Lingo properties in Dewey Beach fetch $3.23 million at auction

More than 50 people admired Rehoboth Bay from Eleanor Lingo’s back yard, waiting for the chance to bid on two properties with enviable views. The Dewey Beach tracts netted $3,225,000 at a Saturday, July 3 auction.

Nestled in Dewey’s Seabreeze community, the houses at 310 and 312 Saulsbury St. were sold by order of the Sussex County Court of Chancery to resolve a dispute between recently deceased Eleanor’s children, Archie and Dinah. Auctioneer Butch Emmert of Emmert Auction Associates greeted the crowd gathered at 310 by praising the peerless view.

“In my estimation, there is no finer waterfront site in southern Delaware than this,” Emmert said. The vista seemed to agree: 198 feet of bulkheaded shore gave a nearly panoramic view of personal watercraft and boats criss-crossing the bay under a cloudless blue sky. The bidding rose steadily from $500,000 to $1.3 million, where it slowed, rising by smaller increments.

“We’re in a tough market, but it’s not that tough,” Emmert joked. In 2006 or 2007, he said, bidding would have soared past $2 million. Peggy Martin, co-owner of Hotel Rehoboth, entered the winning $1.475 million bid, beating out Steve Braesch of Annandale, Va. Braesch said he was bidding for the .75-acre tract more than the house; if he’d won, he said, he probably would have torn it down.

“Our thought was, at that price, you could put a nice home here,” said Braesch, who also owns a house on Silver Lake in Rehoboth Beach. Martin was unavailable for comment.

The house at 312 Saulsbury was a stronger sell – occupied by Eleanor before her death, it is a stately Cape Cod with four bedrooms and three-and-a-half bathrooms.

Emmert guessed the house would be appraised at $2.25 to $2.75. The bidding started at $1 million and quickly turned into a duel between Braesch and local Realtor Skip Faust, who said he was bidding on behalf of an unnamed client. Braesch halted at $1.7 million, and Faust won the property with a winning bid of $1.75 million.

Both houses were sold unfurnished. Another Lingo property on Rehoboth’s Cookman Street – a custom home on two lots with two apartments in the back yard – sold for $775,000 Sunday, July 4.

The property auctions concluded a bitter battle between Dinah and Archie over their mother’s assets. In accordance with the Court of Chancery– which was backed by the Supreme Court in June – Dinah will receive 75 percent of the proceeds and Archie will receive 25 percent.

Dinah bought Lingo’s Market, a century-old shop on the corner of First Street and Baltimore Avenue in Rehoboth, for $4,330,000 at an earlier auction. The auction was attended by hundreds who watched as Jeff Zerby, whose family owns the Boardwalk Plaza Hotel, surged the bidding over $4 million.

Despite a last-second attempt to up the ante, he was bested by a bid from Dinah’s attorney, Robert Gibbs.

Dinah has reopened the store with her niece, Jessica Lingo.