Real LI

Copper thieves had designs on Isaac Mizrahi’s Bridgehampton home, according to a report in the East Hampton Star. The style icon filed a complaint with Southampton police last week that at least 60 feet of copper leaders were removed from his home on Oak Street.

The newspaper reports that a string of similar robberies have taken place recently in the Hamptons. With copper selling at about $4 per pound, the material is presumably being sold for scrap.

Public records show that Mizrahi purchased his three-bedroom, three-bath Colonial home in 1997 for $485,000. Today it is worth just over $2 million.

Photo eonline.com

Kelsey Grammer's 7,500-square-foot house in Bridgehampton is off the market. Back in March, the "Back to You" actor reduced the price to $15.6 million. Read more about the house here.

The Old Trees saga continues…

As RealLI reported last week, the 10-acre Southampton estate that had been on the market since 2006 finally sold two weeks ago for $39.25 million. The asking price was $48 million.

The buyer and seller of the property, as revealed last week in the The Palm Beach Daily News, were financier Donald Burns, who sold Old Trees to Harlem real estate developer Rodney Propp.

The plot thickened this week when the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal provided further details on who might actually be putting out the welcome mat at Old Trees this summer. Both papers report that shortly after purchasing the estate, Propp flipped the property to hedge fund manager John Paulson. The Journal says that Paulson paid $41.3 million.

When RealLI asked Don Burns for a comment on the sale, Burns declined to name his buyer, but said, “I know the identity of the current owner, and I have a sense that his family is an excellent match for this one-of-a-kind home.”

Incidentally, as RealLI has reported, Propp’s Bridgehampton home is currently on the market with Susan Breitenbach of the Corcoran Group for just under $14 million. The Journal reports that Prudential’s Michael Shaheen is now listing Paulson’s Southampton home. The asking price $19.5 million.

So if Propp sold off Old Trees quickly and is also selling his Bridgehampton home, inquiring minds want to know if he’s already got another home lined up in the Hamptons. A source tells RealLI that he just may be the person who purchased that $60 million Gin Lane home that last month was rumored to have gone to Tiger Woods. Propp did not return calls for comment, so we’ll have to wait and see.

The three-bedroom, two-bath spaceship house in Chattanooga, Tenn., that will be auctioned tomorrow is similar -- in shape, at least -- to a house on Long Island that seems like it belongs in outer space. Like the house on the side of Signal Mountain, above, the house on Millstone Road in Water Mill near Bridgehampton is round. And, in fact, owner Mihai "Nova" Popa did have some spacey things in mind when he had it built. The artist "designs models of circular modular cities to float on the ocean, and to launch into space should humans face an exodus from a dying planet in an ecological apocalypse he believes is a possibility," writes Newsday's Carol Polsky in a recent story.

AP photo

Actor Kelsey Grammer has lowered the price of his Bridgehampton estate to $15.6 million. As first reported by RealLI, the 7,500-square-foot house went on the market in October for $16.1 million. Read more about the house here.

James Lipton, host of Bravo's "Inside the Actors Studio," tells Dan's Papers that he finished his new book "with relentless intensity" over two summers at his Bridgehampton home. (He and wife, Kedakai, bought the house in 1998 for $580,000.) The book, "Inside Inside" (Dutton Adult, $27.95), "chronicles the victories, defeats, aspirations and rewards" of Lipton's life. Lipton, who has been frequenting the Hamptons since the 1960s, describes how he booked East Hamptonite Steven Spielberg for the cable show. "I ran into him inside the East Hampton Cinema," he tells Dan's Papers. "We inadvertently cut the front of the snack line, and had it not been for Mr. Spielberg's fame, the incident might've ensued into a wild altercation."

Publisher Richard Ekstract has lowered the asking price of his eight-bedroom Bridgehampton home to $15 million. It had been listed for $18 million. The 7,500-square-foot home had been the 2005 Hamptons Cottages and Gardens Idea House. It was designed by San Francisco, Calif., architect Hugh Huddleson, East Hampton designer Robert Stilin and landscape stylist Mario Nievaro. The house is on 3.7 acres. The listing agent is Gary DePersia of The Corcoran Group.

