Real LI

Christie's will hold a wine auction Saturday at the 1903 Westhampton Beach estate known as Atwater, which is on the market for $29 million.

The nine-bedroom, 9.5-bath shingle-style manor house is one of the only turn-of-the-century estates that remain on the East End. It was built for coal baron William C. Atwater. It was designed by architect Henry Bacon, formerly of McKim, Mead & White. He is best known for his design for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The 16,000-square-foot house faces Quantuck Bay. The property has 1,000 feet of water frontage.

It went on the market a year ago for $39 million.

In June 2008, the caretaker of the estate committed suicide in a garage on the 10.37-acre property. His wife had been found badly burned in the caretaker's cottage. That structure has since been torn down.

The invitation-only auction will take place in the carriage house as exclusive listing agents Marcia Altman and Mark Roter of the Westhampton Beach office of Brown Harris Stevens show the main house. Among the wine auction's offerings is a 1929 bottle of Moët & Chandon autographed by Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Robert Downey, Jr., Matthew Broderick and other celebrities.

— VALERIE KELLOGG

Despite the economy, there are still folks who can afford to spend in the high six figures on a Hamptons rental. A 6.64-acre beachfront property in Sagaponack recently rented for the full asking price of $900,000 for Memorial Day to Labor Day, says listing agent Beate Moore of Sotheby’s International Realty. That home is owned by Joanne Corzine, ex-wife of New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, who signed the property over to her in 2002 as part of their divorce settlement.

If you have about three quarters of a million dollars to spend, there is still time to score a high-end home, but the field is getting narrower. Jane Gill of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate says that while the market has been steady this year, in the last week or so, “all of a sudden it’s gotten fierce.” Gill says that there are probably “two good houses” in every price range left and that bidding wars have broken out over choice properties. Prices are generally lower than last year, she says, but clients can be more demanding; the client who “brings a check for the full asking price” will secure the best rental.

Gill is currently listing a six-bedroom, 7 ½-bath mansion on 15 acres on coveted Further Lane in East Hampton. The price for this summer rental is $750,000 for Memorial Day to Labor Day. Records show the home belongs to Taya Thurman, half-sister of actress Uma Thurman. British musician Sting is reportedly a former tenant.

Harald Grant of Sotheby’s International Realty is representing a Southampton beachfront home, shown here, designed by famed architect Norman Jaffe. The $750,000 summer rental has seven bedrooms and 6 ½ baths on 2.3 acres, accessible through private gates. The property has an oceanside Gunite pool and spa, Zen garden and a tennis courts. The home was completely renovated in 2007.

Also in Southampton, Noel Love of Brown Harris Stevens is representing a six-bedroom, six-bath, 4.9-acre estate with views of Heady Creek. The Memorial Day to Labor Day rental also has an asking price of $750,000. Love says that the home rents every year, and there’s been a lot of interest in the property. He says he expects that it will be booked before the July 4 weekend.

Over in Sagaponack, the town where Billy Joel owns two homes, John Healey of Town and Country Real Estate has a listing for another $750,000 summer rental: a seven-bedroom mansion that sits on 2 acres with a gym, media room, billiard room, sauna, steam, and spa. There’s even a pool with a waterfall.

— LAURA MANN

The home that Laura Andrassy, ex-wife of golf legend Greg Norman, just purchased on Wyandanch Lane in Southampton is being listed for rent for the summer 2009 for $185,000 for Memorial Day through Labor Day. The five-bedroom, four-bath home sits on one acre of land, has a gunite pool and private access to the ocean just steps away.

Andrassy’s broker Martha Gundersen of Brown Harris Stevens says that her client will continue live in the home on Moses Lane that she purchased last year, while renting out the new digs. After the summer season, Andrassy plans to build a completely new structure on the property, Gundersen says. “She could renovate it but she wants to start over and build her dream home.” She’ll eventually sell the Moses Lane property.

Andrassy purchased the new home because “it’s a better location” that's closer to the ocean, says Gundersen. “She found her shangri-la.” Public records show that the sale closed Dec. 19. The home sold for $7.55 million.

