{"id":305288,"date":"2021-07-22T00:49:16","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T21:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/inside-louis-bacons-mysterious-500m-private-island-in-the-hamptons\/"},"modified":"2021-07-22T00:49:16","modified_gmt":"2021-07-21T21:49:16","slug":"inside-louis-bacons-mysterious-500m-private-island-in-the-hamptons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/inside-louis-bacons-mysterious-500m-private-island-in-the-hamptons\/","title":{"rendered":"#Inside Louis Bacon’s mysterious $500M private island in the Hamptons"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Inside Louis Bacon’s mysterious $500M private island in the Hamptons<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

You\u2019ve probably never heard of Robins Island, a teardrop-shaped islet half the size of Central Park in the Great Peconic Bay on the East End of Long Island. But it may very well be the most valuable private estate in all of the Hamptons \u2014 and the most untouchable.<\/p>\n

Sandwiched midway between the North and South forks, Robins Island is roughly 435 acres with miles and miles of waterfront.<\/p>\n

For comparison, a 42-acre compound, less than one-tenth the size of Robins Island, with far less waterfront, sold in Southampton this spring for close to $145 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it were just raw land, I\u2019d guess Robins Island would be worth about a $100 million,\u201d Corcoran\u2019s Susan Breitenbach guessed, noting that she has never visited the island. \u201cBut depending on what\u2019s out there in terms of infrastructure, it might be worth from $200 million to $500 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Inset
Robins Island, the private estate of finance billionaire Louis Bacon (inset), could be worth as much as $500 million, local brokers said.<\/span>Moore Capital Management; Gary Gershoff\/WireImage<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The island is roughly 435 acres.<\/figcaption>
Moore Capital Management<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Satellite images reveal two large estate homes on the island, what app<\/a>ears to be a caretaker\u2019s home, a tennis court, a dock and thick woodlands. Boats to the island depart from the North Sea Harbor in Southampton.<\/p>\n

But the very fact that area brokers, who make it their business to know the ins and outs of the Hamptons\u2019 best estates, are foggy on its structures and amenities illustrates just how thick the veil of mystery is surrounding Robins Island.<\/p>\n

\"A
Satellite images reveal that the island, located just north of Southampton, boasts two large estate houses, a tennis court, a private dock and what appears to be a caretaker\u2019s home.<\/figcaption>
Google Maps<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Asked by The Post about the island, both the Sag Harbor harbormaster and a village policeman shrugged.<\/p>\n

North Haven\u2019s John Diat, 59, said that the waters around Robins are famed for their fishing but he\u2019s less certain about what might happen on the island itself. The retired media<\/a> executive added that he\u2019s heard about well-attended bird hunts on the island.
\u201cI heard that Jimmy Buffett was shooting there in November,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A sailor in Montauk \u2014 dressed in a dark tan safari vest and trucker\u2019s cap emblazoned with the word \u201cCASH\u201d \u2014 added that he has heard urban legends about Robins Island.<\/p>\n

\n

I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s any substance to it, but I was told Captain Kidd buried treasure there.<\/p>\n

Anonymous sailor<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if there\u2019s any substance to it, but I was told Captain Kidd buried treasure there,\u201d the sailor, who asked to remain anonymous, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s totally true,\u201d said Cutchogue resident Tonya Witczak, 46. \u201cThe owner just won\u2019t let you over there to search for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That mystery \u201cowner\u201d is 64-year-old billionaire financier Louis Bacon, who purchased Robins Island in bankruptcy court in 1993 for a mere $11 million.<\/p>\n

\"The
The waters around Robins are famed for their fishing.<\/figcaption>
Moore Capital Management<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Born to wealthy family in North Carolina, Bacon made his bones on Wall Street as an investor and hedge fund manager, starting Moore Global Investments in 1990 with $25,000 of family money and turning it in to one of the most lucrative hedge funds ever.
But while most masters of the universe tend to take an interest in Hamptons real estate once they\u2019ve made their fortune, Bacon\u2019s interest in Robins Island started back in his college days, when he worked on a charter fishing boat out of Montauk and regularly sailed past the island.<\/p>\n

At that time the island\u2019s ownership was under dispute \u2014 it had been under dispute since the Revolutionary War, when it was seized from its Loyalist owner, Parker Wickham, by Patriot members of the Culper Spy Ring.<\/p>\n

