Real LI

Record producer Ric Wake’s former Cove Neck estate sold for $3.05 million, public records show. The sale of the home on Tennis Court Road closed May 28th. Wake owned the 4.18-acre property until November 2008, when the bank reclaimed it at auction in Nassau County Supreme Court in Mineola. Wake had tried to sell the property himself, listing it at $6.5 million in 2007. The most recent price asked by the bank was $4.99 million.

Wake is known for his work with such musicians as Clay Aiken, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and Long Islanders Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez. Tennis star John McEnroe and his former wife, actress Tatum O’Neal, at one time lived in the carriage house on the compound.

The property was listed with Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate’s Barbara Brundige, who told RealLI in May that the new owners would be using the property as a family compound.

Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Enzo Morabito reports that last weekend’s online auction on Hamptonsauctions.com was such a success that he plans on doing it again the weekend of July 18 and 19.

“It was fabulous,” Morabito told RealLI, adding that there were 36 bids on one property alone. That property, a half-acre tract on Shinnecock Bay in Hampton Bays, started with a minimum bid of $249,000. The property, which is being sold as part of a bankruptcy sale, went for considerably more at auction. “We drove it up to $399,000,” he said.

Morabito said that his auctions appeal to consumers in their 30s to 50s. “Buyers now are so computer-savvy,” he said, adding that interested customers can tour the homes through open houses before the online event. Morabito said he has plans to expand the online auctions to other areas on Long Island and already has auctions planned for properties in Newport, R.I., and Greenwich, Conn.

The upcoming auction features a Wainscott home on East Gate Road with a minimum bid of $650,000. “It is the best-priced property in the Hamptons. The house needs work, but it's the most affordable home in the area,” Morabito said.

This house in Selden is for sale.

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Photo by Ed Betz

Looks like the thunderstorms held off Thursday until the heavy lifting was done on a modular Cape Cod being put together in Huntington Station.

The day before, East Meadow-based builder Ray Accettella had to rush to the site because heavy rain had flooded the property’s house foundation. Four dump trucks of concrete filler mopped up the water.

The first and second floors each came in two parts and so did the roof.

-- Ellen Yan

At 7,800 square feet the home at 5 Three Sisters Rd. in St. James is more than large enough to accommodate a few sisters.

The Victorian Gothic style estate in the historic district of Head of Harbor is double the size of its original frame.

Between 1850 and 1860 Joel Louis Griffing Smith, who was town supervisor at the time, moved a 1680 home to the property, where he added a three story addition -- doubling its size.

In 1924 the south and west wings of the house were added along with a new porch. In 2005, the home received a new roof in 2005.

Today, at 7,800 square feet, it offers a historic feel with everything from a butler’s pantry to a sleeping porch.

On 2.4 acres the property features a man made fishpond, a patio, a deck off the main kitchen, a one-car garage and five porches.

Inside the 22 rooms are custom moldings and details, 10-foot ceilings, French doors, wood floors and some wide-plank flooring.

There are three kitchens: a butler’s pantry, a main kitchen and one in the legal two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment.

The main house has eight bedrooms and 5½ bathrooms. The three-story house has six fireplaces, two of which are marble. The first floor features a banquet size dining room, left, a formal living room and sitting parlor, right.

The home is currently listed by Eric Neitzel of DeBarbiere Associates for $925,000.

-- Danielle DeBouver

(Handout Photos)

This house in Valley Stream is for sale.

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Today, the rain muddied up not just highways but also the foundation for a modular, Cape Cod home that Jarro Building Industries Corp. plans to plop down Thursday.

The soil at the Huntington site, behind the Walt Whitman mall, was full of clay, which doesn’t let water penetrate, so Jarro head Ray Accettella rushed to the scene, abandoning plans for a dry day at the office.

Instead, he had to order up recycled concrete fillers to cover the foundation and soak up water. “I’m on my fourth dump truck,” Accettella said over the phone, shortly before diving for cover as he shouted to his crew, “It’s going to rain.”

“I’m watching the trucks going in and you can see the ground move,” he said by phone.

By late afternoon, the concrete fill was doing its job, and Accettella expected to be at the site 5:30 a.m. Thursday to start work: “If the weather cooperates, we’ll be out of here by 1:30, 2 o’clock. If it rains a lot, we’ll start a little slower.”

The two-story Cape Cod will be installed in six parts, the East Meadow builder said - two “boxes” for the first floor, two for the second and two segments for the roof.

Accettella said workers can work through isolated thunderstorms forecast for tomorrow if no high winds blow on the modular parts strung up on high cranes. It’ll be primarily plop, plop, plop, just like the rain.

