Cape Cod sale breaks home price record. See inside. (2024)

Real Estate

The Osterville property, purchased by a car dealership magnate, comes with seven bedrooms, 14 baths, and its own beach.

By Beth Treffeisen

June 27, 2024

An oceanfront, seven-bedroom home at 835 Sea View Ave. in Osterville sold for a whopping $22,750,000, setting a record for the highest-priced real estate transaction ever recorded for a Cape Cod residential property.

On Wednesday, Ryan Castle, the CEO of the Cape Cod & Islands Association of Realtors, confirmed that this was the largest sale ever recorded on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) in Barnstable County, which makes up Cape Cod.

Castle was not surprised by the record, saying it’s “what the luxury market is doing.”

The sale was recorded with the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds on Tuesday.

Castle said the house was listed for sale at $30 million and had been on the market for a few years.

The new owner is James Langway of Rhode Island, who owns and operates several Toyota dealerships in Vermont and Rhode Island. The property was last sold in 2011 for $4.5 million to Amin Khoury, a prominent entrepreneur in medical products, aerospace manufacturing, and oilfield services.

Beforehand, according to the town’s assessing records, it belonged to William Coffin and his family for many decades.

This year, the town assessed the property at a little over $20 million.

“It’s a beautiful piece of property,” said Paul Grover of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Robert Paul Properties, the broker for the sale. “Sea View Avenue is probably one of the most beautiful streets on the Cape and certainly is in Osterville. It’s really quintessential Cape houses with fences and roses and some large estates overlooking the ocean.”

Access to this home begins with a winding driveway lined with trees and a flower garden.

“As soon as you open the front door, you look right through the center hallway,” which leads to floor-ceiling windows overlooking Nantucket Sound, Grover said.

The house has seven bedrooms and 14 baths and sits on 3.66 acres. On a good day, Grover said, one can see Martha’s Vineyard.

Grover said the former owner built the house in 2011. When they tore down the old house, they salvaged materials such as murals and fireplace tiles and placed them in the new home.

“It was a nod to the old house that was on the property,” Grover said.

It features 15,500 square feet of living space, a four-bedroom main house and a connected three-bedroom guest house. A wrap-around terrace overlooks a large swimming pool.

A golf simulator, wine cellar, massage room, and TV-watching area are on the lower level.The property comes with 280 feet of private beachfront.

Grover was not surprised that this was a record-setting sale. Ever since he laid eyes on the property and saw how “beautiful” it was, he said he knew it was a possibility.

Grover said the high-end market on Cape Cod, $15 million and up, has seen roughly one sale per year in that price range in the past five years.

“It’s been pretty consistent,” said Grover. “I think it will continue that way. We will probably continue to see sales at this price point or higher.”

The demand remains strong, and the supply is low, he said.

Of course, one sale per year may seem low, but the more you move down the price range, the more sales you see, Grover said. In the past five years, he said, 22 houses on the Cape were sold in the $10,000,000-$15,000,000 price range.

Since January 2020, the MLS has listed 15 single-family homes in the state above the $15 million sale point, including six on the Cape, four in Boston, one in Brookline, two on the North Shore and one on Nantucket. However, he said, that’s likely an undercount, with many sales happening under the table.

Grover said the Cape has a robust high-end luxury market, especially in Osterville, Chatham, and Provincetown.

But even if one can’t afford one of these luxury houses, the Cape is still worth visiting, Grover said.

“When it’s beautiful here, it’s beautiful,” said Grover. “When you’re lucky enough to be here, it doesn’t matter.”

See more photos of the home: