is trending. There's not a tremendous amount of new construction that is traditional, it still does exist, and it'll always have its place in the Hamptons. But you know, we wanted to bring something that was a breath of fresh air to the marketplace, and I think we've executed on all levels here.

Andrew Doud 1:57

I guess you you say transitional because it it has like a bit of a traditional feel, but you have big windows, sliding glass doors, um, the front of the house, which obviously we can't see from the live stream here, but you have like this kind of wall of windows up front, um, beautiful floating staircase. Uh I guess that's what kind of makes it blends that modern with the more traditional feel.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

For sure, for sure. Because you have traditional head nods to typical roof lines that you would see out here, but also that blended twist with the large storefront windows that were custom fabricated for this house specifically. Um what's beautiful about it is it immerses the interior of the home with the exterior of the home where you could actually stand in those alcove windows and feel like you're part of the environment around you here. And we really took a major attempt at creating a beautiful landscape that you could appreciate from all angles of this this home. That's great.

Andrew Doud 2:47

Vince, uh you represent this beautiful listing and a couple others that we'll get to, but what do you like about this place?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

You know, I love the industrial windows. When I um when we were thinking about buying this property, we were talking about a property that was near here that had these windows, and I loved them in the house that was here. So we brought these industrial windows that go floor to ceiling in the bedrooms that are upstairs. So that's really special. Everybody really is excited about that. But you know, it's a seven-bedroom, seven-bath, one-half bath. Uh the primary uh suite upstairs is beautiful. The uh has floor-to-ceiling porcelain, uh, you know, radiant heated floors, floating vanities. Uh it's a double vanity with a uh a floating tub that's there. It's just very special. Um it's 1.3 acres here, and it really kind of checks off all the boxes uh south of the highway where you're close to villages, but you're also close to the beach. And um, Gary Chufo did the um cabinet in here in the kitchen, and I love the uh Italian high glass uh uh cabinet that's done, and those are in the vanities, and also he did the um laundry room that way. Um so it just you know goes outside with a 20 by 40 gun eye pool. Um it just has the latest modern design, but it's not so much about that, it's really about Paramount. What you know separates them from the pack, in my opinion, is you know, they built, first of all, 1,500 homes.

unknown 4:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

1500 homes? 1500 homes, yeah. And it's just it starts with the lumber that they use. They use a kiln dry lumber that doesn't have a lot of water in it, has no moisture in it. So it's it's really what's behind the walls. If you feel the paint job here, it's like a baby's butt. It's so smooth. And I and I when I take people through the houses, I get very excited about it. Um, you know, you always have a vestibule before before you go into the bedrooms, and you know, you have eight-foot doors uh throughout, ten-foot ceilings, you know, linear uh uh fireplaces. It just uh it brings the modern a lot of light in here. It's even it could be you could turn the lights off and have a lot of light. But um it's just really about you know the team and and and what they bring to it when when it you know it's not uh it's run very um uh what's the organized is I I guess the word I want to use.

unknown 5:00

Yeah.

Steve Glick 5:00

Yeah. The one thing I love about this house, what uh Bench just touched on, is the natural light coming in. You get it from the the glass doors coming in, also from the back here, as you all can see here, just so much natural light coming into this house. And the other thing I like best about it is the outdoor kitchen. Like when you look at the entertainment spaces outside, yeah, and these doors just open up, it just brings that flow through the house. Coming through the front door, out through the back, plenty of entertaining spaces.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

You have a beautiful outdoor kitchen, and this is this is a great house, very private and um they bring in the landscaping instead of doing some you know, a lot of times uh builders at the end of a job really kind of skimp out on you know on the landscaping. When you come to these jobs, you look at the landscaping, these are 16-foot green giants surrounding this property. So you just you know, you're incomp you're you're enclosed in here in your own little private world. It's special. Totally finished product. Yeah.

Andrew Doud 5:51

Um how do you guys come up with the the do you look at the lot that you're purchasing and then say, okay, now we know where we want to build, and then decide what you're gonna build, or is there kind of like a a a sheet of houses that you choose from, or is it all just custom based on the location?

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Yeah, so we have a we have a process. So when we acquire a lot, Vince brings us a lot, or we s find a lot. Um we definitely, you know, trust in Vince what he knows because he's a professional in the in the space and one of the leading in the industry for a reason. So what we do is we like to sit down and really um see what's in the area, see the local comps, you know, see what our um not competitors, but our competitors may be doing um and then put a paramount twist on it and uh you know come to the market like that.

