Real LI

If you spot a guy with a big clock around his neck floating around Roosevelt, chances are it’s Flavor Flav. The Public Enemy rapper and star of VH1's "Flavor of Love," might just be visiting his mom, Anna Drayton.

Apparently, mother and son conducted an interview with People magazine at the Roosevelt-based home, which according to public records, is a 1,119-square-foot, six-room bungalow. The picture in the magazine shows Flav, born William Drayton, and his clockless, yet adorable mother, sitting in what appears to be her living room. It’s difficult to decipher, but a white couch, white curtains and glass coffee table seem to be part of the decor.

After a brief hiatus, Heisman winner Vinny Testaverde’s Oyster Bay Cove home is back on the market, listed with Shawn Elliott Luxury Homes and Estates.

The price remains $6.995 million for the 13,000 square-foot mansion on Talls Oaks Court. Testaverde and wife, Mitzi, orginally listed the home in October 2007, taking it off the market this January as they prepared to move to their new $4.5-million Tampa, Fla., mansion.

The six-bedroom, 7 ½-bath center-hall Colonial sits on four acres and is a sports-fan’s paradise with a fitness center, a sauna and steam room, a movie theater, a video game room, a billiards room, a full basketball court and a sports court. The home includes a cabana, a heated Gunite pool with a 20-foot waterfall, a kiddie pool and an eight-person Jacuzzi.

As REAL LI reported yesterday, comedian and talk show host Dick Cavett is selling off part of his Montauk holdings.

Listing agent and Corcoran senior managing director Krae Van Sickle today has confirmed that Cavett is asking $30 million for a 76.8-acre waterfront parcel on DeForest Road.

Van Sickle tells REAL LI that Cavett is not selling Tick Hall, the home he owned with late wife Carrie Nye. That house, which was rebuilt after a fire in 1997, sits on adjacent land. The rebuilding of Tick Hall is the subject of a documentary film, From the Ashes.

Van Sickle says that Cavett has been in talks for many years with Suffolk County and the Town of East Hampton to purchase the nearly 77-acres for conservation purposes, but that deal has not yet been sealed and the land is now also available on the open market.

Sources tell REAL LI that talk show host and comedian Dick Cavett may be selling some of his Montauk property.

Cavett, who moved to Montauk when it was still a sleepy village in the 1960's, lived in the the Stanford White-designed Tick Hall he purchased with his wife actress Carrie Nye. The home and several nearby structures burned down in 1997. The couple painstakingly rebuilt Tick Hall, with the rebuilding project made into a documentary film. Nye died in 2006.

When contacted by REAL LI, Corcoran's Krae Van Sickle denied that Cavett was his client. Among Van Sickle's listings, however, is an 77-acre oceanfront parcel in Montauk. Coincidentally, public records show that among Cavett's Montauk holdings is a 76.8 acre tract of land on DeForest Road. He also owns another nearly 20-acre tract nearby.

Star magazine reports that new mother Jennifer Lopez, who lives in Brookville, thwarts the baby blues with aromatherapy. "Jennifer uses lavender all around her house," Star quotes a source as saying. "It really seems to be working." The source says there are fresh lavender plants in the kitchen, and that lavender spray is used on her linens. Read about Lopez and Marc Anthony's house -- and see photos -- here.

Actress Kathleen Turner has once again lowered the price of her home on Bluff Road in Amagansett, listed with Rachel Thompson of Prudential Douglas Elliman.

In 2005, after splitting with her husband Jay Weiss, Turner put the home on the market for a reported $8 million, later taking it off the market and renovating it. Last year Turner again listed the six-bedroom home for $6.9 million. In January, REAL LI reported another price drop to $6.25 million.

The Prudential Elliman Web site now shows that Turner has lowered her price yet again to $5.9 million. Records show that the Oscar-nominated actress paid $488,500 for the home in 1990.

The 5,000-square-foot home was built in 1903 and overlooks a 25-acre preserve.

Dan's Papers recently reported that the house will be sold during the divorce proceedings.

Thompson could not be reached for comment.

