Seven miles off Cape Cod, Brahmin culture runs deep in Martha’s Vineyard, a wealthy enclave where those of means don’t flaunt it and flashy real estate deals are rare.
But in recent years, local investor David Malm has quietly amassed nearly $100 million in luxury real estate on the island and neighboring Nantucket Island, where his purchases range from small beachfront cottages to water to large homes with stunning views.
Most recently, in a deal struck Jan. 20, Malm paid $15 million for a historic home in the inner harbor of Edgartown, he confirmed. He said he brought in longtime collaborator architect Patrick Ahearn to redesign the house, which he plans to renovate and add to a growing portfolio of luxury rentals.
“I don’t invest in the stock market,” said Malm, a healthcare private equity investor. Instead, he bet heavily on luxury real estate, turning what he described as a fun “creative outlet” into a fast-growing business as real estate values soared.
Over the past five years, Mr. Malm has scooped up a dozen properties on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, the vast majority of which he has purchased in the past two years. Since 2021, he has spent more than $80 million buying nine properties, records show. On Martha’s Vineyard, local real estate agents said there were few, if any, investors as active as him.
“He moves quickly,” said Gerret Conover of LandVest, who has represented Mr. Malm in several transactions, including the most recent purchase, which Mr. Conover negotiated with colleague Thomas LeClair. “We have others who are totally invested in the vineyard,” but “since the last two acquisitions, David is probably the largest residential owner in town,” he said.
A resident of the Boston suburb of Dover, Mr. Malm, 58, went to Brown University and joined Bain Capital in 1987, he said. He is currently the managing partner of Webster Equity Partners, which invests in the healthcare sector.
He said his main strategy for investing there is “same” as his strategy in real estate: betting on areas with a supply-demand imbalance, high growth and barriers to entry high. In real estate parlance, that means extremely special properties in prime markets with tight inventory—the very definition of luxury housing stock on Massachusetts’s Two Islands. “It worked well,” he said. “Over the past year, the stock market has been crushed” while real estate values have held up, he said.
Mr. Malm’s first real estate purchase in the 1980s was a one-bedroom apartment on Pinckney Street in Boston’s Beacon Hill, where he used credit cards to make the $200,000 down payment on the purchase. He sold it a few years later for $400,000. “I never should have sold it,” he said, speculating it would be worth $1 million today.
His first foray into Martha’s Vineyard came around 2000, when he paid around $4 million for a roughly 7-acre property at Herring Creek Farm, an enclave with only a handful of homes, records show. His portfolio has since swelled to 10 properties on the island, including two neighboring homes on the Edgartown harbor that he bought for $9 million in 2021.
That year he also paid $10 million for a six-bedroom house in Edgartown which Mr Ahearn has since restored. In Nantucket, which like Martha’s Vineyard is a prime vacation market with limited inventory, Mr Malm owns a small cottage on the island’s historic Old North Wharf, which he bought for 6.5 million dollars last year. In November, he paid $19.9 million for a Nantucket home with a water view.
On Martha’s Vineyard, Mr. Malm’s latest purchase, the historic $15 million home, sits on South Water Street, two blocks from Edgartown’s main street. The seller was Ruth Grace Jervis, who lives in Los Angeles and paid $2.7 million for the property in 1997, records show. The property was quietly listed for $21 million in 2021 and was more recently asking for $19.5 million, Mr. Conover said.
In Nantucket, Mr Malm bought a small waterfront cabin for $6.5 million in 2022.
Attic powers
Located on Old North Wharf, the cottage is 1,350 square feet with two bedrooms.
Attic powers
On Martha’s Vineyard, the current sales record, $32.5 million, was set in 2019 by the sale of an estate that once belonged to late Washington Post editor Katharine Graham. In 2020, former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ estate – once offered for $65 million – was sold for $27 million to two nonprofits who planned to turn it into conservation land, according to the archives and public statements of the groups.
Like other luxury markets, Martha’s Vineyard real estate has taken off during the pandemic. “The real estate market has been hello here,” said Nevette Previd, executive director of Vineyard Preservation Trust, which owns and maintains historic properties on the island. “Certainly, there are people who have come to the market who have the knowledge, the means and the connections to grab properties in this rolling time.” In that regard, she said, Mr. Malm’s investment is not unusual, although the timing and number of properties stand out.