Last summer, Andrassy won $103 million settlement in her divorce from Norman, her husband of 25 years. Norman married tennis star Chris Evert last June.

Gundersen says that Andrassy, when not travelling, spends half her time in Palm Beach, Fla., and half in Southampton. “She’s happy here…she’s embracing it…it’s so nice for Long Island that someone who could live anywhere would choose to call this home.” Last summer, Andrassy’s guests in Southampton included golfers Nick Price and Ben Crenshaw.

You can say Rima Mardoyan-Smyth is a woman with many talents. She’s fluent in more than four languages and when she’s not selling real estate in the Hamptons, something she has done for more than two decades, she’s pursuing her interests, which includes art.

In fact, her work can be viewed in a new exhibit that opens this weekend at Guild Hall in East Hampton. The exhibit, "A Survey of Encaustic Work,” through Nov. 30, will feature paintings that Mardoyan-Smyth did in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “They are very powerful,” says Barbara Jo Howard, the museum’s director of marketing.

Encaustic is an ancient technique that started in Egypt in which molten beeswax is mixed with resin and pigments to provide color, vibrancy and texture. However, Mardoyan-Smyth says she doesn’t use resin. She makes her own beeswax and pigments and won’t disclose anything more. “It’s a secret recipe,” she muses. The painting is labor intensive, says Mardoyan-Smyth, noting not many people can paint as large as she can.

Mardoyan-Smyth, who works in the Bridgehampton office of Brown Harris Stevens, has been painting for about 32 years. She has been using beeswax in her work for the past two decades.

The opening reception will be from 5 to 6 p.m. Saturday. At 3 p.m. Sunday, art critic Klaus Kertess will discuss Mardoyan-Smyth's work. “I’m honored to have Klaus there,” says Mardoyan-Smyth. “It’s a big thrill.”

Rima Mardoyan's 2008 work "Traveling Fish, which is beeswax encaustic on wood

Brown Harris Stevens has opened two new sales offices on the South Fork. (Now they have six locations in the Hamptons.) The real estate agency is hosting two open houses on Saturday: one from 1 to 5 p.m. at 167 Main St. in Amagansett and the other from 3 to 7 p.m. at 24 Main St. in Southampton. White wine, sparkling water and hors d’oeuvres will be served.

A 10.4-acre mansion with ocean views and 1,000 feet of shoreline on Quantuck Bay in Westhampton Beach has recently hit the market. The asking price is $39 million, says listing agent Mark Roter of Brown Harris Stevens.

The 16,000-square-foot shingle-style mansion has 24 rooms, six fireplaces, nine bedrooms, nine full baths and two half-baths. The three-story home was originally built in 1903 for William C. Atwater, a Brooklyn-born coal baron who was active in the early development of Westhampton Beach. Atwater often raced his yacht on the Great South Bay. The architect was Henry Bacon, the designer the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The current owners, Leonard and Kathryn Conway, purchased the home in 1994. He is a former Wall Street executive and an investor in RSN, a national television network catering to resort communities. She is a former television executve who was raised in Babylon. The couple finished a two-year restoration project on the property in 1997, adding a new roof and wiring, along with modern amenities like a Gunite pool and Har-Tru tennis court.

Roter says one of his favorite parts of the home is the grand entrance hall, with its three-story grand staircase. “The living space of this home is so gracious,” Roter says, ”and the proportion of the rooms is perfect.”

The grounds also include a poolside carriage house, a guest cottage and a gardener’s house and a greenhouse. Hundred-year-old catalpa trees line the estate and main driveway, and a deepwater dock provides access to the bay.

The Independent newspaper is reporting that plans are afoot to turn Shelter Island’s Ram’s Head Inn into a “rehab for senior executives or professionals seeking state-of-the-art recovery treatment regimes.” The paper reports that a stay at the proposed rehab center would cost $36,000 per month.

