Hampton Style magazine’s current issue ventures west to the North Shore of Long Island with a feature on actress Cornelia Guest at her Old Westbury ancestral estate, Templeton. The home is full of remnants of a privileged and glamorous past, from equestrian trophies to priceless paintings by Salvador Dali and John Singer Sargent.
Guest, once dubbed the Debutante of the Decade by family friend Andy Warhol, is the daughter of Phipps heir Winston Guest and his wife, society doyenne C.Z. Guest. She recalls a string of notables who have visited there: "I remember the Duke and Duchess of Windsor coming all the time…for the weekend. Truman Capote was always here, Dr. Christiaan Barnard…Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. Prince Edward. The Kennedys. Halston. Oscar de la Renta had a permanent room here…Nureyev would come to stay; he'd be practicing ballet up in his room, and you'd hear him, through the ceiling, jumping up and down on the floor. Just a huge mix of people," Guest tells Hampton Style.
As REAL LI reported last month, Templeton is now for sale, listed at $20 million with Wendy Grant of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty. Guest tells the magazine, “I had a wonderful life here. The worst part about leaving this house is the dog cemetery; every dog I've ever owned is buried up there. That's sad for me, but I want the house to be open, the rooms to be used. People need to move on."