An Oceanfront Arts & Crafts Mansion in Westhampton Beach

On three oceanfront acres, this Arts & Crafts house was designed by Brooklyn architect J. Sarsfield Kennedy for Foster Crampton in 1909. Mr. Kennedy is known today for designing the comfort station and Picnic House in Prospect Park, as well as Bay Ridge's Gingerbread House. This house, with its rubble stone porte cochere and fireplaces, is very reminiscent of the Gingerbread House. It was so well-built that it even survived the 1938 hurricane, which mostly destroyed Westhampton, virtually unscathed. According to an October 1938 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Mr. Kennedy visited Westhampton after the storm and found it in "first class condition." He noted, "When I was commissioned to design the home and saw the site I had a notion that some day it might be put to the hardest test against an angry ocean, a wind storm or even a tidal wave and I figured that with the right kind of foundation and a few other precautions the house would stay in place in any kind of weather."

The house was built to be cool in the days before air conditioning, with cross ventilation and plenty of screened porches off bedrooms. It's 6100sf, with eight bedrooms, five baths and two half baths. There's a new gunite pool and spa with a pool house that serves as a billiard room. Asking price is $17.995M, which seems reasonable. The property is in the best part of Westhampton Beach—between the bridges—but there aren't many comps in WHB itself, as the lots tend to be much smaller. The asking price in line with oceanfront prices on similar-size parcels in next-door Quogue.

· Historic Oceanfront Gem [TMR]
· House Tour: Trending Tradition West of the Canal [27E]
· NYC's Insanely Adorable Gingerbread House Returns for $10.5M [CNY]