MAsTers of The MAsTer PLAnned CoMMunITy

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July/August 2008 $6.95
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The people, projects and policies shaping Long Island real estate
Michael Dubb
The
Beechwood
Organization
Masters of the Master Planned Community
Pointe Man
Michael Dubb
Leads Long Island
to a New World of
Lifestyle Communities
By Ronald E. Roel
I
n the early nineties, many Long Island builders were still
reeling from the housing slump brought on by the collapse of the defense and aerospace industries.
Not Michael Dubb.
He was forging ahead with an innovative and forward
thinking development for the region—a community
called Country Pointe at Melville, a 193-unit subdivision
that combined townhouses with single-family homes.
“People questioned it,” recalled Dubb, principal of the
Jericho-based Beechwood Organization. “They gave me
the argument, ‘Why would you want to do that? All these
subdivisions around the Island that have been built with
just one type of home—and they’ve all sold. Why would
you want to risk a marriage of two different types of communities?’”
But Dubb remained steadfast in his belief “that it was
time to try to merge different needs and lifestyles of people into one community.” Single-family homes would
attract young families
starting out, especially
‘What we’re really
because they would be living in the highly regarded
all about—and it’s
Half Hollow Hills school
what real estate has
district. Meanwhile, the
evolved to—is mastertown homes would appeal
planned communities
either to empty nesters or young couples who
on Long Island.’
couldn’t afford a home yet
—Michael Dubb
but wanted to establish
roots in a particular area.
The community also offered various amenities, including a clubhouse, swimming pools, tennis and basketball
courts, and a children’s park.
The intergenerational strategy worked. The community
sold out quickly—prices for the single-family colonials
ranged up to $292,000 while prices for the townhouses
started at $199,900. “We ended up selling several singlefamily homes to young families whose parents bought
town homes,” said Dubb.
Photo by Jay Brenner
Ahead of the Curve
In a broader sense, Country Pointe exemplifies Dubb’s
signature style honed through a steady vision, a passion for
quality, and an instinct for spotting new consumer trends.
“Michael has the ability to take a look at a raw piece of
land and visualize the potential it would have as a complete subdivision,” says John Coffey, a director of Madison
National Bank, who has helped provide financing for
dozens of Beechwood projects since he met Dubb in the
mid-eighties.
“I could tell they did a lot of homework,” said Coffey.
“They were able to pay a reasonable price for land and
knew how to turn a project over quickly, so they could
price it reasonably. They never tried to squeeze the last
dollar out of a project.”
Assuring the success of each project is not Dubb’s
only concern, says Craig Koenigsberg, principal of
CLK Properties, a leading multi-family and commercial
real estate firm based in Great Neck. “He’s attacking one
of the big problems on Long Island—the need for reasonably priced housing that offers people quality homes with
a sense of lifestyle,” says Koenigsberg, who bought a home
in a Beechwood community in 1998.“You need to have
people who focus on the broader point in question, not
on personal gain. That’s Michael. He’d rather build the
infrastructure of Long Island.”
Since its modest beginning in a cramped Williston
Park office, Beechwood has grown into the largest
n Meadowbrook Pointe Athletic Club & Spa in
Westbury, located on the site of the former Roosevelt
Raceway, is a gated community primarily for those 55
and older, offering 720 units (400 have been completed)
ranging from 1,000-square foot, one-bedroom apartments
up to 3,000-foot town homes with 10-foot ceilings on
the first floor. The centerpiece is a 25,000-square foot
clubhouse, the Equestrian Club, which includes a fitness
center, salon and spa, indoor and outdoor aquatic pavilions, a theater, a sports bar, and a social club. (The track’s
old finish line is right across from the sales office.)
n Arverne by the Sea, located on the Rockaway
Peninsula in Queens, is also the largest active urban revitalization project in the United States. The Rockaways
were a summer destination spot for New Yorkers through
Photo by Taylor Photo
Arverne By the Sea master plan for the transit oriented development.