\"An
An osprey nest is seen on the shore of the island.<\/figcaption>
Moore Capital Management<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nearly 200 years later, in 1979 it was sold for $1.3 million to German investors who tried to unsuccessfully flip it to everyone from Moroccan royalty to Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s, Suffolk County nearly purchased it to help preserve the land \u2014 which was one of the last largely undeveloped areas on the East End \u2014 but politics got in the way of a deal.<\/p>\n

Around the same time in 1989, Wickham\u2019s descendants sued to regain control of the island, which they claimed had been stolen from their family. Those disputes allowed Bacon to swoop in to buy Robins Island on the cheap.<\/p>\n

\"Fledged
\nThanks to Bacon, the majority of Robins Island is now a nature preserve where endangered birds flourish. <\/figcaption>
Moore Capital Management<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But unlike his peers, who have built out-of-scale, Bond villain-esque lairs in the Hamptons, South Florida, Beverly Hills or Aspen, Bacon gave his fortress of solitude to the birds.<\/p>\n

In 1997, Bacon granted a conservation easement for most of the island to the Virginia-based global environmental organization the Nature Conservancy, making Robins Island a protected wilderness area.<\/p>\n

\"Rumor
Rumor has it Captain Kidd buried treasure on Robins Island.<\/figcaption>
Moore Capital Management<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More recently, the property was transferred to a family trust intended to forever prevent further development.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time Bacon has preserved insanely valuable real estate. According to the Moore Charitable Foundation\u2019s website, the conservation philanthropist has \u201cprotected more than 214,000 acres of land in perpetuity across the United States,\u201d including granting conservation easements in his home state of North Carolina (to protect the Cape Fear river watershed), Wyoming and Colorado. His Colorado donation of 167,000 acres on the Trinchera Blanca Ranch to the US Fish and Wildlife Service was the largest it ever received.<\/p>\n

\"Faraway
At Lyford Cay (above) in the Bahamas, Bacon spent years feuding in courts from London to Los Angeles with his neighbor: disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nyg\u00e5rd. <\/figcaption>
Shutterstock \/ Zoe Esteban<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But not all of Bacon\u2019s land deals work out quite so well.<\/p>\n

He is best known perhaps for his mansion at the exclusive gated community of Lyford Cay in the Bahamas, where he had a vicious, long running and very public feud with neighbor and disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nyg\u00e5rd.<\/p>\n

For more than a decade the men battled in courts from London to Los Angeles, exchanging lawsuits over development rights and defamation suits, including accusations of drug trafficking, character assassination and even a soup\u00e7on of murder.<\/p>\n

The latter-day Hatfields and McCoys never did mend their faces, although in the end Bacon\u2019s foundation is famed in the Bahamas for its work conserving the oceanic white-tip shark, while Nyg\u00e5rd\u2019s NYC headquarters were raided last year by the FBI before he was formally charged with sex trafficking.<\/p>\n

\"Peter
No love lost: Bacon\u2019s archnemesis Peter Nyg\u00e5rd (above) has been charged with sex trafficking.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, Robins Island provides a safe haven for threatened local shorebirds, including terns, piping plovers, sandpipers and oystercatchers. Ospreys flourish and at least one pair of bald eagles are known to have mated on the island, while animals (the eastern mud turtle) and plants (seabeach knotweed) otherwise endangered can be seen thriving in the restored environment on Robins Island.<\/p>\n

Full-grown oak trees have been replanted to replace ones previously harvested, grasses not native to the area have been removed and the herds of deer once overrunning the island have been culled.<\/p>\n

While neither the notoriously press-shy Bacon nor his philanthropic Moore Charitable Foundation would comment to The Post, a spokesman did make clear that regular hunting parties and celebrity sightings on Robins Island were no more than idle gossip.<\/p>\n

The official word about Buffett, for instance, is that no one knows anything about the king of the Parrotheads ever dropping by for a friendly visit. Buffett\u2019s representatives did not reply to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

As for the real estate value of Robins Island \u2014 even in a Hamptons market that is \u201cout of control\u201d with \u201calmost nothing available,\u201d according to Breitenbach \u2014 neither Bacon nor his heirs will ever be able to cash in via development.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t worry too much about Bacon: he still has Captain Kidd\u2019s treasure to fall back on.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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