For generations, a northern stretch of East Marion’s shoreline at Cove Beach has inspired visions of what might be built there. Just as often, those plans have fallen away. The 100-plus acres now known as Cove Beach Estates have come to be known as much for what hasn’t been built there as what has.

Now the property has changed hands again, in a $23.45 million sale that The Real Deal reported last week was made to buyer Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan. The purchase, split across multiple LLCs, follows other nearby acquisitions of other contiguous properties. But the site’s history — decades of stalled and abandoned development projects — has turned instead into an unlikely preservation story.

Nicholas Planamento and Joan Bischoff van Heemskerck were the associate brokers at William Raveis who represented the seller, Raoul Witteveen.

‘Buzz’

“This transaction is definitely created an interesting buzz,” Planamento said. “I think the most important aspect, at least of this transaction, which goes right down to the core of the matter, is its conservation and efforts about preservation.”

Land preservation and conservation were at the heart of the seller’s vision for the property, according to Heemskreck.

“Witteveen was a great conservator. He basically sold because the whole project was done. He did his thing. He conserved all the land, the unique nature there that you can barely find anywhere else on the Northeast coast, and the people that bought it are going to take over that stewardship.”

Those successes and continued efforts towards preservation might never have happened had the property not fallen into foreclosure in the early 1990s.

At the time, the famed photographer Annie Leibovitz was looking to buy property on the South Fork She went to Douglas Elliman broker Enzo Morabito, who was then working as a land developer. He said people would often come to him to help them find “special land.” It became his specialty.

“We looked on the South Fork and what she was looking for didn’t exist,” Morabito said in an interview last week.

‘Gaboom!’

He hired a plane so they could scour the North Fork together and see if they could find what she was looking for.

“We flew over and with a map we looked for wide open, on the water land,” Morabito said, “and that stood out, like, ‘Gaboom! What the hell is that?” Upon closer examination, the place was, in Morabito’s words, “a magical spot.”

Leibovitz was eager to move ahead with a purchase, but Morabito ended up cautioning against it.

“At the time, the developers were facing foreclosure,” he said, “and when I found that out, I said ‘This is going to take forever.'”

Leibovitz heeded his advice, and the property remained untouched, much as it had been for well over six decades to that point.

Saint Thomas Summer Home

Nearly a full century before Leibovitz’s visit there, the land cost less than $5,000. Ruth Ann Bramson, a former East Marion native and local historian, told the Northforker in 2014 that the New York City-based Saint Thomas Episcopal Church bought the land from the Schelinger family for $4,485.50 in 1893 in order to launch the Saint Thomas Summer Home. Nearly 200 kids attended in two-week sessions. Bramson said the number doubled the following year.

But by 1925, the church couldn’t afford the necessary repairs to adhere to town code. Camp operations ended and Saint Thomas sold the property. After the main building was leveled by fire in 1938, the property was sold again.

For 15 years, it was the site for a gravel business before H. Chester Swezey, the president of New London Freight Lines Inc., bought it. The company planned to turn the property into a ferry terminal so it could cut the travel time across the Long Island Sound to Old Saybrook by nearly half an hour, according to a 1953 New York Times report.

The proposed East Marion terminal was supposed to begin year-round operations by 1954, but it never came to fruition. Swezey wouldn’t be the only one to see his plans for the property go unfulfilled.

In 1985, Billy Joel and Christy Brinkley purchased 70 acres there, including the waterfront parcels. Their lawyer said they were considering several options for the property, but the couple never filed plans with Southold Town, and sold it in 1986, according to a 2021 report from The Real Deal.

‘Mini estate’ plan

Around the same time, Andrew and Bernice Lettierri began pitching what they called a “mini estate” in another section of Cove Beach Estates to the Southold Town Board. But they ran into obstacles at every turn. After more than a decade of failed attempts, the Lettieris abandoned the project in 1999.

By then, Witteveen, a member of the Ocean Council of Oceana, a group advocating for ocean protection and restoration, and Morabito had already placed 69 acres of Witteveen’s property under the stewardship of the Peconic Land Trust. That included a parcel fronting both the Sound and Dam Pond. Witteveen would pare back the planned development for the property to 10 homes from 36. He sold four between 2004 and 2007 for a total of $6 million.

The expansive conservation plans Witteveen pursued for Cove Beach Estates began with a $2.3 million purchase of 96 acres in 1994. Morabito said they found it to be a very spiritual place, where they could barbecue and fish — likening the scene to the Salvador Dali painting ‘Tuna Fishing.’

“There’s blackfish all over back there,” Morabito said. “There’s rocks on the bottom there on the Sound, so you could just dive down 10, 15 feet … and you could spear them.”

At the same time, Witteveen continued buying property, with the intent, Morabito said, to continue the partnership with Peconic Land Trust.

“We were the model that Southold Town adopted after we were done, [which] was to leave 65% open space.”

While Witteveen pursued his conservation project, developer Joe Gazza was working to develop the neighboring property to the east, which abuts Dam Pond.

“The only way [Gazza] could get to it, because there were wetlands … you would’ve had to build a bridge for him to go across [the pond] to that property, or you could utilize the property we had,” Morabito said.

That included the roadway, now called Cove Beach Road, which leads from Route 25 into the property. Had that road been public, Morabito said, Gazza could have accessed the property he was looking to develop without having to build a bridge across the pond.

Witteveen didn’t want the development to happen.

“We made it a private road so the guy couldn’t use it,” Morabito said, “and that actually squashed that plan. And then Gazza ended up selling it to the town as a preserve.”