The Breakers’ neighborhood park at Arverne by the Sea.
Photo by Taylor Photo / Architect: Barton Partners
regional developer of residential housing on Long Island.
Nationwide, Beechwood is ranked 124 among the country’s largest builders, according to Builder Magazine, with
$195 million in revenue and 393 closings in 2007. Dubb,
51, has built more than 55 communities—about 6,000
units in the metropolitan area, including single-family
homes, townhouses, condominiums, and apartments.
In addition to crews of construction workers, Dubb
employs 150 people, including attorneys, accountants,
and project managers, as well as merchandising, marketing, and in-house advertising personnel. Beechwood also
has a state-of-the-art design center just off Exit 58 of the
Long Island Expressway.
There are now more than a dozen Country Pointe and
Harbor Pointe communities across the region. “We tend
to use ‘Pointe,’” says Dubb, “because that’s what we want
people to think—‘Get to the point.’”
Dubb is currently building the three largest masterplanned residential communities in Nassau County,
Queens, and the Bronx:
The landmark Country Pointe at Melville project marked
the beginning of Beechwood’s swift evolution on Long Island
from a builder of traditional subdivisions to a developer of
sophisticated “lifestyle” communities. “What we’re really all
about—and it’s what real estate has evolved to—is masterplanned communities on Long Island,” says Dubb.
The Meadowbrook Pointe lifestyle community includes a 25,000-square foot clubhouse with tennis courts and a spa.
the early 1900s, but the area gradually lost its luster to the
East End. After decades of failed public and private redevelopment efforts, New York City designated Beechwood
and The Benjamin Companies as developers of the
125-acre site. The transit-oriented “smart-growth” project
includes 2,300 dwelling units—a mix of two-family homes
and mid-rise condo apartment buildings; a charter school;
a 30,000-square foot community center; an Olympic-size
swimming pool; a boardwalk along the Atlantic Ocean;
and a Stop & Shop supermarket, and main street retail
shops with apartments above them. “We’re getting a lot
of people from Long Island with roots in the Rockaways
moving back,” Dubb said. One of the huge selling points:
a 20-year real estate tax abatement.
n Harbor Pointe at Shorehaven, located along the East
River in the Bronx, is the resurrection of a site that was
abandoned for many years. “It looks like a Long Island
community,” says Dubb, with a gatehouse, a 20,000-foot
clubhouse, and a waterfront esplanade. The 800-unit
community offers a mix of condos and two-family homes,
as well as park grounds, an Olympic-sized swimming pool,
a basketball and a tennis court, and an accredited day care
center. “Each of these projects is a special community that
has special features,” says Dubb. “It’s not just a community, it’s a lifestyle.”
In the Beginning
Dubb’s view of suburban lifestyles began to develop at an
early age, growing up a few miles from Roosevelt Raceway.
“I wasn’t much for school,” Dubb recalled one recent
morning at the Meadowbrook Pointe sales office. His
family was in the retail furniture business, but he was
more interested in landscaping.
“When I was 12 or 13 years old I started
‘He’s attacking one of
cutting lawns after school and I built that
the big problems on
into a pretty good-sized landscaping busiLong Island—the need
ness where I was making $200 to $300 a
week—that was the early seventies,” said
for reasonably priced
Dubb. “When I was 16 I had a truck and
housing … You need
people working for me, but I wasn’t old
to have people who
enough to drive it.” Dubb studied ornafocus on the broader
mental horticulture, but that lasted about
point in question, not
six months “because I was so busy runon personal gain. That’s
ning my business,” he said.
By the time he reached his early twenMichael. He’d rather
ties, Dubb was handling the landscaping
build the infrastructure
for a number of high-end condo commuof Long Island.’
nities on the North Shore. He did so well
—Craig Koenigsberg,
at one subdivision in North Hills that he
principal, CLK
was asked to be involved in managing the
complex. “I started getting a pretty good
Properties
education in construction-related prob-
The Tides proposed condominiums at Arverne by the Sea.
