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Forget the home theater. Forget the bowling alley. The new flex among Long Island’s wealthiest buyers is a dozen fresh eggs and a glass of wine you grew yourself.
Across the East End, from the vineyards of the North Fork to the wellness compounds of the Hamptons, real estate agents describe a buyer pool that has quietly rewritten what luxury means.
It is no longer about how much house you can fit on the lot. It is about how self sufficient, and how restorative, that lot can make you.
The latest and most striking example just hit the market in Jamesport. Starry Night Farms, a 6.3 acre spread at 1810 Main Rd listed for $3.795 million, comes with two barns and ten horse stalls, a working Merlot vineyard, Flow beehives, 16 raised garden beds, a chicken coop with 20 hens, and a wine barrel sauna with steam and hot rocks.
There is also a heated saltwater pool, a putting green and an outdoor kitchen. The listing describes a property where “luxury is no longer defined simply by what you own, but by how you live.”
It is exactly the kind of estate agents say has become the new gold standard for wealthy East End buyers, and it is not an isolated taste.
Elsewhere on the South Fork, brokers describe an outright arms race in wellness amenities, now treated as essentials rather than novelties.
Even brand new construction in East Hampton is being built around the ritual. A Georgica spec home completed this summer includes a private wellness wing with steam, sauna, a full gym and a garden built around a hot tub and cold plunge, the kind of layout Sotheby’s agent, Keith Green, called a shift driven by a younger generation with a different view of what defines a well lived life.
But Starry Night Farms represents something a step further. It is not biohacking. It is farming, and the family behind it built the whole operation from scratch.
Owners Bo and Heidi Magnussen bought the property five years ago after relocating from Northern California so their daughter, Zoe Bliss Magnussen, could join the New York City Ballet program at 14. Zoe, later featured in Disney+’s “On Pointe,” now designs the gardens, keeps the bees and chickens alongside her father, and works in an on-site pottery studio.
“We were kind of looking for something by the beach in the Hamptons, but we found this place and just fell in love with it,” Magnussen said. “It’s so quiet and peaceful.”
Growing up gardening in Northern California, the family found something familiar in the North Fork’s soil and salt air. “We sort of felt like this was a little bit like Napa on the North Fork,” Magnussen said. “I was surprised you could even grow grapes out here.”
For the Magnussens, the point was never simply accumulating amenities.
“It’s not just like lux amenities, like bowling alleys and pools, but really like healthy way of living, growing your own,” Magnussen said. He described a daily ritual most homeowners never experience, gathering fresh eggs and honey before the day even starts. “It just felt so wholesome and grounding.”
He said the property does something a spa membership can’t.
“It just has all these healthy amenities that make your body feel good and your spirit and soul sing,” Magnussen said, describing the wine barrel sauna and a saltwater pool he keeps open through winter for cold plunges.
The family is selling because their younger daughter was accepted to Cal Poly and they want to be closer to relatives back west. “It’s time for a new chapter,” Magnussen said.
What they built along the way has become something guests don’t want to leave.
“Everything you’d ever want is right here,” Magnussen said. His wife grew up riding horses, and the estate’s caretakers occasionally give the family lessons.
“They’re just incredible animals,” he said, though he’s had to set limits on how far the farm fantasy goes. “The kids want to have goats and sheep and llamas and I’m like, ‘slow down, that’s enough.’”
The vineyard yields roughly 20 cases of Merlot a year, shared with friends and poured at gatherings on the property, including Magnussen’s recent 60th birthday party.
“All of that sort of feeds into that wellness, organic, fun-filled lifestyle,” Magnussen said.
Douglas Elliman listing agent Kristy Naddell, who represents the property, said what the Magnussens built by instinct is now something buyers are actively seeking out.
“There’s been a very distinct trend towards wellness and lifestyle living, where it used to just be, ‘okay, I want a big fancy house on the water with a pool,’” Naddell said. “But now they want more of this wellness style.”
She said the archetype driving demand isn’t who people assume.
“These are young entrepreneurs. These are people in the tech industry, AI industry, finance people who have done very well for themselves,” Naddell said. “They are purchasing these properties as a fully immersed and sustainable way of life.”
None of the Starry Night Farms amenities were part of the original purchase, Naddell said. The Magnussens added every bit of it after closing in 2021.
“What was there was just really the riding stables and the house and the pool,” she said. “Since they purchased it, they added the sauna. They added the gym. They added the vineyard. They added all of the organic gardens and the orchards.
The takeaway for Long Island’s luxury market, agents say, is that the pool and the private beach access are no longer the finish line. The finish line is a property that can feed you, calm you and occasionally hand you a fresh egg before 8 a.m.
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