Investors Move Next Door, Unsettling a Black Beachside Enclave

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/investors-move-next-door-unsettling-a-black-beachside-enclave/ar-BBw4f2W?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

William Pickens III has spent most of his 80 summers in Sag Harbor Hills, a beach community of modest bungalows on the edge of the Hamptons. His grade-school principal built the house across the street; his family doctor lived two doors down. Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis were his house guests. Those were the people who came to Sag Harbor Hills.

About a year and a half ago he noticed a change.

There were new buyers, and they were different. They did not mix much, and they identified themselves by names like 81 Harvest Holdings L.L.C. or 45 Hillside Holdings L.L.C.

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“I don’t know Mr. and Mrs. L.L.C.,” Mr. Pickens said. “But I know the family on either side of them, because I grew up with them. But who the hell is L.L.C.?”

“It’s worrisome,” he added. “May not be illegal, but it’s worrisome.”

Sag Harbor Hills and its neighboring subdivisions in the Long Island village of Sag Harbor, Ninevah and Azurest, are uncommon among American beach communities. After World War II, when Sag Harbor was home to a robust African-American working class, developers offered parcels in an undeveloped swath of town for $1,000 or less. Black families bought in, creating three adjoining communities linked by dirt roads. Two nearby subdivisions, Eastville and Chatfield’s Hill, also attracted black home buyers. As in other black enclaves of segregated communities, laborers lived next to professionals and high rollers. For many it was a world of their own, a decompression zone — home in a way that even their city residences might not be, because it had been built by people like them.

The racial makeup kept home prices down. White buyers tended to choose other parts of Sag Harbor.