Diversify and Flourish
lems and how to solve them,” he said.
Around the same time, Dubb had gotten a landscape
contract for Reliance Federal Bank, which then referred
his landscaping business to some builders the bank was
financing. Dubb struck up a close relationship with one
Reliance executive and began to tell him privately what
the builders were doing wrong, like tasks done out of
sequence or job sites that were a mess. Eventually, the
executive challenged him: “If you can ever find a piece of
land, we would consider financing you.”
Dubb had recently met Les Lerner, another 20-something,
who was building a few houses and doing renovations in
Queens. He asked Lerner whether he would be interested
in doing something together. In the early 1980s they found
a piece of land in East Meadow with 17 lots. “We built
the job and sold it in six months,” Dubb said. Reliance,
the bank which co-ventured the deal, “made a nice profit,
too” he said. A couple of years later, with Reliance financing, Beechwood built Spruce Pond in North Hills—69
town homes in the $600,000 to $700,000 price range,
with a total sales value of $50 million.
The Long Island real estate market was sizzling, even
hotter than the boom of the early 2000s. But Dubb and
Lerner did something prescient—they diversified, building
affordable housing at the same time they were doing luxury housing. So when the market turned down toward the
end of the eighties, Beechwood was building in Brooklyn
neighborhoods like Bushwick and Williamsburg, where
there was still a great demand for affordable housing.
“We survived the real estate downturn of the late eighties
and early nineties quite well,” Dubb said. “We never overpaid for land, never got carried away with the market.” It was
a lesson he would remember during the most recent boom—
and today’s retreat in the housing market. “I stopped buying
land around 2003 when it got too expensive,” he notes, “so
we weren’t stuck with our backs to the wall where we had to
sell units for a lot less money just to get out.”
By most accounts, Dubb has long had his fingers on the
pulse of the market. But he also has flourished because
of his skill in assessing people, says Richard Rosenberg,
Beechwood’s general counsel. “He’s got a unique ability to
see value, whether it’s in people or land,” says Rosenberg.
Photo by Taylor Photo / Architect: Barton Partners
Beechwood Organization’s Michael Dubb with children of Anna House.
Beechwood Master Planned communities’ signature: 24/7 manned gatehouses.
Photos By Taylor Photo / Architect: Axelrod and Cherveny
Master Plan architect and rendering: Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut and Kuhn
Master Plan architect and rendering: Ehrenkrantz, Eckstut and Kuhn
Riverfront living in the Bronx: Harbor Pointe at Shorehaven.
Meadowbrook Pointe town homes feature private courtyard entries and two-car garages.
“He’s built the company internally. He sees people with
promise, gives them an opportunity, and lets them grow.”
Such credos tend to sustain long relationships, says
Rosenberg, who himself has worked for Dubb for 25 years,
starting as a junior partner at a real estate law firm hired
by Beechwood.
“I know Michael going back to grammar school,”
says Dave Lebowitz, president of Mr. Jay Appliances in
Williston Park. “I’ve been doing his projects since the
1980s.” Founded in 1961, Mr. Jay’s has supplied cooking
equipment and other appliances, from SubZero to Maytag
to Beechwood projects. “His building quality is excellent,” Lebowitz says of Dubb. “He looks to me to make
sure what he offers is reliable.”
As a native Long Islander, Dubb feels “tremendously
loyal to the people and the land,” says Rosenberg.
Meadowbrook Pointe is a prominent example.
When Dubb first drove by the demolished Roosevelt
Raceway, “it was just rubble,” says Rosenberg. “But he
could see Meadowbrook Pointe, where others could see
only big box stores. He saw a ‘re-use property’ as opposed
to suburban sprawl.”
Indeed, it was the location of Meadowbrook Pointe—
right in the center of Nassau
County—that played a big part in
‘Michael has the
Dubb’s decision to build an active
ability to take
adult “lifestyle” community there.
a look at a raw
piece of land
and visualize the
potential it would
have as a complete
subdivision.’