The Ram’s Head Inn, built in 1929, has been on the market for nearly two years. Last year, Christie Brinkley’s ex, Peter Cook, had briefly represented the property. The current asking price for the 4.3 acre property is $17.5 million, listed with Tony Cerio of Brown Harris Stevens.

"It's the strong rental market I've ever seen," says Susan Breitenbach of The Corcoran Group, who has listings ranging from $12,000 to $400,000 for the summer. This season, there are two for $1 million. This one, on Shinnecock Bay, is listed with Brown Harris Stevens for $400,000. Read all about it -- and see a video of one of the $1 million summer rentals -- by clicking here.

Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg has added another property to his Georgica Pond holdings in East Hampton, a source tells Newsday. Spielberg closed on the purchase of the three-acre lot this week on Apaquogue Road for a bit less than the asking price of $19.95 million.

Sources say the transaction was handled by Spielberg’s lawyer, California-based Gerald Breslauer, whose company name appears on records for nearby tracts that Spielberg owns. Included in the purchase is a 4,500-square-foot, six-bedroom home that a local agent told Newsday last month was likely being purchased as a tear-down. “It’s all about land value,” the agent said. It has been reported that Spielberg is also in talks to purchase an adjacent lot owned by the estate of the late philanthropist Arthur Ross.

Spielberg’s neighbors include writers Nora Ephron and Nick Pileggi, who last summer reportedly rented their home to Paul McCartney’s ex, Heather Mills.

The listing involved a four-way exclusive with the The Corcoran Group, Sotheby’s International Realty, Brown Harris Stevens, and Prudential Douglas Elliman, sources say.

At The Pierre hotel in Manhattan last Wednesday, agents with Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate and their guests ate, drank and danced to a live band in the ornate ballroom, while banks of food, from sushi to chocolate maltballs, waited in side rooms with murals on walls.

“There’s a woman with two legs,” said a senior official from the real estate agency, and along came a woman dressed like an 18th century French aristocrat, standing inside the middle of a table, decorated like a puffed-out skirt. As she walked around, the table rolled with her, and celebrants picked h’ordeurves off the table top.

Despite a slowing market, some of Long Island’s biggest real estate companies showed they can really party.

How about dancing cages at the party thrown by Shawn Elliott Luxury Homes and Estates?

“I have agents in their 70s dancing in the cages,” said Elliott, founder of the Woodbury-based agency.

The cages weren’t hanging from ceilings but rested on platforms at the Pine Hollow Country Club in East Norwich, where Elliott usually has his monthly office meetings. Each year, the broker books the cages and finds that the agents he least expected to go wild – the mild-mannered types during the work day – are the ones who really groove behind bars.

This year, Elliott even booked a Rod Stewart look-alike to perform, complete with sunglasses.

Just before the holidays each year, Elliott has to ask himself a tough question – how can he top last year’s holiday party?

For Brown Harris Stevens, festivities took place under a recognized New York City landmark, Gustavino’s, an architecturally-striking catering space under the 59th Street Bridge in Manhattan.
A trio of brokers, all once professional singers, performed and company president Hall Willkie, according to one report, rarely left the dance floor.

Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty took over The Carltun at Eisenhower Park, where a 10-piece band and two bars – martini and raw - entertained close to 500 people. In the Palm Court, a guitar duo played for those who wanted to hear each other talk and be merry at the same time.

The backdrop to food were ice carvings, including one in the shape of the world’s largest animal. As one guest joked, “Everyone had a whale of a time.”

Could director Steven Spielberg be expanding his Georgica Pond real estate holdings?

Rumors are swirling in East End real estate circles that a home on Apaquogue Road in East Hampton village will be Spielberg’s newest acquisition. Spielberg already owns a compound two lots over from this one, which insiders say is being purchased by him through California-based attorney Gerald Breslauer.

Breslauer, whose company's name appears on property records for the parcel that Spielberg already owns, declined to comment.

The asking price for the 4,500-square-foot, six-bedroom traditional dwelling was just under $20 million. An agent familiar with the 3-acre pondfront property said that it is likely being purchased as a tear-down. “It’s all about land value,” the agent says.