The estate of Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlanitc Records and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has sold another property, this time 2.07 acres of vacant land on Halsey Lane in Bridgehampton. A limited liability corporation bought the tract for $5.5 million last month, according to public records.

As REAL LI reported last October, Ertegun’s estate has sold off at least three other properties over the past year, including a 1.87 acre Southampton parcel, and two Bridgehampton properties, a 2.85 acre vacant parcel which sold for $4.5 million, and an 8.62 acre agricultural preserve which fetched $1 million.

Ertegun, who died in 2006, was married to interior designer Mica Ertegun. She is listed on Architectural Digest’s AD 100 list of top architects and designers.

If it’s privacy you’re looking for, drive down a quarter mile hedge-lined driveway to this 5.9-acre Bridgehampton traditional shingle-style home, listed at $13.995 million. The 6,900-square-foot Ocean Road mansion was built in 1995, has six bedrooms, 7.5 baths, and a tennis court and a heated Gunite pool with a pool house.

Listing agent Susan Breitenbach of the Corcoran Group would not identify the owner, but public records show that real estate developer Rodney Propp purchased the home in 1999. Among the luminaries who have attended parties there are musicians Wyclef Jean and Damon Dash, actor Hugh Jackman and models Christy Turlington and Taye Diggs.

In December, the New York Post reported that Propp and his wife, Eleanor, had purchased a condo on Central Park North in Manhattan for $6.6 million, a record for a Harlem residence.

Hey, Forbes magazine, the East Hampton Star has a bone to pick with you!

When Forbes came out with its annual list of priciest zip codes in the nation last September, the South Fork of Long Island did not get its due. In fact, Alpine, N.J., was listed as the priciest zip code in the country. (Amagansett, Water Mill and Bridgehampton were ranked fifth, sixth and 14th, respectively.)

To make matters worse, in November when Forbes produced its list of priciest home sales of 2007, conspicously absent was the headline-grabbing sale of Adelaide de Menil’s East Hampton property, which sold for a reported $103 million to Ron Baron. Forbes left the property off the list because technically, the land was vacant. The historic homes on the property had been donated to the town and moved to Pantiago Road prior to the transfer.

But in the end, the East End of Long Island wins out despite Forbes.

The Star reports that preservation funds revenues for the area have hit record numbers because of monies earned from real estate transfer taxes. Over the past nine years, the Star says, these revenues have raked in more than $500 million.

Real estate developer and part-time Hamptonite R. Donahue Peebles received the Entrepreneur of the Year Award this week at the 11th Annual Wall Street Project Economic Summit in Manhattan. The award was presented by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who founded the project "to assure equal opportunity for minority employees, consumers and entrepreneurs." Peebles, the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of The Peebles Corporation, is the country’s largest African American real estate developer with a portfolio that includes luxury hotels and residential and commercial properties and projects under way in Washington, D.C., Miami Beach, the Florida Keys, San Francisco, Calif., and Las Vegas valued at more than $4 billion. Peebles has a home in Bridgehampton. Property records show that Peebles bought the home in March 2007 for $5.39 million. The house sits on 10 acres and includes a main house containing about 10,000 square feet, as well as two guest houses. The main house has six bedrooms, four full baths and two half-baths, as well as a formal living and dining rooms, a ballroom, a family room and an office. There is also a swimming pool, walking and meditating gardens and an outdoor shower. Of the house, Peebles tells Newsday: “We spend the summer there, and then weekends in the fall and spring.”

Of the several homes actress Lorraine Bracco owns, the one in Bridgehampton is her favorite, she tells Dan's Papers. "That home was one of my dreams," she says. "A dream that actually came true. I would never have imagined a house in Bridgehampton." Bracco, a Hicksville native, says she and her daughters "come out and relax" at the house. "It helps all of us get recharged." Maybe that's why her daughters convinced Bracco, who is best known for her role as Dr. Jennifer Melfi in HBO's "The Sopranos," to take the five-bedroom postmodern off the market last year. She bought the home in 2004 from Anne Hearst, granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst. She had listed the home last year for $3.25 million.