-- Ellen Yan

The Obama refinance plan is being expanded to help people who owe up to 25 percent more than what their homes are worth, up from the original 5 percent limit, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced today.

For example, this means someone whose property is worth $400,000 must owe no more than $500,000 to be eligible for the refinance plan. Under the original 5 percent limit on the same house, the mortgage owed had to be $420,000 or less.

The Making Home Affordable refinance plan, unveiled in February, was targeted at homeowners who were current on their mortgages but couldn’t take advantage of lower interest rates because their homes had fallen in value, below what they still owed on their mortgages.

But some homeowners and housing advocates criticized the 5 percent limit for leaving many homeowners out in the cold. Even on Long Island, which has been faring better than most places across the nation, property values have dropped more than 5 percent since the subprime mortgage market collapsed in August 2007. Here, the median closing price for a home was $365,000 in May, down 8.5 percent from $399,000 a year ago, according to the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island, which also covers Queens.

Today’s announcement from HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan was made in Las Vegas, considered “ground zero” in the housing crisis because vast tracts of developments and communities are in foreclosure. Sin City leads the nation in foreclosures, according to HUD, and about 67 percent of homeowners have loans that are higher than their properties’ values.

To be eligible for the Obama refinance plan, the mortgages also have to be owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

-- Ellen Yan

This house in Great Neck is for sale.

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In the next few weeks, a national program that hooks up local governments with banks holding foreclosures will kick in for Nassau and Suffolk.

The two counties have joined the National Community Stabilization Trust, created last year by five major nonprofits, including the National Urban League.

Under the months-old program, banks and municipalities sign up to be hooked up. Participating banks give local officials the “first look” at new foreclosures and a chance to buy, all before putting them on the market. The hitch: everything has to be wrapped up within three weeks or so, the time it usually takes a lender to ready a property for public listing.

Craig Nickerson, a housing advocate who’s now the trust’s president, said the program would give Nassau and Suffolk officials a competitive edge against private bargain hunters. That's crucial now, he said, because more people, from veteran investors to mom-and-pop beginners, are feeling confident about the housing market and have started jumping in.

“These cities, in their consortiums of nonprofit and for-profit partners that they are just finally pulling together here, need to be in the position to control the destiny of their neighborhoods by picking the strategically important properties, getting control of them and fixing up the properties,” Nickerson said.

So far in the program, he said, banks have made deals on about half the bids made by municipalities.

Most major lenders have joined and the financial companies on the list so far represent 65 percent of foreclosures nationwide, Nickerson said.

Lender Wells Fargo, among the top three in Long Island foreclosure cases for the past 18 months, has signed up at the trust and interested in identifying local properties for the program, said senior vice president Tamara Swain.

“We know we’re selling it to a responsible party,” Swain said, “and we definitely believe that getting homes reoccupied as quickly as possible is essential to rebuilding the housing market.”

The trust was created to bridge the gap between “two disparate worlds,” Nickerson said.

Housing advocates complain lenders have been slow to help them rescue foreclosures, and banks say they don’t want to be in the real estate business but are limited by investors on what how cheaply they can sell foreclosures.

But Nickerson said both sides are often unaware of the workings and needs of each other.

__ELLEN YAN

This house in Roosevelt is for sale.

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This house in Jericho is for sale.

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"The Way We Live With the Things We Love," by Stafford Cliff and Gilles De Chabaneix (Rizzoli, $45)

Hundreds of items--boards featuring Chinese scripts, pebbles, glassware, statues and more--are the focus ofcthis book's photos by Gilles de Chabaneix. Author Stafford Cliff describes what we see and introduces each category: flea market, tribal, art house, antiques, religious, rustic and kitchenalia. Collectors of all sorts will enjoy the finds in this book: A Paris apartment displays African masks and images of rice gos from the Philippines; a home in Indonesia uses traditional dug-out canoes as works of sculpture; the home of a Corsican artist features driftwood that has taken on distinctive shapes. The photos are colorful and tasteful; the sheer range of items collected by people around the world is eye-popping.--PAM ROBINSON

This house in Albertson is for sale.

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This house in Mineola is for sale.

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Those auctioneers over at Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate have extended the deadline for putting in a bid on 20 Georgica Close in East Hampton and reduced the minimum bid to $999,999. Read all about the auction -- and the other Hamptons properties on the block -- here.

-- VALERIE KELLOGG

Think things are turning around for Long Island real estate?

