Real LI

Sag Harbor artist Dan Rizzie tells Plum Hamptons that when he moved to the East End 20 years ago the hard edges in his paintings got softer. "I really wasn't looking at architecture or things I was looking at in the city," he says in a video interview. "I was amazed at how gorgeous it was out here. How can you not look at nature? How could you not be affected by the absolute beauty of the foliage and the birds and the fish? "I started spending a lot more time outside ... and i think it worked its way into my work." Rizzie goes on: "I love living here. As a working environment, I've never found anything better."

Public records show that Rizzie bought his three-bedroom, two-bath home in 1996 for $204,000.

Dallas papers recently reported that Rizzie, once a staple on the city's art scene, will be buying a home in the luxury residential Museum Tower, located between the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.

Plum Hamptons photo

How to make housing developments on Long Island and elsewhere more individual is the focus of Dan Graham's piece "Homes for America 1966-67," currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art's show "Color Chart: Reinventing Color 1950 to Today." The suggested layout for an article he wrote for Arts Magazine opens with several Long Island place names: Garden City, Garden City Park, Greenlawn, Island Park, Levittown, New Hyde Park, Plainview and Plandome Manor. "Color is a primary vehicle offered to consumers as a potential for individualism in tract housing," says a card next to the work in the show, is up through May 12. Read more of the article -- and see the artwork itself -- by clicking here.

Lana DeGeorge Santorelli has sold her oceanfront home on Flying Point Beach in Water Mill for $8.9 million. The two-parcel property overlooks Mecox Bay, with a boardwalk to the beach. The home has three levels of decking, eight bedrooms and 5 ½ baths.

Santorelli is an author, poet and owner of The Lana Santorelli Gallery, an art exhibition space in Manhattan. She is married to Lenny Santorelli, founder of Complete Management Solutions, a global equity and fixed-income research distribution firm.

The buyer of the 1.1-acre spread is listed on property records as Flyingpointstar LLC. Sources indicate that the name behind that corporation is real estate developer David Edelstein, president of Tristar Capital, LLC. Among the projects that Edelstein’s company has been involved in are the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, and the W South Beach Hotel and Residencesin Florida.

Jay Flagg of Prudential Douglas Elliman had the exclusive listing. Flagg, who brought both the buyer and the seller to the deal, says that the proerty had multiple bidders.

Other homeowners on Flying Point Road include comedian Mel Brooks and supermodel Christie Brinkley.

The Sagaponack studio, house and gallery of artist Sydney Butchkes is for sale. The asking price is $5.5 million. The 5,000-square-foot space is a former barn built in the 1840s. Located on 3.4 acres, the house features an open floor plan with original exposed beamed ceilings, wide plank flooring, a fireplace, radiant heat and walls of glass.

Butchkes, 85, is a sculptor and painter whose work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art and the Smithsonian. He has done several commissions, including a hanging sculpture for a bar at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston. Over the years, he designed album jackets and book covers.

He has been in the Hamptons since the 1960s, when he bought the property -- for $15,000 -- from the father of Paul Brennan of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Brennan is now the listing agent, with Ronald White and Cynthia Barrett.

Photographer Elliott Erwitt's East Hampton house is one of dozens featured in the new book "America At Home: A Close-Up Look at How We Live," out in April from Running Press. The book came out of a week-long project last September in which "100 of the top photojournalists and millions of Americans documented the concept of home." The photo of Erwitt's house features his two young grandchildren -- Phoebe, 7, and Jesse, 5 -- standing inside whimsically painted school lockers. Since the two were toddlers, they have always climbed inside the lockers as soon as they arrived at their grandfather's home "to see how much they've grown since their last visit." Among its 250 photos is another of a nearby home that's on the market. "On a quiet East Hampton lane, minutes away from the train that brings commuters into Manhattan, a brand-new house glows brightly, waiting for prospective buyers to tour its four bedrooms. While most of America is reeling from the subprime mortgage crisis, a few communities like this one ... maintain their value." One reason? "President Clinton spent his summer vacations there, two First Ladys spent their youths playing on the town's beaches, and famed artist Jackson Pollock created his most famous paintings in East Hampton."

