Rechler Equity Partners

Rechler Equity Partners, owned by the cousins Gregg and Mitchell Rechler, is the developer of the Canoe Place Inn project on the Shinnecock Canal in Hampton Bays: a restored inn and cottages on the west bank and a group of townhouses on the east bank. The Southampton Town Board approved it in January 2015 through a planned development district, or PDD, a special change of zone negotiated for a single project under a law the Town has since repealed. The Rechlers broke ground in June 2018. In March 2022 the Board amended the PDD so that the townhouses can operate as hotel accommodations under one owner and one manager rather than be sold as separate homes.

The Rechlers' role was developer: they assembled the land, negotiated the zoning and carried the litigation and construction. The record opened for this page does not name the architects or contractors.

The project matters for two reasons. It decides what sits on both banks of the canal at Hampton Bays, and its approval history shows how a Hamptons PDD can be reshaped after approval.

Land and the first plan

Gregg Rechler told 27east in 2018 that the cousins began acquiring the property in 2005. Their first plan demolished the Canoe Place Inn for a 70-unit hospitality project. The Hampton Bays community opposed losing the building, and the plan was dropped. The revised plan kept and restored the inn.

The 2015 approval

The Canoe Place Inn, Canal, and Eastern Properties PDD, as approved in 2015 and described at the 2018 groundbreaking, called for:

• West of the canal (5.6 acres): the restored inn as a 25-room inn, a 1,900-square-foot clubhouse and a 300-seat catering hall.
• East of the canal: 37 townhouses, to be sold separately to individual owners.

A May 2015 lawsuit by a group of neighbors calling themselves the Shinnecock Neighbors held up county health and town building permits; most of its claims were dismissed. The PDD was due to expire three years after adoption, and the Board granted a two-year extension in 2018.

The 2022 amendment

On March 8, 2022, the Town Board voted unanimously to let the east-side townhouses operate like hotel accommodations under single management and ownership. The amendment removed stay restrictions on the townhouses, replaced a planned canal-side public path (which needed easements from the Long Island Rail Road and the county that never came) with a public loop and floating dock on the developers' own land, and committed the developers to pay each year the difference between residential and hotel-condominium property taxes into a fund for the taxing districts. The 2022 report describes the west side as 20 inn rooms and eight cottages.

What this means for buyers on and near the canal

The townhouses are not ordinary houses. After the 2022 amendment, whether a townhouse can be bought by an individual, and in what legal form, depends on the amended PDD and any offering documents. Read those before treating a unit as a residence.

A PDD is a site-specific law. Its conditions, including public access, use limits and tax arrangements, bind the property. They can be amended, as this one was. The Town Board resolutions and the PDD text are the controlling record.

Neighboring property. Hotel use, public access and the catering hall change traffic and activity on both banks. Buyers nearby should read the approved site plan and conditions. See Shinnecock Canal and Hampton Bays.

Considering property on the Shinnecock Canal?

Request a property brief that reads the PDD and its amendments, confirms what form of ownership is available, and places the property against comparable Hampton Bays waterfront sales.