They may be on the surface, but read “Roiling on the Rivers of Real Estate,” the latest post by Commack real estate attorney Lita Smith-Mines in her Huffington Post column, and you can hear the “Jaws” theme sound getting louder and louder.

Apparently, the vulnerability of Long Island homeowners is being tapped by speculators who sense blood in the water, says Smith-Mines, who also has a blog, Tales From the Real Estate Wars. (Click here to connect.)

For those who care about communities, here is a quote from her Huffington Post column. It is guaranteed to roil the stomach:

“I am watching speculation, the scourge of stability in quite a few residential neighborhoods, take on a different permutation. “There's anecdotal evidence that attorneys and real estate agents seemingly deliberately screw up transactions so they, or their investor friends, can get the best deals. “Homeowners who make the mistake of seeking guidance from these sharks find themselves up the real estate creek without a paddle to fend off the predators."

-- LIISA MAY

Newsday File Photo / Alan Raia

Frustrated would-be sellers are in star company. On Long Island, Christie Brinkley ($30 million, seen here), Kelsey Grammer ($13.9 million), Rupert Murdoch ($12.8 million), Richard Gere ($7.2 million) and Kathleen Turner ($5.9 million) are among the celebs who have been trying to sell their homes, often after lowering their asking prices. Read all about it here.

-- VALERIE KELLOGG

This house in Great Neck is for sale.

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Tracey Lopez, 36, wants to buy a foreclosure under the federal and state Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which has funneled millions of dollars to Long Island municipalities and nonprofits to buy vacant properties and turn them into affordable homes.

The program has its challenges, as Newsday reports, but for county and housing nonprofit officials, the silver lining to the housing crisis has been the chance to help people like Lopez stay on Long Island.

Since Lopez started her search for a property two years ago, she’s found that even condos are out of her range after factoring monthly maintenance and taxes.

She gave up her apartment to save money and now pays lower rent living in her parents’ home just outside Bellport Village.

If she doesn’t get a foreclosure, she said, she’ll think about leaving for a state where housing is cheaper.

“All along, my whole dream was always to own a place and not live in an apartment like a college student for the rest of my life,” Lopez said. “I always wanted a house with a white picket fence that I could call my own.”

— ELLEN YAN

This house in Freeport is for sale.

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This house in Huntington is for sale.

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Tyndal Point, the 55-acre waterfront estate in North Haven that went on the market in early 2007 for $80 million, has just seen a price reduction to $49.9 million. The property is co-listed by Scott Strough of Strough Associates and Gary DePersia of The Corcoran Group.

Strough tells REAL LI that since the price reduction was announced the property has had significant interest from potential buyers, both in the financial and celebrity worlds. "We've been contacted by high-profile players from all points of interest in the country," he says.

There is a subdivision plan that would divide the land into three estate parcels of two lots each, but Strough says that the interest has been in the property as a whole. The land stretches across 3,000 feet of beachfront, with views of Shelter Island, Sag Harbor and Northwest Harbor. There are also two deepwater docks.

The owner of Tyndal Point is former Baldwin resident and retired lawyer Robert Rust, who inherited the property from his aunt. In 2008, Rust temporarily pulled the property off the market, re-listing it a few months later for $75 million. He said that his aunt had paid about $200,000 for the land more than 50 years ago.

LAURA MANN

This house in Holtsville is for sale.

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One newly constructed home in Jericho may have a price tag of $1.299 million, but the energy bills will only be $10 to $15 a month.

The Energy Star-rated Colonial features geothermal heating, solar panels and spray foam insulation to keep electricity and heating costs down. All water fixtures are low flow. A Solar Sync ET system monitors the temperature, humidity and rainfall on the property and adjusts the amount of water used by an in-ground sprinkler system to ensure not to “waste a drop of water,” says listing agent Joseph Tracz of Century 21 Prevete Plainview.

Costs of repairs and maintenance are also expected to be lower than the average homeowners’. With a lifetime roof, energy efficient double hung windows by Pella and cast iron sinks, few things in the home will need replacing over time, he says.

Greenguard paint and floor finish was used inside to ensure low VOC, or volatile organic compounds, so the air inside and out carries less toxins.

Much of the house is built from new or recycled products on Long Island. The fence was made locally by Amendola Fence Company out of 85 percent recycled materials. All plants used in the landscaping are native to Long Island, and the patio is made from recycled stack stone from Glen Cove.

The house has four bedrooms, each with its own California closet, and 2.5 baths. The basement has eight-foot ceilings, a living room, dining room, a den and an eat-in kitchen. The second-floor laundry room comes with a washing machine estimated to cost $1 per month.