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that author Tom Dolby finished the newly published second novel "The Sixth Form" (Kensington Books, $24) at a house he bought last year in Wainscott. It's a 1931 farmhouse. Read the interview here.

Public records show that Dolby bought the house in February for $3,725 million.

Photo by Randall Slavin. Los Angeles, CA./www.tomdolby.com

As Pulitzer Prize-winning playright Edward Albee spoke to Chicago Tribune at his Montauk pool house, a friend dug a small grave for a cat that just died. Then the 80-year-old Albee told this strange story to the reporter:

"She is now residing in the freezer in the downstairs icebox ... I put her in plastic and forgot to tell the cleaning ladies. One of them went in there, saw a dead cat and, well ..."

Artist Eric Fischl "finally paints in peace," reports Art+Auction in its January issue on the ARTINFO Web site. "No longer distracted by blaring sirens, rumbling trucks and taxi drivers beeping their car horns outside his SoHo loft, Fischl now works in a spacious, airy studio deep in the woods near Sag Harbor, on Long Island." There, writes the magazine, he and wife, artist April Gornik, living and work as "birds chirp in trees and light creates dappled patterns across a well-tended garden." Fischl, who grew up on Long Island, bought the 4.8-acre property in 1997 for $300,000. According to property records, it is now worth an estimated $4.6 million.

Art+Auction / ARTINFO photo

This Mount Sinai house once belonged to Long Island artist William M. Davis, who lived from 1829 to 1920. In fact, the historic home, built in 1873, is very similar to the house depicted in his painting "Long Island Homestead." It's unclear, however, if this is the same house. The three-bedroom, three-bath home, which is on more than an acre of property, is on the market with the Ronkonkoma office of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate for $399,000. While there is antique detailing, the house has updated appliances and a double oven. Davis, who was born in Port Jefferson, was known for his Hudson River School style of realism. But his Civil War-style paintings were popular -- one huing over the desk of President Abraham Lincoln.

The estate of Catalina Meyer -- one of the first women to work on Wall Street -- has sold her oceanfront home on Gin Lane in Southampton for $26.8 million, according to public records. The purchaser of the property was MJR IV Llc. The eight-bedroom, seven-bath traditional shingle home was built in 1890, and has a pool and tennis courts on 2.9 acres.

Meyer, who was known to friends as "Kitty," died 10 years ago this week in a fire at her five-story, neo-classical Upper East Side townhouse caused by faulty wiring in holiday decoration on the building. Meyer had helped five others escape the blaze, but perished along with a houseguest she was trying to save.

Meyer was a socialite and fervent supporter of the arts, and counted many artists among her friends. Her townhouse was decorated with works by Alexander Calder and Roy Lichtenstein as well as friends Larry Rivers and Robert Rauschenberg. She was known for her lavish entertaining at her homes in Manhattan, London, Uruguay and Southampton.

Tom Burke decided on a career switch when he sold his first birdhouse in the Hamptons. Now the Wilmington, Del.- based master craftsman makes all kinds of birdhouses, mostly by commission. His works sell for between $500 and $8,500. Two of them were inspired by homes in the Hamptons, as seen in magazines like Architectural Digest, Burke tells the News Journal in a recent article. "From such spreads, he's done mock-ups of the homes of Candice Bergen and Christie Brinkley," according to the article. "But, after sending off the photos, he's gotten few nibbles."

Photo by The News Journal/William Bretzger

Media types scrambled earlier this week when the British tabloids reported that music legend Sir Paul McCartney was spotted romancing Nancy Shevell in East Hampton.

