Chequit to get new owner
The Chequit Inn is about to get a new owner.
Word came from co-owner Linda Eklund who posted a Facebook message: “Come dance the night away as we celebrate the end of another era of the Chequit Inn and welcome the new. We will pass the keys to the next owner in the coming weeks.”
A post on the Chequit Facebook page this past weekend confirmed the Inn would “change hands at the end of the coming week.”
While no further information has been forthcoming from either Linda or James Eklund about the new owner, the couple has been trying to sell Chequit Inn for several years now.
They were close to a sale in 2012 when Cape Advisors of Cape May, New Jersey, was planning to make the purchase.
The New Jersey company had worked hard the previous year to gain approval for a swimming pool and patio at the Chequit, making clear the sale was dependent of gaining that okay. In February 2012, the Zoning Board of Appeals granted the permission to build the pool with caveats affecting noise testing to overcome objections some neighbors had.
At the same time, La Maison Blanche gained a go-ahead for a pool and quickly had one constructed, but no work was started on the Chequit pool.
Then it was learned that Cape Advisors had backed out of its deal, with no reasons made public. What was known was that the New Jersey company was also involved in rebuilding the former Bulova factory in Sag Harbor, converting the space to condominiums.
Neither realtor Massey Knakal of New York City nor Curtis Bashaw, co-founder and managing partner of Cape Advisors would comment on the change of mind and the Eklunds remained typically silent.
Since then, many rumors about potential buyers have swirled around town, but in the past summer, the Eklunds’ daughter, Elizabeth, managed the Chequit while her parents attended primarily to the Ram’s Head.
But it has been known that the Eklunds continued to hope to find a buyer for the Inn.