News Corporation chief executive Rupert Murdoch may have a new neighbor to carpool to work with. The house that conservative talk show host and Murdoch employee Sean Hannity was trying to buy has officially closed, real estate sources says. The 16-room mansion on Centre Island closed Wednesday. Hannity paid $8.5 million.

The Hampton-style mansion was purchased from a trust set up after a transfer of the property from Deborah Dolan, ex-wife of Cablevision’s James Dolan.

The home was listed with Peggy McCormack of Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty. Regina Rogers of Prudential Douglas Elliman represented Hannity in the deal. Neither agent would comment.

The sale of this home proves that despite a real estate slowdown, homes will sell if the price is right, and Centre Island is no exception. The Hannity house had originally been listed at $13.5 million in 2006, then earlier this year was reduced to $10.5 million. Patricia Altschul’s Centre Island manse went into contract last year soon after a price reduction from $18.5 million to $15.8 million. It closed in March 2008 for $12.5 million to Londoner Colin Buffin. Murdoch also recently dropped the asking price for his nearby mansion from $14.8 million to $12.8 million.

One holdout in the pricing game is Billy Joel, whose Centre Island estate, Middlesea, has been on the market since 2006. It was originally listed at $37.5 million in 2006, with a price drop to $32.5 million in early 2007, but Joel has not reduced his asking price in more than a year now and the home remains unsold.

Katie Lee Joel tells the Herald-Dispatch in West Virginia, where she's from, that her new book "The Comfort Table," which is out Mother's Day, features photography taken at her and rocker-husband Billy Joel's new house in Sagaponack.

"We did the photo shoots at my house in New York City and the house out on Long Island," she tells the newspaper. "I wanted the balance of country and city girl, and I had my mom and grandma and great-aunt come up, and all three of them have recipes in the book. We had the best time, and I will always have those remembrances of having them up here doing the photo shoot. We had our hair and makeup done, and after that we all went out for dinner since everyone was gussied up."

Read more about the Joel house -- and see photos -- here.

Getty Images photo

The former Oyster Bay summer home of the late trend-setting Vogue photographer Horst P. Horst is on the market for $1.85 million. The one-story white house sits on five acres of what is left of Horst’s original 12 acres, purchased from the Tiffany estate for about $5,000 in the late 1940s. In a 1991 interview, Horst told The New York Times that he had sold an original Picasso painting to pay for the house.

Horst lived in the home until his death in 1999 at age 93. During his career, he photographed and partied with Salvador Dali, Noel Coward, Greta Garbo and Coco Chanel, all of whom visited him on Long Island. Hewas also responsible for many iconic advertising shots, some of which were taken in the garage at the home.

The house has four bedrooms, three baths and three fireplaces. Taxes are $18,052 per year.

David M. Haggerty and Angela Buzzerio of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty have the listing.

Tiger Woods appeared on television's Extra yesterday, where he denied reports that he purchased that $60 million Gin Lane home. "I did not purchase a house in the Hamptons...that's a rumor," Woods told the reporter.

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

Of her three homes around the world, Gwyneth Paltrow rested after the filming of "Iron Man" at her place in Amagansett, according to the latest issue of Vogue. "She's in a real groove at the beach, with lots of space and loads of children coming and going," Paltrow's friend, Julia Cuddihy Van Nice, tells the magazine. "It's all so normal when you're there and in the thick of it." Aerin Lauder. granddaughter of Estee Lauder and the one who signed up Paltrow to represent the Pleasures and Pure White Linen brands of perfume, is a Hamptons neighbor.

Paltrow and rocker husband Chris Martin purchased their home for $5.4 million in 2006. (See a photo here.) Paltrow's mother, Oscar-winning actress Blythe Danner, plans to build a house on a vacant parcel next to her daughter’s home.

Vogue cover photo

Heather Mills just won’t go away. According myhamptonsmag.com, Paul McCartney's ex might be planning to buy a house in Amagansett to be near the former Beatle when he’s in town. (Read all about his house -- and see photos -- here.) The article went on to say that Mills has “vowed to buy a house everywhere he has one." Heather, can’t you just let Paul be?