Andrew Doud 6:35

To that point, talking about this this paramount twist, we you we have the the um Saunders, the the brokerage, has two other exclusives with you currently. We've sold a number of them, but the two that are also on the market in addition to Seven Lee Lane is five White Oak and 1675. Sorry, 165 north North Main Street and East Hampton. Um all beautiful builds, all Paramount houses, but they all have a different feel, a different look, you know what I mean? And honestly, a different price point. So it's like you know, you might want that paramount quality in a different location, and you can get it for, I mean, this is 8.8, uh, there's five White Oaks, 4'9, uh the one in um East Hampton's 445. Am I getting that right? 4595. 4595. See, Vince is the he's the representative. But aesthetically, they're all different. Aesthetically, they're all different, they're all beautiful houses, but that's depends on the point I'm getting at.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

But what can you find usual? So what drives a builder? What drives the aesthetic is really, like you said, when we acquire a property, we do our due diligence with Vince, we do our own market research as well. And we don't want to build something that's disasal to the neighborhood. Right. So, in an in an instance like 165 North Main Street, that's a very traditional esque home, but it's conducive to that neighborhood. It gives you the it's walking distance to East Hampton Village, and it has that traditional village aesthetic over there. And then when you come to a spot like Seven Lee Lane, this is off the beaten path, it's its own little enclave back here created by the privacy that we brought in here. Um, and then you have Five White Oak, which is another transitional feel, but it gives gives a head nod to the traditional aesthetic within the neighborhood, but again, a transitional twist on it. And so that's how really our process works. We look at a property, we do look at past homes we do have in our portfolio, but we always like to come with something different. We don't want to be stagnant and be remembered for the same house over and over and over on repeat. So we always try and put our own twist on every house that we do.

Steve Glick 8:32

Pete, what can you find similar in all three homes? There's got to be some Paramount custom thing that you could say, you know what, if you look here, you'll notice we keep the same type of theme or something through.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

There's there's one answer to that because I I think each house is like a snowflake, they're all different in their own regard. But one thing that's synonymous with Paramount and what's across the board, and it doesn't matter what price point home we're doing, it's the quality of the home. There you go. And it goes back to what Vince is saying. It's not the pretty paint job, it's not the tile, it's not the custom kitchen, it's the actual foundation, the structure of the home. So, you know, a client purchases this home five years later, they're not chasing their tail looking at stress cracks, and this is settling because we didn't acclimate the house properly, or we use subpar materials behind all the substreets.

SPEAKER_06 9:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:17

Um and that's what's really important to us. You know, we like to build legacy pieces.

Andrew Doud 9:22

Can I just tell you something? Here's a story. We didn't talk about this before we started the podcast, but I went to shoot Five Wide Oak for the listing yesterday or uh Tuesday. And there was a gentleman that works for you guys, he was there. Um I guess he is uh a property manager of some type. I just introduced myself, I said, I'm here to shoot the property, and and we got to talking, and he says, Um, I've worked for Paramount for I think he said five years. He goes, in that time, I've never been called back to a property for an imperfection or to fix anything that became problematic. Like, you know, there's not like a crack in the wall, not something wrong with the ceiling, not a wall bowed out. He goes, the floor isn't separating, like anything that might happen with a house over time, he goes, in my time with Paramount, I have not been called back by a homeowner to try to fix anything. Yeah. And he goes, I think that speaks to the quality.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Yeah, you know what we like to do is um we like to make sure that we take that extra step and make sure that we really focus on the quality. And even if it takes us a couple, you know, a couple extra days where um you know we're a little bit slower than the next guy, we make sure that we're on top of it and the quality is is is to par because it's the way that me and my brother were raised from you know little kids to uh grown men in the business. So we like to, you know, not only um build a beautiful quality house, but leave our our our name uh you know.

Andrew Doud 10:39

I just thought you guys would appreciate that that somebody that works for Paramount is so happy to be part of such a good quality product. I think that is indicative of what you know the customers will get over time, even after making the purchase.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Yeah, you know, yeah, I just want to say, you know, like our company, our company is a very family-oriented company, so everybody who works for us has been here for five years plus, some guys 16 years plus. Me and my brother have been sweeping the floor since we're as long as I could remember. Um, so you know, everybody is is very passionate about it, just as passionate, if not some more than others. Um, you know, and that's what a Paramount home is. It's it's more than just uh, you know, a guy can go build a home. Anyone can build a home, but to make a home special, you really need special people involved, and I think that's what we have. So that's that's awesome you said that too.

