A Planned Golf Course & Housing Development in East Quogue

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A Planned Golf Course & Housing Development in East Quogue

By Dan Rattiner

7 minute

01/31/2026
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Golf at Hamptons and North Fork public courses this summer 2025 (Getty Images)

For more than a decade, an Arizona-based developer has been filing plans to build a housing development in the Pine Barrens of East Quogue where the units, about 118 of them, would sit surrounding a golf course.

There is nothing new about this. We’re all familiar with such developments. Mostly you see them in Florida. The houses sit right in back of the roughs near the out-of-bounds markers. Out your windows, you can watch a golfer find his ball and try to hit it back onto a fairway.

There’s a clubhouse, and sometimes some tennis courts, a swimming pool, a gym and/or a spa. Maybe a place for pickleball. A dining room. A hot tub.
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Houses in these developments are behind gates operated by security officers located in little booths, and units here can run upwards from a million dollars and more. They offer their own little private world.

The battle between the town and developer for this particular project is in the protected pine barrens that sits atop our precious aquifer, which is not supposed to be built upon. Golf courses’ heavy nitrogen applications can ruin everything, so this fight has gone back and forth in court, and last year, in a triumphal moment, it all went in favor of the developer.

The lawyers for the club got the decision by insisting the golf course is an accessory use of the homes. Or the homes are an accessory of the golf course. Or something.

And so the work on the project has begun. Currently bulldozers are putting in roads and foundations and buildings. The first unit has come on the market. It can be yours for $23,000,000.

But wait a minute. It turns out that according to a deep search made public just this last week, a part of the land upon which all this is being built is owned not by the developer, but by the town. It was purchased almost 100 years ago and has been a town property ever since, unnoticed and never built upon. It’s almost a quarter mile long and crosses two of the golf fairways, separating them from the rest of the course and turning their 18 contiguous holes of golf to just 16.

What’s even worse is that this golf course has already been completed and so the foursomes are currently going out, creating divots as they hit the ball on both the developer’s and town-owned property. They just can’t wait for final approvals.

Immediately upon learning of its ownership — it came up in an AI title search — the town filed papers with the court demanding that no further construction be allowed to continue on their property and if there already has been construction on this land it should be immediately removed. This happened on Jan. 20. The court has yet to rule. But after all, you can’t build a private golf course on public property. This is truly going to be a fly in the ointment.

And this same situation occurred elsewhere in Southampton, just last year. At that time, the Southampton History Museum ordered the eviction of a tenant on property they believed they owned for the past 90 years up in North Sea where the first English settlers landed in 1640. The tenant was a shellfish hatchery that was a very messy operation consisting of boats, commercial fishermen, and shellfish. And they were selling the shellfish. Not a permitted use, particularly on the sacred ground where the settlers landed.

The eviction proceeded. But then it stopped. The dreaded AI title search of the property — now that everything is digitized so everybody can see all the real estate ownership going back 200 years — showed that the land where the shellfish hatchery was was not owned by the museum. It was owned by the town. It would have to be the museum that had to get off. Not the shellfish hatchery.

Needless to say, the officials in Southampton Town are all agog to discover that they own a part of the golf course. And some other parts of the development.

So what are they going to do about it?

One plan being batted around is to make it a wildlife sanctuary. A flock of chickens, a passel of snakes, giraffes, a crocodile or two, some deer and some zebras. Let the golfers try to hit the ball over the wildlife sanctuary. Or perhaps just take a 2-stroke penalty with a dropped ball on the other side.

Also being discussed is a plan to abandon the golf course and build a housing development on the property for the locals who can’t afford the mansions but need to work anyway. They’ll be car parkers at big events, waiters, food preparers, farmworkers, lifeguards, store clerks, and construction workers. There’s been attempts made to locate such housing. But the various towns and villages haven’t been as forthcoming as they might about this. Although they do move forward when it comes to building housing for the community’s lower middle class that would otherwise have to move away.

And Plan C? Build an Atlas missile base on the town-owned property. Some 60 years ago, there actually was an Atlas missile base in the pine barrens in case the Russians tried to invade America. Think Greenland. Same idea.

Or make it into a rifle range for use by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. They have to get better at shooting protesters. Remember, you can’t bring in the troops unless they shoot at least 10.

Another idea for the town-owned land in this development is to create a place where pickup trucks bringing in locals could hold barbecues while sitting in recliners and aluminum chairs. They could cheer on the golfers. Perhaps they could spend time in a warming hut there as the golfers come and go.

Finally, there could be designated one day a year when the locals could take over the golf course entirely. Let them in on how wonderful things are. What could go wrong?

We await developments.
flatbed Cartoon by Dan Rattiner Cartoon by Dan Rattiner