He’s credited with developing Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood into a popular living and shopping destination — but David Walentas also thoroughly renovated this East End estate, which just returned for sale.
Walentas, the founder of the Brooklyn-based Two Trees development firm, wants to part ways with his 3-acre Southampton spread — this time for $37 million, according to an update on the listings portal Out East. It initially asked $35 million when it first came to market in 2021.
Walentas and his late wife, Jane, purchased this spread at 199 Coopers Neck Lane for $11.6 million in 2019, according to the listing history. Originally designed by the architect Grosvenor Atterbury — who was known for shaping the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art — Walentas reportedly knew it would require an interior overhaul. He intended to take on its renovation as a weekend project.
“It was a great old mansion but it was a total wreck,” he told the Wall Street Journal in 2021 of the 1913-built brick home.
Walentas told the Journal he had his work set out for him. He dropped the home’s floors by more than a foot to make for higher ceilings, redid the mechanicals, enlarged the windows — and even built a four-car garage, a solarium and a pool house.
“A lot of people love old houses, but they don’t love old air conditioning and lighting and kitchens,” he told the paper. “This is a brand new house in an old shell.”
Outside, he redid the gardens and added a greenhouse.
Walentas told the outlet the work cost at least $10 million — and that he would always sell the home off when completed. Jane, who was his longtime business partner and the creator of Dumbo’s river-front carousel, died in 2020 from lung cancer at age 76.
The three-level home has 14,619 square feet of living space, according to the listing, with 11 bedrooms, 12 full bathrooms and two powder rooms. The grounds additionally include a 50-foot heated pool with a spa and two gated driveways. An all-weather tennis court is proposed and pending permit approval.
The listing’s images show a light-filled interior with hardwood floors. Touches inside the home include beamed ceilings, fireplaces, a spacious industry-grade kitchen and a sleek staircase that connects the levels. The solarium, meanwhile, sports a handsome wooden ceiling and walls of glass. The property’s floorplan also shows plenty of patio space for warm-weather entertaining.
The listing images also show a prime perch near the Atlantic Ocean, with the description adding the estate stands a stone’s throw from Cooper’s Beach.
Christopher J. Burnside, of Brown Harris Stevens, has the listing.