Locals know that McCartney is no newcomer to the Hamptons. In fact, he’s been vacationing there for years, spending two weeks every August with his late wife, Linda, and their four children at their Amagansett compound.

Last month, Paul’s daughter, designer Stella McCartney told W magazine: “I've been coming (to the Hamptons) my whole life." She recalls beach parties with kegs and nights out at The Stephen Talkhouse on Main Street in Amagansett when “they’d have Muddy Waters and amazing people play.”

She told the magazine that East Hampton is still a retreat for "the American half" of her family. Her maternal grandfather was lawyer and East Hamptonite Lee Eastman. Her uncle is entertainment lawyer John Eastman, who has managed Sir Paul’s career for 40 years. When McCartney married his second wife Heather Mills in 2002, rumors swirled that the ceremony would take place at Eastman’s Lily Pond Lane mansion. Instead the now-divorcing couple married in Ireland.

Eastman’s clients have included two notable Long Islanders: musician Billy Joel, who owns homes in Sag Harbor, Centre Island and Sagaponack, and abstract artist Willem De Kooning, who worked from a studio in Springs.

McCartney, himself a visual artist, had a longtime friendship with De Kooning. He credits De Kooning with influencing his painting style. The ex-Beatle is quoted as saying, "you have to paint abstract after you've been seeing Bill de Kooning". McCartney's influences also include the scenery at Georgica Beach, the subject of a few of his works. See some of them here.

Author Steven Gaines told the Associated Press earlier this week that "the Hamptons are filled with celebrities. …This is a community that's very protective of those who live here." Apparently McCartney now stays out East after Labor Day, when things quiet down. "October is Paul's favorite month," Gaines said.

Paul McCartney: Christine Cotter/Los Angeles Times; Nancy Shevell: AP photo

As we reported last week, artist Richard Prince, known for his “rephotographing” of iconic advertising images, has been renting two of studios at a Sagaponack house that just went on the market for $6.995 million. (That's the house with the kitchen saved from a home Billy Joel once owned.)

Now comes word from the New York Post that Prince has purchased a home for $9.7 million in Wainscott.

A retrospective of Prince’s life and works is currently on exhibit at Guggenheim Museum, through January 2008.

"Untitled (cowboy), 1980-84," by Richard Prince; courtesy Guggenheim Museum"

Don't let the "barn" designation fool you -- this Sagaponack home is truly high end, commanding $200,000 for a summer rental this past season.

Matthew Breitenbach of the Corcoran Group is listing the 10,000-square-foot renovated potato barn, which has come a long way from its humble roots. The six-bedroom, five-bath dwelling retains the skeleton of the original barn, now updated with amenities that include an elevator, a media room, a gym, a steamroom and sauna, and a Gunite pool.

An 1860 Sagaponack farmhouse that was once the home of author James Jones will be renovated starting Monday in two styles -- green, with solar panels, geothermal heating systems and more, and also historical, a tribute to the author.

Architectural Digest laments “the end of an era” when the Motherwell House in East Hampton was bulldozed in 1985.

The October issue features the former home of abstract expressionist painter Robert Motherwell. The pre-fabricated dwelling was built in 1946 on a four-acre lot and designed by French architect Pierre Chareau. It was a hybrid of salvaged materials and two Navy surplus Quonset-hut kits purchased for $3,000. The dwelling featured an open floorplan, free-standing fireplace and a mezzanine-style balcony on the second floor.

Motherwell entertained the likes of Jackson Pollock, Max Ernst and Mark Rothko there. It was never an easy place to live; the place was hot in the summer, and the roof leaked whenever it rained, but Motherwell managed to be inspired, developing his "Spanish Elegy" series while living there.

In 1952, publisher Barney Rosset purchased the home. Writer Samuel Beckett was his guest there for the summer of 1964.

By the mid-'80s, new owners razed the home, which was in serious disrepair, along with a studio and guest cottage. The structures represented the only Chareau-designed building in United States.

Photo: Smithsonian Institution