Beate Moore of Sotheby’s International Realty is listing a Sagaponack home for rent for Memorial Day through Labor Day 2008 for $1 million. That works out to a little over $10,000 a day for the summer season. The house is also for sale for $19.9 million.

Records show the owner of the eight-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot traditional home on Parsonage Lane is Andrew Saunders, a real estate agent for Sotheby’s in the company’s Bridgehampton office. Moore says that Saunders, a former Wall Street executive, is not representing himself in either the sale or rental of this property.

According to Moore, the home was briefly listed for sale last year for just over $20 million, and during a showing of the property, Saunders was offered $1 million to rent it out for the summer. At the time, Moore says, “The owner did not entertain the idea of a rental,” but the $1 million offer, “put the idea in his head.” Saunders, who currently lives in the home, now owns a second home in the area.

A $1 million pricetag for the season is not unheard of, but it is rare. Harald Grant of the Southampton office of Sotheby's confirmed to REAL LI this week that he had rented out a Southampton home for $1 million for the summer of 2007. Although Grant declined to give any details of the transaction, real estate sources say the property was an oceanfront mansion on Gin Lane.

A spokeswoman for the Corcoran Group says that company's highest rental for the summer of 2007 was $750,000. Of the asking price, Paul Brennan, senior vice president of Prudential Douglas Elliman says, "That's very ambitious...I have not heard of anything over a million."

While this new listing in Sagaponack does not set a record, it "might be setting a record for something that is not on the ocean," according to Janet Hummel of Town & Country Real Estate in Southold. "It’s a beautiful house," she adds.

Hummel says that the rental market for the summer season looks strong. Despite jitters about the real estate market in general, "people still want to be out in the Hamptons…we’ve had 20 rentals already in the Bridgehampton office, and three or four are pretty high end, in the $300,000 to $400,000 range."

Whoever winds up renting this home will be in good company. Rocker Billy Joel purchased two adjacent properties in Sagaponack last year. In June, Joel purchased actor Roy Scheider's home for $16.75 million for wife, Katie Lee. In November, the singer closed on the purchase of the house next door for $11.6 million.

It's nearly six acres, with "forever big skies," and has a farmhouse and a two-story barn, according to an Remax Beach Properties ad for this for this East Quogue property. And, says broker Michael Daly, the property is "the last affordable Hamptons farm." And the price? $1.895 million. Any property comparable in size and subdivision (this one is approved for three lots) would be $5 million to $8 million in Southampton, Water Mill or Bridgehampton, says Daly, whose agency opened in Southampton a year ago. "This is a real deal," he says. The listing is near the Quogue Pony Farm and other horse properties.

If it's "La Mouette de Mer," yes. That's the name one Manhattanite considered giving her weekend getaway in Bridgehampton until her father winced at the idea, according to today's Escapes in The New York Times. Instead of using the French for "sea gull," she went with "Three Waters." After all, the house "overlooks Mecox Bay, the Atlantic Ocean and the cut that connects them." Her advice? “You don’t want it too cutesy or too sophisticated.”

Actress Lorraine Bracco entertains every Monday at her Bridgehampton house, she tells the latest issue of Hamptons magazine. The regulars at her so-called Monday Night Supper Club include Vinny Manzo, owner of the Yard Sale in East Hampton, and chefs Vinny Minuto and Andrew Eagle. "They cook and I set the ambience," says Bracco, who is best known for her role as Dr. Jennifer Melfi in HBO's "The Sopranos." She also serves wines from her company, Bracco Wines, which she started three years ago.