Andrew Doud 11:24

That's that's a good, yeah, it's a good uh good point to transition on. Uh let me send it over to Steve. Let's take a look at the numbers. Big picture for the market, yeah, as far as real estate.

Steve Glick 11:34

All right, so here we are. This is the last week in May. 22 listings went into contract from West Hampton to Montauk. Last year there were 27 listings, so it was a small decrease there of 19%. But two years ago in 2023, there were 14 listings, so that is an increase of 57%. The breakdown of the 22 transactions, there was one over 20 million, one between 15 and 20 million, two between five and ten million, seven between three and five million, three between two and three million, six between one and two million, and two under a million. The dollar volume this past week was a hundred million, and last year it was sixty-four million. So even though we saw a decrease in the listings going into contract year over year, the dollar volume increased by fifty-six percent. Two years ago, the dollar volume was only thirty-eight million, so that's a huge increase of 163%. But the thing the theme that happens every single week now for the past three months is new listings coming onto the market. There were 31 new listings that came on, so it increases the inventory by nine listings, and the breakdown of the 31 new listings, one between 10 and 15 million, five between five and ten million, eight between three and five million, seven between two and three million, six between one and two million, and four under a million. Inventory stands at nineteen hundred and fifty-three total listings, fifteen hundred and thirteen active, and four hundred and forty in contract. So a a healthy week that we're seeing pluses twenties going into contract, and very good to see new inventory coming on, over 30 listings coming on.

Andrew Doud 13:02

Um, Vince, before we get into what's going on this weekend, I just want to give you a chance to also talk a little bit about Five White Oak and North Maine, um, and just working with Paramount because you guys have been together for a long time. I think about I mean I've been with the company almost nine years, and I can't remember you guys not being part of what we're doing here. So um so just talk to us a little bit about those listings. Um obviously we've touched on Lee Lang quite a bit, but what do you got?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yeah, you know, I I remember uh starting with them, I think it was like 12 or 15 years ago, I I think now, and uh their first project they did out here um was a huge success, and we had about I guess about seven or eight really good um uh south of the highway, Bridgehampton, Sagaponic, um watermill properties that uh were all big successes. And um, you know, 165 North Main is a super special property. It's uh six bedrooms, five baths, and one half bath. And um it has a master uh I shouldn't say master primary suite um on the um on the second floor that has a uh sitting room and has a refrigerator up there, some custom cabin tree in there. Um I love the uh closet space in the in the room and has three closets in the room, radiant heated floors, double vanity in there. It's beautiful to see. Cap uh craftsmanship is amazing. Uh the property is amazing. What's uh special about the property is it's three quarters of an acre. Walk into village. You can uh walk into walk into town, am I allowed to say that? Sure. Okay. Well you can walk into town from there. It's like a block. It's like a block away, two blocks away. And um, you know, it's it and it has uh 100 percent clearing on it. So it's like its own oasis. It has uh has a gate to it, and um, you know, I just really like the property and um you know all the pools here uh by the way are 20 by 40 gunnite pools that are uh salt water heated. Um but that's uh you know at 4595, I you know I put that up against any property out there for new construction. Uh, you know, so it you know I don't expect it to be on the market too much longer, having a lot of showings there. Um Five White Oak uh is on a full acre, again, uh 100% clearable property. Um it's just under 5,000 square feet with uh seven bedrooms, uh five baths and one half bath. Um what do we have? Four bedrooms upstairs with the primary suite up there, vaulted ceilings, uh, marble floors, double vanity, soaking tub, a lot of uh infinity, um uh no thresholds on the bathrooms, so you have that infinity drain that's a little harder to engineer. That's a great thing. You know, just kind of seemingly uh walk in there. Um you know, great properties. That's priced at uh 4,995,000 and great, great neighborhood, quiet. Um I opened it up the other day for somebody and I was waiting. I sat out on the uh back deck and just was sitting there hearing hearing the birds chirp, and it's just uh super super special. And they're moving ready. Yeah, moving ready, ready, ready to go. Um if you haven't seen them, we have open houses on all three properties this weekend, and um you know come out and see them.

