For generations, the Belvedere Guest House has enchanted newcomers to Fire Island. Its majestic presence overlooking the Great South Bay is the definitive landmark visible when approaching the community of Cherry Grove by waterborne vessel. Now, after remaining in the same family ownership for 68 years, this fabled institution is being offered for sale.
The three-story guesthouse boasts 33 rooms, including 20 suites with private bathrooms, while the economy rooms share eight bathrooms. This lavish structure is situated on a 0.56-acre lot adjacent to 200 feet of bayfront property. Amenities include a built-in swimming pool, a jacuzzi, manicured gardens, a patio, and decks. The parlor features vaulted ceilings adorned with trompe l’oeil murals and is elegantly furnished with antiques.
The asking price is $10.9 million. Muroff Hospitality Group, a Newton, MA real estate brokerage firm specializing in boutique hotels, inns, and other resort properties, is handling the listing.
Muroff closed the sale of the Ice Palace Nightclub and Grove Hotel in 2022, along with last summer’s mega sale of multiple Fire Island Pines Commercial District interests to entrepreneur Tristan Schukraft, CEO of Tryst Hospitality. Recently, it was announced that Mitch Muroff, Esq. received a CoStar Impact Award for his management of the contract-to-sale process in the Fire Island Pines deal.
“This transaction seems to reflect a perfect matching of seller and buyer in a very niche market where contextual use is a factor in project success,” wrote Rebecca D’Eloia, executive vice president of RXR Realty, and one of the panel judges of the CoStar Awards.
Broadway set designer and master builder John Eberhardt constructed the Belvedere in 1957. Eberhardt and his companion Joe Fiorentino began purchasing land and building summer cottages in Cherry Grove in 1949, when market demand grew as the community established itself as a gay resort in the years following World War II.
The guest house was less ornate in 1957. However, being the stage-set designer that Eberhardt was, he built his masterpiece incrementally, adding soaring spires, cupolas, and arching domes. As avid collectors, John and Joe traveled the world and brought back Roman-style statues, Gothic-style gargoyles, and lead crystal chandeliers to adorn the structure, grounds, and interior.
The Belvedere has operated as a men-only guest house since its founding. However, there have been exceptions.
“My mom was one of the few women ever allowed to sleep at the Belvedere in the 1970s and 80s,” recalled Arts Project of Cherry Grove President Michael Moran in an interview with Fire Island News last summer, reminiscing about his parents’ friendship with two gentlemen.
John and Joe eventually went their separate ways.
In 1980, John Eberhardt met Craig Burns, 36 years his junior. The two became a couple, and Craig, a skilled carpenter, helped grow the Belvedere further still. Craig took the surname of Edberhardt in 1989, when John legally adopted him as his son, 22 years before same-sex marriage would become legal in New York.
However, their relationship deteriorated in the 1990s, and a very public break-up and legal battles for division of assets became fodder for tabloids. Early gay marriage advocates cited the Eberhardt v. Eberhardt case as an argument for why same-sex marriages should be legal in the United States.
“Right now, there is no way a gay couple can protect itself with the range of rights and responsibilities that come along with marriage,” said Even Wolfson, of Lambda Legal Defense Fund, in a 1996 interview with Tampa Bay Times. “That includes… legal protections in the event of death and divorce.”
Aging and alone, John Eberhardt became less able to maintain the Belvedere without help. He briefly put it on the market in 2003, but then he and Craig reconciled—not as lovers but as the father and son they had become. Craig began restoring the Belvedere and dutifully cared for John in his later years.
John Eberhardt passed away in March 2014 at the age of 92. By then, Craig had married Julian Dorcelien. However, Craig was diagnosed with cancer about a year after John’s passing. With Julian by his side, Craig managed the disease for a few brave years before succumbing to it in August 2018. Since then, Julian Dorcelien Eberhardt has upheld the same high standards when operating the Belvedere, but decided it’s time to move on to the next chapter.
Cherry Grove residents are meeting the news of the Belvedere being up for sale with intrigue and concern for what this change could mean for the future of their community.
“I watched as Key West lost all its gay magic, eccentric stores, and cafés,” said longtime Cher- ry Grove resident John Burke to Fire Island News. “At least Provincetown is holding on to artsy, unique, and non-homogenized identity.”
The close-knit Cherry Grove community will watch as developments unfold and hope for the best when the day comes that the Belvedere changes hands.
