Stefan Soloviev says he’s a ‘land trader’ as North Fork luxury housing plans advance

One of the largest private landowners on the East End says he’s not here to save the North Fork’s agricultural heritage.

Billionaire Stefan Soloviev — who has snatched up more than 1,000 acres on the North Fork and is pursuing two major subdivision proposals in Southold Town — offered his bluntest public explanation yet of how he views his growing holdings in a wide-ranging New York Magazine profile published Sunday.

“I’m a land trader,” Mr. Soloviev said in the rare interview. “Maybe it’s not what people want to hear, but that’s the truth.”

Mr. Soloviev, who lives in Delray Beach, Fla., after residing in East Hampton for two decades, according to the magazine, also made clear that the East End is not central to his life.

“This is not my focus,” he told the magazine. “It’s not a big part of my life. It really isn’t.”

The son of late Manhattan real estate tycoon Sheldon Solow, who built the iconic 9 West 57th Street tower overlooking Central Park, Mr. Soloviev took over the empire after his father’s death in 2020.

His comments to the magazine offer a revealing look at the 51-year-old real estate baron, whose business empire stretches from Manhattan skyscrapers to western ranchland — and whose private life includes 22 children with several women, according to the magazine.

The profile, headlined “Raider of the North Fork,” also introduced another phrase likely to unsettle preservation-minded readers: “Stefanizing.” Mr. Soloviev used the term to describe luxury upgrades at other properties, according to the magazine.

For North Fork residents worried about the region becoming another Hamptons, the title alone is likely to raise eyebrows. The article portrays Mr. Soloviev less as a steward of open land than as an investor searching for opportunity in one of the East End’s last large blocks of undeveloped farmland.

Mr. Soloviev’s remarks, made during an early June interview over wine at his Peconic Bay Vineyards in Cutchogue, land in the middle of a very real Southold Town planning fight.

Holdings controlled through Soloviev-owned Crossroads Atlantic LLC include two conservation subdivision proposals that would bring luxury housing to roughly 520 acres of North Fork farmland and shoreline.

The larger proposal, the 372-acre Colusa Conservation Subdivision across Cutchogue and Peconic, would create 47 residential lots while preserving 267 acres of farmland, as The Suffolk Times previously reported.

The project is currently under review through the State Environmental Quality Review Act, according to Southold Town planning officials. On May 28, the Planning Board hired Hardesty & Hanover as the town’s SEQRA consultant for the project, and the application is not expected to return to the board until that consultant completes its recommendation. A public hearing is expected after that review is finished, planning department officials told The Suffolk Times Tuesday.

The smaller Cole Harbor Conservation Subdivision, a 148-acre proposal along Oregon Road in Mattituck and Cutchogue, calls for 13 beachfront homes along Long Island Sound while preserving 87 acres of farmland. That application was submitted March 4 and is still being reviewed for completeness, according to planning officials. No action has been taken by the Planning Board.

Together, the projects would carve new luxury home sites into some of the most closely watched open land left on the North Fork. They also sharpen a debate that has followed the region for years: whether preservation tools meant to protect farmland can also help usher in the kind of high-end housing that residents fear will make the North Fork look more like its overdeveloped cousin to the south.

Bob DeLuca of Group for the East End told New York Magazine that so many changes have come so quickly that locals have “development PTSD.”

The Suffolk Times reached out to representatives for the Soloviev Group for comment.

The Soloviev Group signs now familiar along North Fork farm roads did not appear overnight. In 2019, after buying three large farm parcels along Route 25 in Jamesport and another 98-acre farm on Sound Avenue in Baiting Hollow, Mr. Soloviev told The Suffolk Times his North Fork buying spree was over.

“I’m not looking to buy anything else, I can tell you that,” he said at the time. “I’ve hit my limit on the North Fork.”

He added then: “I’m really tired of talking about the North Fork. It’s not my priority.”

But the New York Magazine article suggests the long game is still very much alive.

“Right now this market’s going up,” he told the magazine. “And I don’t see it stopping.”

Asked why he continues investing in the North Fork, Mr. Soloviev pointed to the area’s proximity to his New York City roots.

“How pathetic would it be if in my backyard there’s an opportunity and I don’t take advantage of it?” he told the magazine.

But there was little sentimentality about Shelter Island Heights Pharmacy, where prescription services ended last fall. It had been the only pharmacy counter dispensing prescriptions on the island.

The decision continues to anger many Shelter Island residents. Mr. Soloviev pointed to the growth of delivery services and said his ex-wife, Stacey Soloviev, “gave it a shot for two years, and it didn’t work.”

“I mean, sh-t, the people were getting their prescriptions online anyway at that point,” Mr. Soloviev told the magazine. “So they have themselves to blame.”

The couple divorced in 2014 after 18 years of marriage, according to past Suffolk Times reporting. They had 11 children together, including quadruplets.

Mr. Soloviev said the decision to end prescription service was his.

“People got that wrong,” he told the magazine. “‘The billionaire’s son shuts the pharmacy down.’ That’s a f—ing idiot thing to say. Are you kidding me? I shut it down. That’s me. That’s my decision.”

Mr. Soloviev went on to suggest the future of his vast holdings could stretch well beyond his own timeline, potentially to one of his nearly two dozen children.

“Everything’s long term,” he told New York Magazine. “Maybe it’s worth more in 10 years … Maybe my kids will build.”