Small cottage on Fishers Island goes up for auction

A small waterfront home on a charming island in the Long Island Sound is being auctioned by the United States — as it’s no longer being used by the adjacent Coast Guard station.

Located in Southhold, NY on quaint Fishers Island, this 2,700-square-foot two-story cottage has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. There’s also a shed plus a wooden deck and a floating dock along 132 feet of priceless water frontage on Silver Eel Cove.

As of Tuesday morning, three bidders have pumped the small home’s value to $1.26 million, according to the auction’s website. Although the sale could end on Thursday morning, according to government rules, any bid within 24 hours of the closing time extends the auction for another 24 hours.

“It’s not like eBay where you wait until the last second to put in a bid,” said the US General Services Administration media contact, Paul Hughes.

Owned by the Winthrop family from 1640 to 1863, when the island was purchased by Robert R. Fox, it was sold to the Fergusons in 1889 — who then sold the Coast Guard parcel to the United States. The small home was deemed excess in 2022 and is finally on the auction block.

The island itself is only accessible by boat or a small air strip. The Cape Cod-style home is just steps away from the ferry that travels back and forth from nearby New London, Connecticut.

A playground for wealthy society members since the 1920s, just two other homes are for sale on Fishers Island. Treasure Pond Estate is an eight-bedroom, nine-bath spread built on 9.62 acres for descendants of the island’s former owners, the Ferguson family, that has an asking price of $12 million. North Hill Cottage — with five bedrooms, three baths and a guest cottage on 1.5 acres with a private beach and a dock — is available for $5.57 million.

While just 2 miles from Connecticut, Fishers Island was granted to New York in 1897. The island’s 4,000 acres lie across a slender, 1.5-mile-wide and 7-mile-long swath of land that has several hundred year-round residents. However, it swells to more than 3,000 in the summers with social register families like the Rockefellers, duPonts and Roosevelts.

Visitors on bikes can tour the Henry L. Ferguson Museum or get a drink at the Pequot Inn, but some of the island and its private golf courses are off-limits to non-residents. Its artisanal oyster farm sells its Fisher Island Petites to summer visitors and ships them the rest of the year to New England and Big Apple restaurants.