Matt Pantofel of BJC Contracting Co. Inc. is the builder.

There will be an open house from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, when Realtors, architects and speakers will be present and explain the home, its products and energy efficiency. To preregister for the tours and find more information on the home, click here.

— DANIELLE DEBOUVER

Lisa Kerkorian has a buyer for her Bridgehampton barn-style home, which is listed as “in contract” on The Corcoran Group’s Web site. The 10,000-square-foot, six-bedroom home had been on and off the market for a few years. The original price was $16.3 million; it was listed most recently for $7.995 million.

New York Magazine reports that the selling price may be closer to $5 million, about $1 million more than the mortgage owed on the home. Public records show that a lis pendens was filed June 5 on the property.

The interior features 200-year-old beams, 30-foot ceilings in the dining area and an open custom Bulthaup "floating" kitchen and double-sided fireplace. The two-acre estate is next to a horse farm owned by Calvin Klein's ex-wife, Kelly Klein.

Kerkorian is a former tennis pro and ex-wife of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian.

— LAURA MANN

Huntington-based designer Eileen Kathyrn Boyd, who participated in the 2009 Kips Bay Decorator Show House, is having a "Cheap is Chic" tag sale from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 26 to 28 at 17 Woodland Dr. in Huntington Bay. Everything is up for grabs — from the waterfront home to the boat in the driveway to all in between.

The Colonial is on the market for $1.975 million. Boyd's family owns the four-bedroom, 3.5-bath brick house, built in 1930. "She never lived there," says Cara Long, Boyd's spokeswoman. "Her family bought the house because they were going to fix it up but ended up buying another house that was further along. The house is a fixer-upper, but with absolutely beautiful bones."

Inside, you can expect art, antique furniture, custom-designed Eileen Kathryn Boyd pieces, lighting, accessories and more — all at discount prices.

A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club.

— TIERNEY BRICKER

This house in Port Jefferson Station is for sale.

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This house in North Babylon is for sale.

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“Vintage Fabric From the States,” by Saeco Oikawa (PIE Books, $19.95)
Unless you read Japanese, the content of this book may be lost on you because there is virtually in English beyond some brief explanations of the theme. But it is an attractive compilation of fabric designs from earlier years. We see dresses, feedsacks, kitchen towels, and cotton bags; patterns feature animals, country scenes, polka dots, paisley prints, poultry and flowers. It’s a good meant for real fans of old fabric styles who don’t need an explanation of what they’re seeing.

—PAM ROBINSON

This house in Sound Beach is for sale.

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The Hamptons took center stage in Elle Décor’s June issue, which is all about summer chic.

Rita Noroña Schrager, a former New York City Ballet dancer, was inspired by the famed all-white Miami-based Delano Hotel (which her ex-husband Ian Schrager developed) to decorate almost her entire Southampton home. Her stately four-bedroom Colonial mixes a snowy palette with touches of Caribbean and Cuban influences, such as in her study, where real tobacco leaves are lacquered to the wall.

Veronica Swanson Beard, daughter of W. Clarke Swanson Jr., owner of Napa Valley winery Swanson Vineyards, says she and her husband, Jamie, would love to pack up their bayside Southampton home and ship it to Florida for the winter. The house would surely fit in with an interior inspired by Palm Beach, with coral-pink walls, tropical prints and groovy vintage furnishings.

After owning an eight-bedroom Southampton Victorian from the 1890s for more than a decade, Mark Magowan, co-owner and president of Vendome Press, and his wife, Nina, decided it was time to downsize. Four years ago they found a much smaller 1960s ranch nearby being remodeled into a 2,800-square-foot Federal-style house. The couple hired decorator Katie Ridder, known for mixing design elements and adding Middle Eastern touches, for a new look. Mounted on the wall in the dining room is a pair of pagoda-top cabinets, which were made in the 1960s, possibly for Jacqueline Kennedy.

— TIERNEY BRICKER

This house in Manorville is for sale.

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One 6.2-acre parcel in Wainscott is an estate sale. Another, a half-acre property on Shinnecock Bay in Hampton Bays, is a bankruptcy sale. The other — a contemporary on two acres in East Hampton, seen here — is a must sell.

They're all part of a two-day online auction that starts June 27 at hamptonsauctions.com.

There are minimum bids on each property, but the highest bidder doesn't necessarily win. In the case of the vacant land, the courts have to approve any sale. And even in the case of the third, the buyer can decide to take any offer — or leave it.

