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SHELTER ISLAND, NY — George Soros and his family have been on a property buying spree, scooping up homes and prime parcels of land in an idyllic Hamptons enclave, angering local residents who worry the billionaire land grab is already upending the tight-knit community, The Post has learned.
The family now control nearly 120 acres of property on Shelter Island, which is only accessible by ferry, making the Soroses — billionaire Hungarian-American investor George, 95, his sons Alex, 40, and Gregory, 38 — the largest private landowner in the community.
The 18 properties they have bought were purchased through myriad shell companies, according to public records reviewed by The Post.
“We never really figured out what their purpose in buying so much land could be,” said a former resident who sold their property to the family a few years ago. “But because you can only get here by ferry, we thought they might be building a bunker, away from everyone.”
Six years ago, when Gregory scooped up a 22-acre property on Daniel Lord Road, the quiet street suddenly saw a steady flow of construction workers and water tankers arriving a few times a week to fill his pool, rumored to be the largest on the 6.5-mile island, the former resident said.
Cameras have been installed on the street, and local plumbers, carpenters and housekeepers were required to sign nondisclosure agreements in order to work at the property, according to the former resident, who asked not to be identified.
The family bought up all the properties on the road, and petitioned the Shelter Island Town Board to install a security fence on the road to keep locals out. The town blocked those plans because there is a town-owned landing at the end of the road, but residents told The Post they believe it is just a matter of time before the Soros family will get its way.
“We can’t keep up with the lawyers that these millionaires have and they seem to build whatever they want,” said Steve Lenox, a longtime local resident who voiced his concerns at a Shelter Island Town Board meeting on June 29. “That’s what’s ruining the island.”
In addition to the Soros family, real estate developer Stefan Sovoliev recently purchased some of the key businesses on the island, including the historic Chequit Hotel and the Shelter Island Heights Pharmacy, then angering locals by promptly shutting down its prescription service — the only one on the island.
“I’ve seen Montauk turn on a dime, I’ve seen Sag Harbor turn on a dime,” longtime resident Mike Gaynor told this week’s Shelter Island Town Board meeting, referring to Hamptons enclaves that have become unaffordable for locals once the ultra-rich moved in and begin buying up properties. “And in a short period of time, no one is going to afford to live here anymore.”
Shelter Island is approximately 8,000 acres in total. However, a quarter of the land on the island comprises a 2,064-acre Nature Conservancy. With 120 acres, the Soroses control only two percent of the available land, but it is integral real estate. The next largest private landowner Westmoreland Farm, which owns 65.4 acres, public records show.
Suffolk County and the Town of Shelter Island control 551 acres while the Gardiner’s Bay Country Club — a private facility — controls more than 164 acres. The Sylvester Manor Educational Farm, a nonprofit housed in a former slave plantation, controls 238 acres.
The Soros land grab came to light in the last year after the family purchased a 63.6-acre horse farm on Smith Street and erected a deer fence around the property without the proper authorization from the island’s zoning board.
Matthew Christopher Pietras, an assistant to Gregory, represented him at a Zoning Board of Appeals meeting in September, 2024, seeking to build an eight-foot tall fence around the property, according to public records.
Gregory, a conceptual artist, hoped to turn the property into an organic farm with an apple orchard with space for cattle, according to public documents. Months later, in May 2025 Pietras died in a suicide after he was confronted with millions that he had stolen from his clients, including the Soros family.
“Both Pietras and a lawyer whose email was connected with the Soros’ company were at the meeting,” said Gaynor, who has lived on the island for a decade and is a regular at town board meetings. “That’s how we knew that the Soros family was behind the purchase of the farm and the other properties on the island.”
In addition to prime waterfront real estate, the family also owns smaller parcels and homes next to the Shelter Island landfill. Locals say the family is using the smaller properties to house their staff on the island.
One local said they built “dormitory housing” for staff on Bowditch Road. “Now, all the homes around this ugly staff housing dormitory monstrosity cannot sell,” the local said. “They do whatever they want.”
The family began accumulating property after Susan Weber, Soros’ second wife, who he divorced in 2005, bought her sprawling five-bedroom water-front property in the island’s exclusive Dering Harbor neighborhood in 2013 for nearly $6 million. The home was the site of a lavish wedding rehearsal dinner for Alex Soros’ marriage to former Hilary Clinton aide Huma Abedin last year.
“They crippled the island with their son’s wedding to Huma,” said longtime island resident who lives nearby. “Roads blocked off, helicopters flying the Clintons in. Absurd security and disruption here.”
The actual wedding took place a short distance away in Watermill, another Hamptons enclave where Alex Soros owns a home.
Alex Soros took over their father’s $25 billion Open Society Foundations empire in 2023.
The family has donated tens of millions to radical progressive political candidates, and recently funneled $102 million through their Democracy Political Action Committee, the super PAC Soros launched in 2020, for progressives running in midterm elections.
The Open Society Foundations did not respond to a request for comment this week.
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