Andrew Doud 16:07

That's perfect. So if you're if you're coming out to check out those houses, David, what else should they do? Yeah, and you can have the mic now. Oh, you can borrow Steve's all right, there you go.

Dave Rattiner 16:14

Well, but I I just wanted to mention at 165 North Main, the thing that I love is that long driveway. It makes sense. Yeah, you sit way back and it's nice. You just like you just cruise on up and you're just like, welcome to my castle. And then it's like to Vince's point, it's so private over there, you know.

Andrew Doud 16:29

But still so close to the village. Yeah, it's it's like weird, yeah.

Dave Rattiner 16:32

Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. So, all right, anyway, so this weekend in the Hamptons, what is going on? Do you guys know who Chance the Rapper is?

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Yeah, absolutely. Of course. Do you? I do.

Dave Rattiner 16:43

I don't really know who he is. You all got excited about it.

Andrew Doud 16:47

Dave, I I look, I rely on you for keeping me tell me what's cool and what's happening.

Dave Rattiner 16:51

Well, that's not good, Andrew Dell. That's not a good thing. So, Chance the Rapper, he's gonna be at the Surf Lodge, which means he's probably really good. He's gonna be there Saturday. Uh he's gonna start at 4 o'clock, but most likely 4 p.m. But most likely that means he's gonna go until 4 a.m. because it's at the sh at the surf lodge. I have not been there in a long time, but I've seen videos and it looks like a good time. I gotta get there. Um, and then the second thing, you know, if you're in the mood for like a more really Hampton-centric event, this is a well-known event. It's called the All Against Abuse Benefit. That's also Saturday starting at 6.30. This is a great uh charity. It's gonna uh be at the Southampton Arts Center, and it includes music and food and fancy people and all that. So, you know, you gotta go to that. Uh so that you can buy tickets at that at all against abuse.org. And then my third pick is actually in your town, King Down in Hampton Base. Yeah. Yeah. So uh the Gypsy Kings are gonna be playing Sunday at the Canoe Place Inn in Hampton Base. I like Canoe Place, yeah. And the Gypsy Kings, they're a very popular uh Latin band. Okay. They start at 8 p.m. So that should be pretty cool.

Andrew Doud 18:11

8 p.m. Should I tell you that I was in bed like nine o'clock last night? That's long okay, that's when I go to bed too.

Dave Rattiner 18:16

All right. So those are my three picks, and then in terms of restaurants, I would say again, Hampton Base. We had lunch at Cowfish yesterday. It was unbelievable.

Andrew Doud 18:24

Yeah, good location. It was a good function.

Dave Rattiner 18:26

Unbelievable. Yeah. They were pushing the martinis on us. We we we said no. But uh uh it was really good. And then what we always like to ask the guests uh is you know what your favorite restaurants are, what your you know favorite spots are in the Hamptons.

Andrew Doud 18:40

I don't know, do you guys even relax? You're always going, but like if you if you have time to chill out, where do you where are you going?

SPEAKER_02 18:45

So my current favorite um right now for the summertime is La Bubba K in Sag Harbor. Okay. Um that's my one of my favorite spots to be on a Saturday night. So uh if anybody's in the area, 6 30 every Saturday night, uh that's where you'll find me.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

Stop saying hi, buy a house. Yeah, I'll be there as well. But I would say, you know, we had this conversation the last time we were on the podcast. You had X.

Dave Rattiner 19:08

But did you say Bilbo K last time?

SPEAKER_04 19:09

I said uh I had at that time I had said Bobby Vans, but I think I would retract my statement. Not that Bobby Vans isn't great. Yeah. But uh I went there for the first time in a while the other day, uh Candy Kitchen. Candy Kitchen? That is a first you know, it's it's down, it's down, it's dirty, it's great food, you're in, you're out. They treat you like family when you're in there.

Dave Rattiner 19:30

You know, that was my that was my first job. I was 13 and I was a bus boy at Candy Kitchen. I'm glad I was uh able to bring a little of the mascot. Gus still owns it. I think Gus is still okay.

SPEAKER_04 19:38

When I go there, I get like a little nervous when you see Gus and go. That's the magic of the place. Every time you go in there, you see him, he greets you. And like I said, you feel like you feel like family when you're in there and you get a great meal.

