Case Study · Water Mill, NY
70,000-Square-Foot Estate Sod Installation in Water Mill, NY
One of the largest residential sod projects we have taken on in the Hamptons — 70,000 square feet of farm-fresh tall fescue delivered in stages and installed across a multi-acre Water Mill estate with a private vineyard. The best part is not the day it was finished. It is how the lawn looks four years later.
Location
Water Mill, NY (Town of Southampton)
Project size
70,000 sq ft of sod
Grass type
Farm-fresh tall fescue
Property
Multi-acre estate with a private vineyard
Scope
Staged farm-direct deliveries + full installation
Holding up
Still thick and green four years later
The Property
Water Mill sits between Southampton Village and Bridgehampton on the South Fork, and the properties north and south of Montauk Highway run big — long drives, hedged lot lines, and lawns measured in acres rather than squares. This one added something we do not see every day: a private vineyard planted in rows behind the main house, with the lawn expected to run clean from the motor court, around the house, and out to the vine rows.
The owner is restaurateur Willie Degel — of Uncle Jack's Steakhouse and Restaurant Stakeout — who has been generous enough to let us share the project and the footage on this page.
The Challenge
Fresh-cut sod is perishable. At 70,000 square feet, this project was far more than any single truckload, so the sod could not simply show up at once and sit on pallets losing quality in the sun. The deliveries had to be staged — each load cut fresh at the farm and timed against the pace of the crews laying it, so every roll went down within its freshness window.
The scale itself is the other half of the challenge. Our crews can lay up to 30,000 square feet of sod per day, and a project this size still takes coordination — grading checks ahead of each section, clean seams across wide-open sight lines where any mistake would show, and tight cuts around the motor court, plantings, and vineyard rows.
Why Tall Fescue for This Estate
Tall fescue was the right call for a lawn this size on the South Fork. Its deep root system handles Water Mill's fast-draining, sandy outwash soils better than shallower-rooted varieties, it holds its color through summer heat with less water, and it stands up to real use. On a property where irrigating every corner of 70,000 square feet is a genuine cost, that drought resilience matters — and four years of growth since the install has proven the choice.
The Installation
The workflow was the same one we run on every install, scaled up: confirm the finish grade, stage each fresh-cut delivery where the crew works next, lay with staggered seams pressed tight, cut clean edges along the drive, beds, and vine rows, then roll everything to lock the roots into the soil. Section by section, the estate went from bare ground to finished lawn — with each day's sod cut fresh for that day's work.
The Result — Four Years Later
Anyone can photograph a lawn on installation day. The footage below came in four years after we installed this one — sent to us unprompted by the owner and shared with permission. The tall fescue is still thick, even, and deep green from the motor court out to the vineyard.
The estate lawn years on — still thick and green.
Open watch page →A walk across the established tall fescue lawn.
Open watch page →Four years on — the tall fescue still thick and green.
Open watch page →
What This Project Proves
- Estate-scale is not a special order for us — staged farm-direct deliveries matched to installation pace are how we run large projects across the Hamptons.
- Freshness is the quality lever. Sod that goes from farm to soil inside its freshness window roots faster and establishes stronger — the four-year footage is what that looks like over time.
- Variety selection matters as much as installation. Tall fescue matched to sandy South Fork soil is a large part of why this lawn still performs with reasonable water.
Planning a Large Sod Project on the South Fork?
From a 1,000 square foot pool surround to a 70,000 square foot estate, the process starts the same way — tell us about the property and we will tell you honestly how we would get it done.