Bracco almost sold her five-bedroom postmodern to spend more time at her house on the Hudson River. "When I told the kids, they were crying, 'Don't do it, we love it,' " she tells the magazine. "So I took it off the market. I got in trouble. People were mad at me because they bid on it." She purchased the home in 2004 from Anne Hearst, granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst. She had listed the home this year for $3.25 million.

Her biggest East End pasttime is relaxing. "I found out something very interesting about the Hamptons," she says. "If you want to do the whole glamour thing out here, you can do that. But if you want to have a quiet little home and a quiet little life, you can have that."

It took a little while, but the supermodel's Bridgehampton house is officially off Stribling agent Jessica Mansell Ambrose's "exclusive" list on her Web site. You can still see the cached version here.

The New York Post reports today that an agent with Stribling is not only listing Christie Brinkley's Tower Hill estate as an exclusive but that she's been hired to do it at all. "Stribling agent Jessica Mansell Ambrose [shown here] has been calling Christie Brinkley's $30 million Bridgehampton estate her exclusive on her Web page," the paper reports. Corcoran Group's Susan Breitenbach, the listing agent, told the Post: "That's news to me." Although the former Hamptonite admitted she is not the exclusive agent, the property was still up this morning on Ambrose's site, with a full-blown brochure.

Stribling photo

How do you pack an open house nowadays? Offer two free plane tickets to Paris. That's what Noel Berk, principal of Manhattan-based Mercedes / Berk Ltd., did over the weekend at 28 Fieldview in East Hampton. "Over 400 people came," Berk says. The newly constructed contemporary is located within a five-minute drive to homes owned by Donna Karan, Diddy, Nathan Lane, Gene Saks, Richard Meir and Jamie Drake. It was inspired, promotional materials say, "by the works of renowned Palm Springs modernists such as Richard Neutra and E. Stewart Williams." Bridgehampton architect Blaze Makoid designed the five-bedroom, six-bath, 4,500-square-foot house, which has one acre of property. Asking price? $5,175,000. And who won the tickets? Dorothy Garfein of Corcoran's East Hampton office.

Prudential Douglas Elliman's chief sent Linda Stein out to the Hamptons every summer, the East Hampton Star reports. “She was very involved in East Hampton and Amagansett, because she was connected to basically the entertainment business, and a lot of her clients were out there," said Dottie Herman, Prudential's president and chief operating officer of Prudential Douglas Elliman. “I worked out [a plan] with her [that] every year she would be in the Hamptons,” she added. “That was deliberately done.”

According to the newspaper, Stein was a familiar face at Prudential’s Bridgehampton and East Hampton offices. "Her boisterous personality made her popular with the other agents," writes Kate Maier.

She was apparently so devoted to her work that when there was a possibility she had to take some time off in the summer for surgery related to her breast cancer, Herman tells the newspaper, Stein said, "No, no, no, I can’t have it until September. I’ve got to be out in the Hamptons."

Stein used to stay often at Eothen, filmmaker Paul Morrissey's Montauk estate once co-owned with Andy Warhol. A close friend of Morrissey's, Stein sold the estate early this year.

Photo by Bill Cunningham / The New York Times

Just like ex-husband Billy Joel, who wants to sell his Centre Island estate, supermodel Christie Brinkley might have a potential buyer for her Bridgehampton property. "There has been some activity," says Susan Breitenbach, senior vice president of the Corcoran Group, who is listing Tower Hill. Brinkley is asking $30 million. "We've had a couple of good showings," says Breitenbach. Earlier this week, as Real LI reported, broker Shawn Elliott said that his venture capitalist client wants to see Joel's house a second time. Joel is asking $32.5 million.

Lisa Kerkorian’s barn-style custom home in Bridgehampton is on the market for $12.7 million. The house, next to Kelly Klein’s horse farm, is “pretty spectacular,” says Susan Breitenbach, who is now listing the property on behalf of the Corcoran Group. (The house had been listed with Sotheby’s International Realty for $16.3 million.) The 10,000-square-foot house has six bedrooms and 71/2 baths. It features 200-year-old beams, 30-foot ceilings in the dining area and an open custom Bulthaup Kerkorkian, who was once a tennis professional, is relocating. She used to be married to billionaire Kirk Kerkorian.