—John Coffey,
director, Madison
National Bank
Building for Lifestyle
“There wasn’t an opportunity in
the middle of Nassau County for
both a home and a lifestyle, so people left and either went to Florida
or out East, perhaps an hour from
their children, their grandchildren,
or their jobs,” says Dubb. “So by
building this community we have
people who constantly are moving
back [from eastern Suffolk] to be
closer to their families.”
Proximity to family is just part of the 55-plus lifestyle
equation. It’s also proximity to stores, restaurants, services, and neighbors. “I will tell you that Meadowbrook
Pointe has changed people’s lives,” says Dubb. “There
are people here who were living isolated in single-family
homes, where most of the people they knew had moved
out of the neighborhood. Now they have friends, they
look after each other. They socialize like crazy.”
They’re also using their cars much less—not a bad lifestyle
shift with gas prices soaring over $4 a gallon. “When they
want to go to a restaurant, there are 100 restaurants within a
mile of Meadowbrook Pointe,” Dubb notes. “You have shopping here at Roosevelt Field, or, if you want more upscale,
there’s Miracle Mile or downtown Garden City is 10 minutes away. We’re not New York City, but we have brought
people closer to where their sphere of living takes place.”
While Meadowbrook Pointe started out as a 55-plus
community, Dubb noticed that it was also attracting the
attention of younger empty nesters. Beechwood discovered that under federal Fair Housing regulations, these
communities may exclude young children while allowing up to 20 percent of the community to be between 48
and 55, and they obtained the consent of the Town of
Hempstead “to allow us to sell up to 20 percent to people
48 and over,” he said. “That opened things up and made
the community younger and more vibrant.”
Paying attention to such details, as well as broad market trends, is another Dubb trademark, notes Lebowitz.
“He’s very dedicated to the details in every job,” says
Lebowitz. “He never wants the customer to be unhappy.”
Beechwood communities have received numerous awards
from the Long Island Builders Institute that attest to this,
including Best Single-Family Home and Best SingleFamily Attached Home.
At Meadowbrook Pointe, the details include Dubb’s homage
to the history of the site. The clubhouse displays artifacts from
Roosevelt Raceway throughout the facility, and the images of
horses pervade the community, from its Meadowbrook logo to
THE BEECHWOOD PORTFOLIO
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222nd Street & Bruner Avenue, Bronx, N.Y.
Arverne by the Sea, Rockaway, N.Y.
Beechwood Arms Apartment Building, Bronx, N.Y.
Beechwood Arms II Apartment Building, Bronx, N.Y.
Beechwood Arms III Apartment Building, Bronx, N.Y.
Beechwood at Baychester, Bronx, N.Y.
Beechwood at Baychester II, Bronx, N.Y.
Beechwood at Bronx River, Bronx, N.Y.
Beechwood at Bruner, Bronx, N.Y.
Beechwood at Bushwick, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Beechwood at Castle Hill, Bronx, N.Y.
Beechwood at East Meadow, East Meadow, N.Y.
Beechwood at New Hyde Park, New Hyde Park, N.Y.
Beechwood at North Hills, North Hills, N.Y.
Beechwood at Pelham Bay, Bronx, N.Y.
Beechwood at Pelham Bay II, Bronx, N.Y.
Beechwood Regional Sales and Design Center, Islandia, N.Y.
Broadhollow Heights, Brookville, N.Y.
Broadway Triangle Homes, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Bushwick East I & II, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Bushwick Gardens, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Bushwick Green, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Canterbury Plaza Condo, Great Neck, N.Y.
Country Club Estates at Oceanside, Oceanside, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Alley Pond, Queens Village, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Coram, Coram, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Dix Hills, Dix Hills, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Kings Park, Kings Park, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Lake Grove, Lake Grove, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Manorville, Manorville, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Medford, Medford, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Melville, Melville, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Mill Pond, Medford, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Miller Place, Miller Place, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Smithtown, Smithtown, N.Y.