Dave Rattiner 19:47

So if you want a pro tip for the candy kitchen. Okay. I'm with some bring cash. I used to do this. I used to do this all the time. I haven't done this in a long time. You get a vanilla milkshake, and then you ask them to put the coffee grinds in the vanilla milkshake. You're an animal. You're an animal. Are you serious? Yeah, I would do this all the time. I'd be like, I would be like so charged up. So yeah, and it tastes great, and you get like a a charge from the you were probably flying through your shift on the city. I'm 14 doing that. Explains my caffeine addiction today. It has not ended.

Andrew Doud 20:21

That's a good pick. My wife worked there when she was in high school. She was a waitress there, and then we got like, or what after we got married, because we got married at the uh the church across the street. We got to take pictures taken in candy kitchen and everything, so that's a good place. I like that. Um all right, anything else before we wrap it up? I think this was a success, honestly. I like this on location thing. Yeah, it's fun to do it.

SPEAKER_04 20:40

I'm not uh I'm I'm not generally a podcast guy, especially behind the lens, but I think it was pretty successful. So you guys you guys do good every time you come on. I felt good about it. I think the only other thing that I'd like to touch on briefly, and I think Vince would probably want to embellish on it a little bit, is uh we've just broken ground on 136 Trelawney and Bridgehampton. Oh, nice, okay. In addition to 84 Wainscot Hollow and Wainscott. So those are gonna be two major properties that we're gonna be offering to the market for spring of 26. So you guys just keep going. We don't stop, man. That's awesome.

Dave Rattiner 21:08

What kind of an operation? I mean, is a hundred people, a thousand people? I mean, how many, how many, how many how many people you got running around?

SPEAKER_04 21:15

So our direct infrastructure, we're 14 in total. And that consists of two project controllers, which are estimators. They they deal with all the bidding and negotiations for the front end, they put the package together. Uh from there gets released to the field, which is Steve, the director of field operations, in addition to the project manager stationed on that home. So in total, when we're running a project, there's a three-person team at a minimum dedicated to it in addition to upper management. We do all our own expediting in house, we have our own in house expediter. Uh we're a full service organization. You know?

Andrew Doud 21:47

So and so if somebody wanted to I mean, these are these are homes that are currently available for the market, but if somebody came to you and was like, I have a property, I want to build a home, you'll do that for them too. And it's not just spec builds, it's custom everything.

SPEAKER_04 21:56

We'll do it on a level that people don't experience out here with other firms.

Andrew Doud 22:00

It's great. It's great.

SPEAKER_04 22:01

Yeah, three people on one project.

Dave Rattiner 22:03

Yeah. Plus all the you know the builders, all the you know the the contractors.

Andrew Doud 22:07

It doesn't stop. Um well good luck on the next projects. Uh Vince, I know you're working hard. Get these three properties sold. That's it. And then on to the next one.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Yeah, these uh these these new projects that are coming out are super special. Um 84 Wainscot Hollow is on 1.4 acres. You'll never be able to build that type of house again in Wainscott, south of the highway. Um it's on 1.4 acres. It's got a two-sided reserve. Uh Peter Cook is the architect on it, uh, doing an amazing job on it. We have a digital brochure. What I'd like to say about Paramount is they're super organized. I mean, everything is already picked out, uh, they're way ahead of it. It's not uh a knee-jerking reaction, uh, is the best way I would say. They just really they're organized and they're way ahead of it every time you know when it when they do do a project. So the hole has been dug, it's super special, it's elevated. And then um Trelawney is another one that the foundation's in the ground, it sits at the end of the cul-de-sac, it's on 2.6 acres, uh tennis on both of them. Or actually on Wainscott, uh, I think we're either going to do pickle or Padell on that property. Um, but on um on Trelawney, we'll have a tennis court on there, and uh both of them are large builds. These are 10,000, 11,000 square foot houses that have all the bells and whistles on them. Uh any information you'd like to know on it ahead of time, they're not listed right now. Uh you can contact me and I can get you over a digital brochure on the property. Get the inside scoop.

Andrew Doud 23:33

I like it. Um that's perfect, guys. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for opening the house for us. Um and everybody that's watching on Instagram, hopefully many thousands of viewers, I guess, to see what it was. But thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Um we'll call that a podcast. I'm Andrew Dad. That's what's happening in the Hamptons.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Bye bye now.