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Listen to this articleA fixture on Freeport’s Nautical Mile since the 1950s, the Grover family has put its Woodcleft Avenue property portfolio on the market.
Family patriarch Al Grover, who served as a U.S. Army paratrooper in Sapporo, Japan at the close of World War II, founded his boat business a few years after his return from overseas. In 1950, he bought a vacant building at 195 Woodcleft Ave., where he began selling small watercraft, soon becoming one of the area’s largest boat dealers.
Grover acquired the dealership of major marine brands Chris Craft, Mako and Evinrude motors, and in 1969, he moved the business headquarters to a property at 500 South Main St., where Al Grover’s Marine continues to thrive today, headed by his son Dante.
Truly a family enterprise, all five Grover kids, Al Jr., Dante, Sean, Joanna and Andrea, have had a hand in keeping it afloat.
“We all grew up in the boat business,” said Andrea Grover, who today serves as executive director of East Hampton’s Guild Hall. “Every one of us had a job at one time or another at the marina, from fishing tournaments, to painting boat bottoms, to refinishing decks, and running parts sales.”
Meanwhile, Al Grover continued to add to the family’s real estate holdings on Woodcleft Avenue over a span of 30 to 40 years, eventually acquiring six properties on the Nautical Mile.
“There was no plan,” he told LIBN. “If anything became available, we needed space for our inventory of boats, so when we had a chance to buy something to get more room, we did it.”
But now, Grover said, it’s time to sell the portfolio. “I’m 96 and I’ve been doing this for 70 years and I’m really ready to retire,” he said.
The Grover family’s six-building portfolio on Woodcleft Avenue totals more than 20,500 square feet on about 1.5 acres, with 430 feet of waterfront. Marketed by the RIPCO investment sales team of Stephen Preuss, Kevin Schmitz and Andrew LeoGrande, the properties owned by the family’s affiliate Gro-Grove Realty Group are leased to a variety of Nautical Mile businesses.
Tenants at the properties include the Halfway Down Restaurant & Bar at 153 Woodcleft; the Jerk on the Water restaurant and Sea Horse Gift Shop at 165 Woodcleft; the Off The Hook restaurant and Sparkle on Stage Cultural Arts Center at 195 Woodcleft; and the BrewSa Brewery at 180 Woodcleft. The portfolio also includes 65 boat slips at 7 Woodcleft; parking and storage at 160 Woodcleft; and three apartments.
“The Nautical Mile Collection is an extremely rare legacy asset owned long-term by one multi-generational family,” Preuss said in a written statement. “Coupled with the unique size, scale and premier waterfront location, this a one-of-a-kind assemblage opportunity is surely to be of high interest to many investors, users and developers alike.”
The offering closes the property management chapter of the Grover family’s story, though Al Grover’s legacy lives on through his ongoing Freeport boat business.
“It was nice to have tenants and the rent, it all helped, but this makes the most sense,” he said about selling the real estate portfolio. “It was a great ride.”