The listing involved a four-way exclusive with the Corcoran Group, Sotheby’s International Realty, Brown Harris Stevens, and Prudential Douglas Elliman. Sources close to the deal say they've been told Spielberg is the actual purchaser of the property.

Property owned by the estate of philanthropist Arthur Ross, who died in September at the age of 96, sits between Spielberg's current property and the new one.

Spielberg's neighbors include writers Nora Ephron and Nick Pileggi, who reportedly rented their home this summer to Paul McCartney's ex, Heather Mills. Rocker Jon Bon Jovi is also said to own a home in the area.

Before Christie Todd Whitman became governor of New Jersey (1994-2001), she spent her summers in East Hampton village at this shingle-style mansion built by her grandfather John R. Todd in 1929.

The home, which the current owners purchased from the Todd family in 1981, is changing hands once again. According to the Brown Harris Stevens Web site, the $6.95 million listing is now in contract. The three-story dwelling has 12 bedrooms and 9.5 baths, six fireplaces and a four-car garage, and is located near Wiborg Beach.

Whitman’s grandfather and father, Webster B. Todd, were involved in the planning and construction of Rockefeller Center in Manhattan.

Hotelier-to-the-hip Andre Balazs tells Crainsnewyork.com that he is close to a deal to sell four of his hotel properties to an unidentified buyer. He’ll use the proceeds, he tells Crain’s, to reinvest in additional hotels.

His company, Andre Balazs Properties, will continue to operate Hotel QT in Manhattan, and three Standard Hotels in Los Angeles, Hollywood and Miami after they are sold to the investor.

Among the other properties he owns which are not for sale are the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, and here on Long Island, the Sunset Beach on Shelter Island's Shore Road.

Where will Balazs's next investment be? Earlier this summer, when questioned by Newsday, a representative of Balazs denied the rumor that he would be adding Shelter Island’s Chequit Inn to his hotel portfolio. At the time, listing agent Tony Cerio of Brown Harris Stevens also denied the rumor.

The Chequit Inn, built in 1872, is still currently listed on the Brown Harris Stevens Web site for $6 million. The one-acre property includes three buildings, water views and an on-site antiques shop, just two blocks from the North Ferry.

Balazs, who once had a romantic relationship with actress Uma Thurman, owns a vacation home on Shelter Island close to Itzhak Perlman’s summer music camp.

New York Magazine reports this week that the East Hampton house of Joseph Heller, who wrote "Catch 22," has been reduced in price for a second time -- the asking price is now $3.1 million. It went on the market in 2005 for $3.65 million. Heller died of a heart attack at the house in 1999. Mary Ellen McGuire of Brown Harris Stevens has the listing.

After two years of talks, the Peconic Land Trust closed last Wednesday on the 25.5-acre Cackle Hill estate on Shelter Island, plus 1.4 acres of waterfront land with a dock. The deal was a co-exclusive with Corcoran Group and Brown Harris Stevens.

As part of the $7.3 million agreement, the land will be subdivided. The rear 17 acres, a wooded area, will be transferred to the town and Suffolk County to be preserved permanently.

The remaining acreage -- including waterfront property, and a six-bedroom, six-bath farmhouse with a 100-foot screened-in wraparound porch, herb and perennial gardens and a pool -- is being listed for sale for $5.5 million.

Preservation easement restrictions will limit further development.

Cackle Hill, named for the 3,000-chicken egg farm that operated there for about 30 years beginning in the 1940s, has had a succession of owners. The home was renovated in the '80s by former Vogue editor and public relations executive Kezia Keeble and her husband, John Duka, who married there in 1985.

Current owners, Jan and Bill Pike, have owned the estate for 10 years. Corcoran's Penelope Moore, who listed the property, says the Pikes did not want to see the land developed and were "delighted" at the outcome of the sale.

The acreage being preserved is directly opposite Itzhak Perlman's summer music camp and near the Pridwin Hotel.

Actress Julie Kavner and hotelier Andre Belasz also own homes nearby.

--LAURA MANN