Mr Malm said he started buying seriously at the start of the pandemic, when interest rates were low and there was widespread uncertainty in the market. “The time to buy is when things are really low,” he said.
In recent months, the speed of sales has slowed across the island. In December 2022, the number of sales in Edgartown fell 92.3% from December 2021, according to the Warren Group, a real estate research firm. In Dukes County, which includes Martha’s Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands, the number of sales in December fell 55.2% year-over-year. The median selling price, however, was up 28.7% year-over-year. And demand for luxury rentals has remained strong.
Mr Malm estimated he had spent more than $25million renovating his island properties, excluding his home at Herring Creek Farm. He said the income he earned from renting out the properties, some of which reached five figures a week, covered financing and maintenance costs. “They pay for themselves,” he said.
Mr. Malm paid $9million in 2021 for nearby homes on Edgartown Harbor.
Interior decoration tracker
The pair of houses in Edgartown Harbor rent for $25,000 and $27,500 per week.
Landvest
The six-bedroom Edgartown home he bought for $10 million is available for $45,000 a week this summer, according to the listing. The pair of homes on Edgartown Harbor are available for $25,000 and $27,500 per week. The Nantucket home that cost $19.9 million is available for $75,000 a week, Malm said. He said that several weeks are already taken. When his houses are not rented, he gifts them to friends or stays there himself, although his family’s home base is owned by Herring Creek Farm.
Mr Ahearn, a Boston-based architect nationally known for designing classic New England-style homes on Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod, said he had worked on at least half a dozen properties for Mr. Malm.
In 2019, Mr. Malm bought a car barn at Boathouse & Field Club, a community in Edgartown, from Mr. Ahearn for $3.75 million, records show. Mr Ahearn said he designed the barn for himself with no intention of selling until he and Mr Malm reached an off-market deal. Mr. Malm has since commissioned a new house, connected to the barn, as well as a swimming pool and cabana on the 0.75 acre site.
In 2019, Mr Malm bought a car barn from architect Patrick Ahearn. He added a house and a cabin to the property.
Greg Premru
Mr. Ahearn also recently designed Mr. Malm’s personal home at Edgartown’s Herring Creek Farm, the first property he purchased on the island. He tore down the existing house and rebuilt it, complete with a swimming pool and a cabana overlooking the water.
“He’s very proud of this certain aesthetic that I conceive and embrace,” Mr. Ahearn said.
Recently completed, the project was the subject of a dispute in 2021 with neighbors over the size of the house, which the neighbors said violated the building restrictions of the Herring Creek Farm Landowners Association.
LOA rules cap the interior living area of homes built in the community at 7,500 square feet. Mr. Malm’s home, according to Edgartown tax assessor records, was built with approximately 10,500 square feet of interior living space, as defined by the LOA. He applied for a building permit for the house in 2018 which listed the living area as 7,497 square feet, with a total building size of 11,603 square feet.
Mr Malm said the LOA’s architectural review board unanimously approved his plans for the house. He did not respond to a request for comment on the number of square feet of indoor living space shown on the plans approved by the committee. Mr. Malm was president of the LOA at the time his building plans were approved by the review board, according to documents filed by the association.
Land records show the dispute with his neighbors was settled in early 2022. That dust aside, Mr Malm’s property footprint hasn’t ruffled feathers, locals say.
Another of Mr. Malm’s properties, a five-bedroom house in the Boathouse & Field Club community of Edgartown, is available for rent, asking $30,000 a month.
Emily da Rosa
The 0.67 acre South Water Street home is in the heart of historic Edgartown, said Mr. Conover, the agent. In the 1640s, the property was the habitation site of Thomas Mayhew, an early settler of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, according to a plaque on the property. The house was razed at some point and a new house was built in the early 1900s, Mr Conover said. Spanning approximately 4,400 square feet, the home features a six-bedroom main house and a separate shed with a one-bedroom apartment. It has a private dock and the main house has a wraparound porch facing the water.
Mr. Ahearn’s plans include removing some 1970s additions and expanding the house. Ideally, the architect said he wanted to extend the original roof line and preserve the public view of the harbour.
“The goal is to create something that existed 100 years ago,” said Mr Malm, who said he could use the property personally instead of adding it to the rental portfolio. “This is one of those iconic Edgartown properties that you really want to be a good steward of.”