An Orient estate belonging to a grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt sold recently for $3,575,000, setting a new record in Orient.
Joseph Willard Roosevelt, a noted composer and pianist who died in 2008, and his wife, Carol Adele Russell Roosevelt, purchased the 5.7-acre parcel at 340 Poquatuck Lane on the North Fork to build a 2,900-square-foot house, designed by local architect Elizabeth Thompson. After their deaths, their eldest son, Dirck Roosevelt of Cambridge, Massachusetts, settled their estate.
“I was honored to be chosen by the Roosevelt family to represent their family estate,” says Lori Feilen of Town & Country Real Estate, who sold the property. “I immediately went to work and found an absolutely ideal buyer who appreciates the home’s unique energy and the sense of place their family lovingly created.”
Of the new owners, she says, ‘They intend to carry on preserving the shared identities of this special family’s estate’s unique past. The Roosevelt family is delighted with the purchasers who appreciate so many things about their parents’ home, its extensive grounds, its character, and its distinguished provenance. It’s such a remarkably beautiful place.”
Over the past few years, Orient, the small village furthest east on the North Fork, has experienced a big jump in sale prices and activity. According to a statement from Town & Country, “This sale of the Roosevelt Family home sets a new threshold and confirms the price growth of Orient’s non-waterfront homes within the Village.”
The property was initially listed in October 2022 for $3,850,000 and quickly went into contract.
The estate begins with a sycamore-treed private lane that leads to a postmodern home that exudes old-world charm. It features three to four bedrooms, three bathrooms, two fireplaces, a screened-in porch, a music room and a den.
“The south-facing property overlooks acres of open meadows that create a private and vast natural landscape that includes a pond, fruit trees, perennials, herb and vegetable gardens and several outbuildings,” according to the listing description.
While it’s not clear what exactly brought J. Willard Roosevelt and his wife to the North Fork, his grandfather certainly had a unique connection to the East End.
Then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Teddy Roosevelt volunteered to go to war in Cuba to drive out the Spanish rulers in 1898 with a group that would become known as the Rough Riders. After the war was won, the Army was sent to Montauk, where they quarantined out of fear of spreading yellow fever and malaria that many soldiers had come down with in Cuba.
A native New Yorker, Roosevelt called Oyster Bay at Sagamore Hill his home from 1885 until his death in 1919.
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