PROVINCETOWN — The 12 apartments at 25-27A Bradford St. known as “Napiville” after their former owner, Anton “Napi” Van Dereck Haunstrup, were sold for half their assessed value last month to an LLC registered in Delaware.
Bernard McEneaney, the sole executor of Napi’s substantial estate, sold the property for $1.8 million to Davis Heights LLC on Aug. 8. Because Delaware does not require disclosure of a company’s officers, the Independent has not been able to ascertain who owns or controls Davis Heights LLC.
But at a board of health public hearing on Sept. 19, Boston lawyer Eliot Parkhurst spoke about the new owners’ plans and said they would not seek to have the current tenants vacate their apartments. McEneaney had ordered the tenants last January to move out by April 1.
Parkhurst did not reveal anything about the owners’ identity.
The apartments need extensive repairs, but many of them can be made while the tenants continue to occupy the property, Parkhurst said. If more serious repairs need to be undertaken, the new owners will pay for temporary housing for the tenants, he told the board.
“We have found that they perhaps were not treated well before,” Parkhurst said. “We don’t want them to have to leave the site. It’s their home.”
Anonymous Buyer
Board of health members did not ask Parkhurst who the new owners were at the Sept. 19 hearing. When a reporter asked, Parkhurst responded, “My practice is not to air these things in public. As people can tell, this is a hot-button project, and people don’t like to be associated with hot-button projects.”
Parkhurst added that the purchase of the property was “an arm’s-length transaction by people who are trying to move forward with this project.”
Community Development Director Tim Famulare told the Independent that town staff had met with representatives of the owners, including Provincetown broker, contractor, and guesthouse owner Kevin Bazarian.
Bazarian, who owns the Clarendon House and KA Bazarian Construction, told town staff he “was not the owner but rather was representing the owner” of Davis Heights LLC, Famulare said.
Bazarian’s email address and cell phone number are listed under “owner contact information” on seven long-term rental certificate applications filed by Davis Heights LLC with the town. Bazarian did not respond to several inquiries about them from the Independent.
When the holders of long-term rental certificates are LLCs or trusts, their owners are not required to identify themselves by name, Famulare said. There is such a requirement for short-term rental certificates — approved by town meeting voters in October 2023 — but it does not apply to long-term rental certificates.
A representative of Davis Heights who identified herself to tenants as a property manager inspected eight occupied units in late August, two tenants told the Independent. The tenants also do not know the identity of the new owners of the property, they said.
A Change in Tone
At the hearing, Parkhurst indicated that Davis Heights LLC is working to comply with the health orders that the property has been under since 2020.
A series of health inspections beginning that year found code violations in all but one of the 12 units, including a failed septic system, unsafe decking, hazardous electrical work, inadequate heat, leaking roofs, and a slumping retaining wall.
In 2023, the town cited the property managers for ignoring repeated orders to correct safety problems and levied $19,200 in fines.
McEneaney told the tenants at Napiville in January 2024 that he was selling the property because Napi’s estate could not afford the repairs the town was requiring, including connecting to the town’s sewer system.
On May 16, the board of health voted to take the Van Dereck Trust to housing court and request that a court-appointed receiver take control of the property and make needed repairs.
But McEneaney sold the property in August before the town had officially filed suit in housing court.
On Sept. 19, the board of health voted unanimously to “reconsider” its previous decision to take the property managers to housing court.
“Based on the way that the tenants had been treated,” said vice chair Steve Katsurinis, “and frankly the way that this board had been treated, not to mention the even more terrible way that the staff had been treated by the previous owner, moving forward to housing court was the appropriate decision” in May.
“It seems to me that we have new owners and a representative who is honest and is operating in good faith to try to move this forward,” Katsurinis continued — adding that he hoped the new owners understood that the board’s interest is “to have safe and available housing for the people who live here.”
Famulare told the Independent that the Van Dereck Trust never paid the $19,200 it owed to the town.
“Now that there are new owners of the property, the town cannot collect the fines assessed to the previous owner,” Famulare said.
Long-Term Plans
Attorney Parkhurst first met with town officials on Aug. 26 to discuss outstanding health code issues on the property, Famulare said.
At that meeting and in correspondence since then, the owners’ representatives “have not disclosed their long-term plans for the property,” Famulare said, including “whether they intend to ask residents to vacate the property.”
On Sept. 19, health director Lezli Rowell gave Parkhurst a deadline of Oct. 11 to submit a fire safety assessment and contracts for a geotechnical engineer to assess the retaining wall and to complete some smaller repairs.
By Nov. 15, the property owners should have made plans to connect to the sewer, improve fire separation between units, and deal with structural issues in certain units, Rowell said.
Parkhurst acknowledged the property’s difficult history and said the new owners were eager to bring the units up to code.
“We know this has been an extremely problematic project and a headache for the town,” Parkhurst said. “We are trying to do what we can to make things right, and we are doing it as quickly as we can.”
If tenants need to be temporarily relocated off-site, “we will put them up somewhere,” Parkhurst told the board.
“We feel for them,” he added. “We don’t want them to have to leave.”