News

Klenawicus purchase set to close on Friday

PETER BOODY PHOTO | Aerial view of the runway at Klenawicus International airport.

Sealing a preservation deal that has been in the works for nearly five years, the family of the late Frank Klenawicus is expected to gather in Hauppauge on Friday, April 29 to close on their sale of the 34 acres known as “Klenawicus International Airport” to Suffolk County and the Town of Shelter Island as open space. Under the terms of the sale, a recreational pilot’s group will continue to operate a grass strip there.

The purchase price is about $7,735,699, well below a county appraisal of $8.6 million, with the county paying $3,587,199 and the town paying $4,148,500.

In a radio interview on WLNG on Monday, April 26, Supervisor Jim Dougherty announced the closing and praised the family members — Joe, Dave and Sue Klenawicus and their aunt Francis Johnson — for their “patience and generosity” in seeing through the long process of negotiating the fine points of the sale and dealing with its inevitable red tape and complications.

Mr. Dougherty, who headed the town’s Open Space Committee in 2006 when an initial agreement was reached to preserve the airport parcel, said this week the property was on top of “a sweet spot” in the Island’s fragile sole-source aquifer. Its preservation, he said, would help protect groundwater from the effects of development, including overuse, a lower recharge rate caused by impervious surface obstacles, and pollution from fertilizers and other chemicals.

The Klenawicus family recently obtained Planning Board approval to subdivide their 40-acre property into eight lots, two of which constitute the 34-acre open space area to be preserved. The town will buy the easternmost of those two parcels. It contains the airstrip and hangars, which will be maintained by the local pilot’s group under the terms of a contract with the town. Family members will retain the six other lots, which are along Burns and Cartwright roads and Ginny Drive.

Frank Klenawicus, who died in February 2005 at 77, was a mechanic, aircraft builder and pilot who grew up in the small white house near the north end of the grass strip on Burns Road. His brother Joe started the strip flying in and out of the family’s potato field. For many years, Mr. Klenawicus hosted an annual summer fly-in that drew pilots of light aircraft from all over the region.