But Enzo Morabito, the agent from Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate who is running the auction, says he is hopeful the event will create the exposure, momentum and sense of urgency the properties need. "It's a marketing technique," says Morabito, who will be holding open houses.

The opening bid on the Wainscott property is $899,000; it's off Montauk Highway, but "goes back three football fields," Morabito says. On the Hampton Bays property, it's $249,000; there are two lots, one of which will be difficult to build on because of environmental concerns, but the property is on a peninsula with incredible views, he says. And the minimum bid for the house in East Hampton is $1,399,000; the house also is off busy Montauk Highway but it is within the village and has been renovated, he says.

Morabito says he plans to start holding such "must-sell" auctions on a regular basis, and wants to expand to the rest of Long Island. "Basically these will be accelerated sales," he says. "There's a reason people are selling them."

Earlier this year, Morabito partnered with Prudential's Vincent Horcasitas for another online auction. Now Horcasitas also is holding his own: Bidding is now on for eight properties through July 12 at auctionsinthehamptons.com. Properties range from a newly constructed house in Water Mill (opening bid is $2.42 million) to 2.39 acres of vacant land in Southampton (opening bid is $599,000).

VALERIE KELLOGG

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York) has proposed legislation that would allow homeowners who don't itemize on their federal tax forms to deduct all their property taxes. The bill would help about 280,000 Long Islanders. On average, Nassau homeowners would see $1,159 in savings and Suffolk homeowners would see $975 in savings, Schumer says. Read more about the plan here.

— VALERIE KELLOGG

This house in Merrick is for sale.

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That's what Ruth Madoff's attorneys are trying to work out now with prosecutors as her husband, Bernard, readies for his scheduled sentencing June 29. In pleading guilty to fraud, Bernard Madoff said his crimes started in the early 1990s. But the Madoffs purchased their house on Old Montauk Highway in Montauk, worth an estimated $3 million, in 1979. Ruth Madoff also says their small boat in Montauk, called the "Sitting Bull," is hers; it is worth about $320,000. Read more about her fight here.

-- VALERIE KELLOGG

AP photo

This house in Commack is for sale.

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He may be a hotshot cable news host, but FOX News' Bill Hemmer's favorite spot in the Hamptons is his own Sag Harbor home. "The Hamptons can be whatever you want it to be," Hemmer says. "If you want to go to the beach, go to the beach. You want to stroll through town, you can stroll through town. But I love my home."

Public records show that "America’s Newsroom" host purchased the home in 2005 for $1.75 million. The single-family home was built in 1995, and is on 2-1/2 wooded acres.

Hemmer credits the home’s backyard for selling him on the property. "I just stood in the backyard and I thought to myself, Well, this would be a nice place to live. Who wouldn’t want to live here?"

Hemmer says he had never owned a house before. "I’ve learned an awful lot, and it’s taught me an awful lot about home and how to make one," he says. "You buy a house, but you make it a home."

While Hemmer won’t label the house a fixer-upper, he does admit it needed some work. "It’s been a project," he says. "It’s been a labor of love and I’ve mostly enjoyed it. But there is a tremendous sucking sound of money that leaves you when you’re paying for your projects."

Whenever he’s got a free weekend, Hemmer tries to make it out East, even in the winter. "It’s just desolate and you cannot see a single car all weekend," he says. "Some people might think that’s something out of 'The Shining.' But when you’re surrounded by the concrete and the steel of New York, it’s a great getaway."

— TIERNEY BRICKER

This house in Long Beach is for sale.

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This house in Massapequa is for sale.

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This house in Rockville Centre is for sale.

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"The new seasonal benchmark for renting a Hamptons spread is apparently $295,000," reports The New York Observer. "According to data from StreetEasy, eight Hamptons homes are leasing for the summer at that magic number, and they’re the priciest out there rental-wise."

Some $1 million in federal aid is coming to Freeport Village to fix up foreclosed houses for resale. Read the full story here.

- VALERIE KELLOGG

In the first five months of the year, there has been almost $2.9 billion in real estate sales, down from $4.1 billion a year ago, according to the May report from the Multiple Listing Service of Long Island, which also covers Queens.

There have been 7,000 closings this year, compared to 8,310 a year ago, data shows.

May figures are mixed on whether the housing market is in full recovery, as Newsday reports.

- ELLEN YAN

This house in Great Neck is for sale.

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“Architectural Excellence: 500 Iconic Buildings,” By Paul Cattermole (Firefly, $49.95)
Using a timeline that starts with the ancient world, this book catalogs, with words and photos, the rich histo