BILLIONAIRES’ TRAILER PARK
Very upwardly ‘mobile’ in the posh E. End
ON the surface, it could be your typical trailer park, with its boring rows of modular mobile homes squeezed onto tiny plots of land. But Montauk Shores features something other trailer parks don’t: million-dollar views — and billionaire residents. Owning a trailer at the park has become the ultimate status symbol for the tony Long Island town’s summering rich and famous, many of whom use their relatively modest mobile digs as a second pad to escape with the family or even as a glorified changing room after a long day of romping in Montauk’s waves. There’s also the indescribable cachet that comes with shabby chic. “All you own is the box of air above the land,” noted a former Montauk Shores trailer owner. “Whoever buys here is essentially buying a 24-foot-wide-by-50-foot-long box of air.” But for some deep-pocketed denizens zens, that’s all they want. So people many wealthy have infiltrated the trailer park that it now has its now “Billionaires’ Corner,’’ a local Realtor told The Post. “It has definitely become a thing — it’s epic,” he said.
MONTAUK Shores wasn’t always a refuge for the rich. Originally created as an impromptu campsite with tents in the 1940s and ’50s, the trailer park eventually drew public servants — especially police and firefighters — along with some teachers and fishermen.
In 1976, 152 of its residents banded together and bought the 20-acre property — with its 900 feet of shoreline at the end of Long Island — rescuing it from bankruptcy
The move made Montauk Shores the first trailer-park condo association in the state.
Life was good. Blue-collar workers who wouldn’t normally be able to enjoy an expensive oceanside view got one, local surfers landed access to the gnarliest waves, and retirees searching for peace and quiet were rewarded with unspoiled coastline, with only Dick Cavett’s Tick Hall home and the late Andy Warhol’s estate far off in the distance.
Helping to keep the park’s development under control was an unspoken rule: Anything new had to be wheeled in.
But as improbable as it seems, the trailer park has been increasingly pulling in billionaires by the boatload.
There’s Vitaminwater cofounder Darius Bikoff, hedgefund manager Dan Loeb, film producer Karen Lauder — whose ex-husband is billionaire William Lauder — and wealthy socialite Bettina Stelle and her starchitect hubby, Fred, not to mention their house guests, aireswho owp includehere,” Fred Jimmy Stelle Buffet.said. “The
“I know quite a few billionmost appealing aspect is the park’s quality of life. It’s a classic throwback to a summer community — relaxed and low key in a funky way, like what Southern California must have been like in the 1950s, and it’s safe for kids.”
The park’s cast of characters, also includes a “legendary” retired ConEd lineman who taught Stelle’s son how to spearfish.
Most of the trailers are from 200 square feet to double-wide models of up to 1,400 square feet. Some owners have tacked on second floors, but they can’t build out and widen the footprint of their original lot.
Depending on whether they’re leased or owned, the homes currently go from $200,000 to $1.495 million.
Owners shell out around $150 a month in dues, which pays for grounds upkeep as well as security and maintenance of its pool and clubhouse.
Of course, the billionaires are huddled together in the coveted oceanfront lots, by one of the best surfing beaches on the East Coast, with Ferraris and Porsches parked by their trailers.
Rich residents aren’t settling for basic white siding and tired interiors for their new nests, either. One homeowner replaced his trailer’s plastic siding with mahogany.
The inside is all “Italian marble, a kitchenette, a bathroom, a sitting area and a place to hang his surfboards,” a source said. “It’s completely decked out to
the nines in a way that would make James Bond blush.” The trailer also comes with a tiny plot of irrigated grass with zenlikelike stonesst that were hand-polishedished bby the billionaire’s advance team, tthe source added.
LeavLeaving no stone unturned, his workerworkers make sure the trailer and its plotplo of grass are spotless beforefore ththe billionaire’s arrival, the source said, buffing the stones to removremove sandy footprints.
Some of the wealthy leave their mansiomansions for the trailer park to escape their families. Others bring their children to “reconnect.” And some use their mobile homes to shower in comfort after a day at the beach.
Bikoff has reportedly never slept in his trailer, which doesn’t even contain a bed.
He uses it as a swanky “changing room and storage locker for his surfboards and as a place where he can hang out with his friends,” a source said.
Bikoff did not return calls for comment.
MONTAUK Shores has become a a symbol of the creeping change that is transforming the area, locals say.
The wealthy, alongl withith addingddi trailers to their real-estate collections, are buying up other local properties. They purchase old motels and waterfront restaurants that have been in the same families for generations and either tear them down or renovate them.
For example, Bikoff bought the surfers’ hangout East Deck Motel for $15 million in 2013, only to demolish it last year. The plan was to turn it into a private club for moneyed surfers, which goes against Montauk’s notion of surfing as a communal sport where the waves are shared and free, locals griped.
The town was outraged, and the private-surfers’ club concept was dead on arrival.
The oceanfront land is now being marketed as four plots for billionaires to build their oceanfront dream homes. The spots are up for sale for around $10 million each.
“The days of Montauk as an affordable place for surfers and the like are long gone,” noted East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell.
But other wealthy investors who hung out in Montauk in its sleepy fishing-village days aren’t for all-out change.
Billionaire Marc Rowan, a cofounder of Apollo Global Management, bought Duryea’s Lobster Shack from the family for $6.3 million and has tried to keep it true to its nature.
“Marc used to bike from Southampton to Montauk and stop here for lobster and the sunset,” a friend said, adding that Rowan loved it so much, he bought the place. CChef and restaurateur Eric MiMiller and his son, Adam Miller, rerecently transformed Dave’s GGrill, a seafood shack by the oocean, into Flagship — a stunnning spot for sunsets, gourmet ocean fare and killer craft cocktails. Adam Miller said he sees cchange as a good thing. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” he said.
FINDING a balance between the two groups — longtime residents and the vocal rich — has become something of a tug of war for all involved, with the changes at Montauk Shores lleading the way.
Today, there is an unofficial moratorium on building in the trailer park — at least until septic-system details have been worked out, town officials said.
The sewage flow from all the development has been maxed out, according to East Hampton town’s natural-resources director, Kim Shaw, who spoke at the East Hampton Zoning Board of Appeals meeting in June.
The sewage system simply wasn’t built to accommodate large homes, Cantwell said.
Many of the trailers are also in a flood zone under Federal Emergency Management Agency regulations, and that has an impact on building as well.
But try telling that to the rich looking for their unassuming spot in the sun.
“The location is still priceless,” said Greg Burns, a broker at Compass.
Burns is selling the $1.495 millionn home at Montauk Shoresores — a two-twobedroom,droom, one-onebath,h, 550square-uare-foot trailerler that dateses to 1984 — and al-already,dy, sourcesurces say, there’sre’s a biddingding war.war.