Country Pointe at Smithtown North, Smithtown, N.Y.
Country Pointe Manors at Lake Grove, Lake Grove, N.Y.
Harbour Pointe at City Island, City Island, N.Y.
Harbour Pointe at Shorehaven, Bronx, N.Y.
Hillside Ave., Williston Park, N.Y.
Hurricane Andrew Project, Miami, Fla.
Larkfield Road, East Northport, N.Y.
Meadowbrook Pointe Athletic Club & Spa, Westbury, N.Y.
Middle Country Road, Lake Grove, N.Y.
Moorings at City Island, City Island, N.Y.
Needham Avenue and 224th Street, Bronx, N.Y.
Quail Knoll at Upper Brookville, Upper Brookville, N.Y.
Red Spring Ranch, Avon, Colo.
Riverview Tower, Bronx, N.Y.
Rockhill Woods, Manorville, N.Y.
Scholes Street Partnership, Brooklyn, N.Y.
South Wind Village, Bay Shore, N.Y.
Spruce Pond at North Hills, North Hills, N.Y.
The El Rosario Partnership Homes, Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Landings, Mastic, N.Y.
The Overlook at Vail, Vail, Colo.
Vanderbilt Wallabout Condominiums, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Vista Pointe at Sprain Brook, Yonkers, N.Y.
Willis Ave., Williston Park, N.Y.
hitching posts adorning the entrance.
The equestrian theme at Meadowbrook Pointe also
offers a window into another of Dubb’s passions, thoroughbred horse racing. Dubb, who has been involved with
thoroughbreds for about 10 years, now owns more than
60 horses and numerous brood mares, including Oprah
Winney, a gray filly he discovered racing at Saratoga in
2005. “She didn’t win, but she had a gleam in her eye
… We saw something in her,” Dubb says in a video clip
that appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show last fall. Dubb
explained in the video that “We wanted to name her after
a woman, someone who represented strength, who represented good, and tried a lot.”
Dubb is a firm believer in giving back to the community, and his interest in the racing world led to one of his
distinctive charitable endeavors, the Belmont Child Care
Association.
Anna House, a child care center for the track’s workers located on the grounds of Belmont Park Racetrack,
opened it doors in 2003. Around the center, Anna House
is known as “the house that Michael built.” This reflects
the pivotal role played by Dubb in its development.
Dubb became aware of the need through his close friendship with hall of famer Jerry Bailey, the renowned former
jockey and now a racing analyst for ABC/ESPN TV. Dubb
met with the New York Racing Association, which agreed
to lease a piece of land within the track for a day care center at a nominal cost: one dollar a year. Dubb then built
and donated the $1-million, 7,500-square foot day care
center, the only on-site child care center at a racetrack in
the United States that is open 365 days a year.
Ready for a Challenging Market
As for Dubb’s main arena—real estate—he’s not planning to retire anytime soon, despite what he calls today’s
“challenging market.” He acknowledges that the market
is only “75 percent of what it was a year or two ago, but
it’s still 75 percent, not zero.” Long Island is not Miami or
Las Vegas, he says, where developers overbuilt by tens of
thousands of units.
Still, the future opportunities on Long Island remain
mostly in the redevelopment of current sites, rather than
breaking ground on open land, says Dubb. “I’ve been doing
that for years and years, before going green came into
vogue,” he says. “If you can find areas that have outlived
their usefulness, like light industrial and commercial places,
that’s where you have to look for your opportunities.”
Besides building Meadowbrook Pointe on a former
racetrack, he’s developed housing on the sites of an outof-use school, a drive-in movie theater, old country clubs,
and parking lots. Among his planned projects in Suffolk
County is Mill Pond in Medford, 288 semi-attached
homes on what used to be a 27-hole golf course.
Dubb remains firm about the long-term stability of
housing. “Unless young people stop getting married, couples stop getting pregnant, and empty nesters stop getting
older, there is always going to be a cycle for people who
need to move,” he says. “They want a lifestyle and they’re
making their moves.” v