Actress Lorraine Bracco played a psychiatrist on the hit television series “The Sopranos,” so it’s fitting she will co-chair a benefit Thursday night to raise funds for the Brain Injury Association of New York State. Silent auction items from stars like Newsday.comCommack native Rosie O’Donnell, Mark Wahlberg, James Woods and NFL players Peyton Manning, Jerry Rice and Brett Favre are a highlight of the event, organized by diSalvo Interiors’ mother-daughter design team after a relative, injured in a World Trade Center explosion, fell into a coma this summer.

The benefit kicks off at 6 p.m. with speakers, live entertainment, cocktails and food, at the diSalvo Interiors showroom at 840 Franklin Ave. in Garden City. Call 516-873-6011 to purchase tickets for $125.

Bracco will attend, along with NFL players and NFL CFO Kim Williams. Among those scheduled to speak is a surgeon who treated injured ABC newsman Bob Wooddruff.
Auction items include a "Laverne and Shirley" script and a DVD of "A League of Their Own," both signed by actress/director Penny Marshall; original art, luxury accessories, exclusive event tickets and spa and hotel packages and signed sports jerseys.

Bracco owns a home in Bridgehampton in a five-bedroom postmodern dwelling which she purchased in 2004 from Anne Hearst, granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst. That home was briefly listed for sale at $3.25 million earlier this year before the actress changed her mind and took it off the market.

-- CAROL POLSKY

Getty Images photo

The Wall Street Journal reports today that "a small group of wealthy people are paying big premiums to have houses erected in record time." One such house -- a 10,000-square-foot mansion -- is being built in Bridgehampton in 10 months for real estate executive Robert Lapidus. "Those of us who work hard, we want instant gratification, speed is part of that," he says. Time was also money for Peter Briger, Jr., according to the article. The president of Fortress Investment Group just moved into an $18-million East Hampton house built for him by Wright & Co. Construction Inc. in 18 months. And for Steven Cohen, who founded SAC Capital Advisors, whose East Hampton mansion was built in 10 months for $18 million. Farrell Building of Bridgehampton built his house and the one beloning to Lapidus.

A typical Farrell Building Co. house in the Hamptons

The estate of Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records, last month sold off 1.87 acres of vacant land in Southampton, according to public records. The Duck Pond Lane property fetched $8.525 million.

The legendary record executive who died last December, owned a home in Southampton with wife Mica, an interior designer. The pair have been a fixture on the East End for many years.

Ertegun signed and nurtured many music legends such as Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin. In a tribute in Rolling Stone magazine earlier this year, Franklin said, “Even after I left Atlantic, I never left Ahmet. He and I remained friends. I would have lunch with him and Mica whenever I was out in Southampton.”

Ertegun was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. Next month, members of Led Zeppelin are headlining a tribute concert in London to honor the Turkish native.

Records show the executor of Ertegun’s estate also sold two Bridgehampton properties in June. The first was a 2.85 acre vacant parcel on Halsey Lane which sold for $4.5 million. The second was an 8.62 acre agricultural reserve which sold for $1 million.

Atlantic Records photo

Forbes.com reports today:

"When the Three Ponds estate in Bridgehampton first listed at $75 million three years ago, it towered over the rest of the market. Now, people are buying teardowns in the Hamptons for $35 million to $40 million, say real estate agents there. Three Ponds is located on over 60 acres of prime real estate and also features its own USGA-rated Rees Jones golf course, 14 gardens, a 75-foot-long swimming pool and guest house. It has the rare distinction of being both the Hampton's most expensive property and the most pound-for-pound valuable property."

The house is on the market with Corcoran Group's Susan Breitenbach,

The October issue of Metropolitan Home features a Bridgehampton spec house which has been upgraded to suit the tastes of its owners, Amy and Lee Jackson.

