A 1-foot-wide sliver of Hamptons waterfront property was sold for $120,000, after two Manhattan financiers got into a territorial bidding war over the tiny ribbon of beachfront property, according to a report.
The narrow strip of land, which stretches 1,800 feet from the beach to the highway in the Town of East Hampton, was originally on sale for $10 — until the two homeowners got into the fierce war, according to Newsday.
Marc Helie and Kyle N. Cruz were so obsessed with the thin parcel that Suffolk County set up a face-to-face auction in May so the moneymen could settle it once and for all.
“I gathered one guy really did not want the other one walking over his property to the water,” a staffer who witnessed the auction told the paper.
After 34 back-and-forth bids, Helie finally topped Cruz’s $115,000 offer with the winning bid of $120,000, the paper said.
The bitter bidding showdown was revealed yesterday by the Suffolk County Legislature’s finance committee after it voted to approve the puzzling purchase.
The land, which runs alongside both men’s beach homes, appears to give Helie pieces of land on three sides of Cruz’s property, effectively blocking off his access to the beach, the report shows.
County officials speculated that the winning bidder did not want anyone traipsing by their yard on the way to the water.
“You know what water’s worth,” county property manager Wayne R. Thompson told Newsday. “You can say, ‘Oh, yes, I have a right of way to the water.’”
The paper reported that there may be a beach-access easement, however.
A local politician told the paper that a tiny strip of land in that area could actually be very useful.
“That makes a lot 1,800 square feet wider, and lot area matters,” said Suffolk County legislator Jay Schneiderman.
The land was acquired by the county in 2003 for nonpayment of taxes.
It was offered to the six landowners whose property abuts the path, but only Helie and Cruz were pining for the property, the report said.
The hamlet where the property dispute took place is just west of Montauk. The area is described as a small enclave of million-dollar waterfront homes.
Cruz is a managing director of Centerbridge Partners in Manhattan.
Helie once worked as a trader in emerging markets at Merrill Lynch.
Neither man could be reached for comment last night.