The Manhattan couple enlisted the help of interior designer Betty Wasserman and architect Anthony Minichetti to redesign their six bedroom, shingle style weekend retreat, infusing it with a simple and serene “Zen” feel.

Wasserman’s major task was to change the country style kitchen, which she accomplished by replacing every surface in the room including the cabinetry, counters and work area walls. The granite counters became Luce di Luna quartzite and the pink subway tile backsplashes were swapped for marble mosaic. Even the kitchen’s island was reconfigured.

“I take stone and tile very seriously these days and plan that part of my schemes first,” Wasserman tells the magazine, adding, “in the kitchen and several of the bathrooms here, these materials play a major role.”

Photo by Tria Giovan / Metropolitan Home

Architect Preston T. Phillips’s Bridgehampton home is one of thirty featured in a new book released by Architectural Digest titled Architectural Digest Private Views: Inside the World’s Greatest Homes (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., $50)

The book describes the home as, “a bright red cube knitted to a yellow box by a red-and-yellow checkerboard seam (that) stands a short distance from a brilliant blue pyramid.”

Phillips tells Architectural Digest that he chose the colors and forms for the buildings “for their purity and timelessness…the pieces had to respond to the site’s primal character.” The architect built his compound in an overgrown woodland that he had spotted while flying over the area one day.

Phillips graduated from Alabama’s Auburn University in 1973, and moved to New York City in 1974. By 1984, he had moved to Bridgehampton full time.

While Phillips is used to working with budgets in the millions, he is reknowned for his 1,000 square foot “ Butterfly House in East Hampton, built on five oceanfront acres for about $150,000. That home has been featured in numerous architectural and design publications.

Actor Kelsey Grammer is at it again: The serial real estate buyer and seller has put his 7,500-square-foot Bridgehampton home on the market for $16.1 million.

The six-time Emmy Award-winner purchased the house new in 2005 with wife, Camille, for $8.5 million.

The traditional-style home is on 1.67 acres and has a heated Gunite pool, blue-stone terracing, a separate pool cottage with two fireplaces and a sunken Har-Tru tennis court.

Kelsey, who owns homes in Beverly Hills, Hawaii, Colorado and upstate New York, confessed to Hamptons magazine in June that, "My wife and I have a bad habit of developing and renovating homes. It's a silly little hobby, and a little expensive, especially since we don't tend to sell them after we've bought them."

The listing is with Faye Weisberg of Sotheby's International Realty's Bridgehampton office. She declined to comment.

This 12,000-square-foot house on Kellis Pond is owned by Dennis Suskind and his wife, Cynthia. Suskind, a former Southampton councilman, is one of the founding partners of Goldman Sachs. The Suskinds are asking $27 million.

With 11.6 acres, an indoor pool, and tennis and basketball courts, Scott Strough of Strough Real Estate Associates, which has the exclusive listing for the property, says, "It is truly, truly magnificent."

Last month, the DealBreaker reported that Suskind, who is now retired, bought a Sag Harbor Methodist church built in the 19th century. Hedge fund manager Adam Sender also wanted the church -- to house his $100 million art collection.

Suskind's neighbors include actor Kelsey Grammer and his wife, Camille.

Alexa Ray Joel will perform next weekend at a benefit for Save Sag Harbor, a community organization working to keep chain stores from spoiling the historic character of the village. Joel, featured in a video interview on Hamptons.com, says, “I’ll always have a place in my heart for all of Long Island, but who am I kidding, I favor Sag Harbor …it’s the one place that hasn’t changed.”

Joel's parents own at least $100 million in Long Island real estate between them. Her mother is supermodel and real estate maven Christie Brinkley whose Bridgehampton estate, Tower Hill, is on the market for $30 million. Her father is musician Billy Joel, who recently purchased Roy Scheider’s Sagaponack home for almost $17 million and whose Centre Island estate had been on the market for the past year for $32.5 million. The listing expired this week, although his former listing agent says he'll still sell.