AP photo

OK, we all know Isabella Rossellini is Bellport's most famous resident. But did you know she prefers the indoors to the outdoors? According to the new issue of Hamptons magazine, the actress says, "I like inside. It's always a little cold outside, or too hot." Her house -- a converted barn -- "is a very big space, and very rustic. I feel like a squirrel living in a tree." While she may commune with nature, she tells the magazine that she will kill termites and carpenter ants. "But I don't use pesticide on the grass because it washes into the bay. And if I have a few ants or spiders, I'm not going to [contaminate] the whole house."

This brand-new Mediterranean-style home in East Hampton recently went on the market for $1.995 million. The 4,000-square-foot has four bedrooms and five baths, a professional kitchen with granite countertops, radiant heat floors, three fireplaces and 20-foot cathedral ceilings. The half-acre property has a heated gunite pool with a bluestone terrace, a waterfall, a barbecue and outdoor fireplace and a separate pool house with a basement. The property also has its own boat slip of up to 40 foot.

The house was built by Ricardo Guichay.

"It's the only mediterranean available in East Hampton," says listing agent Hara Kang with the East Hampton office of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

Whoever buys the house will say they are neighbors with "Sex and the City" star Kim Cattrall,
soccer legend Pele and actress Mercedes Ruehl.

The attorney for Shaniqua Tompkins says that 50 Cent has asked his ex to pay $4,500 a month rent to continue living in his Dix Hills home. His 10-year-old son also lives in the house. Paul Katsandonis tells RealLI that she and their son have until May 1 to live in the house, but "if we give him one month's rent, he will allow them to stay until the end of the school year," Katsandonis says. He adds that the message from 50 Cent is clear: "Be like your dad. Get rich or starve trying." Tompkins filed suit against Curtis Jackson -- 50 Cent's real name -- today in Supreme Court in Manhattan claiming "breach of contract," alleging that the rapper had promised to put all or part of the house in her name. He bought the house in January 2007 for $1.4 million. See photos of the house here.

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.

Conservative talk show host and Long Island native Sean Hannity is in contract to purchase a 16-room Centre Island Colonial mansion, real estate sources tell RealLI. The home is currently listed under a trust named “2002 JLD Childrens,” which was set up after a transfer of the property from Deborah Dolan, ex-wife of Cablevision chief executive James L. Dolan.

Hannity, who grew up in Franklin Square and delivered Newsday as a boy, now lives in Lloyd Harbor. The new home in Centre Island is not far from one that his Fox News boss, Rupert Murdoch, has on the market for $12.8 million. Billy Joel is also trying to sell his mansion, which has an asking price of $32.5 million.

The Hampton-style house was built in 2005, and includes seven bedrooms, 7 1/2 baths, seven fireplaces, lighted tennis courts and a gunite pool. The property sits on 6.22 acres and includes 500 feet of water frontage. The taxes are $94,526 per year. The home is listed with Peggy McCormack of Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty.

The latest listing price is $10.5 million.

Hannity's publicist declined to comment. McCormick and Regina Rogers of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate, who is supposedly representing Hannity in the deal, could not be reached for comment.

In the meantime, the NY Radio message board is abuzz that Hannity might be leaving ABC Radio in the next 60 days. "He apparently is building a home studio and may do the show from there via a different syndicator such as Fox," according to a post. That studio is being built at the Centre Island home, a real estate source tells RealLI. "He is supposed to close in about a week and a half, but isn't going to move in until he builds a studio on the property," the source says.

An upcoming film about the life of hip-hop star Notorious B.I.G. will feature a house in Bellmore. A crew recently shot scenes for Fox Searchlight Pictures, which also did Oscar-nominated film "Juno." The filming of "Notorious" continues in Brooklyn. Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace, was shot to death in 1997. The Bellmore shoot took place over the course of two days.

LA Times photo

The New York Post reports today that Aretha Franklin has rented a place in Westhampton "for two weeks in July."

50 Cent's Dix Hills house

Here are some from the original listing for the house, which 50 Cent bought in 2007.

50 Cent's ex and their 10-year-old son have to be out of the rapper’s Dix Hills house by April 30, says his Manhattan attorney Brett Kimmel. In the meantime, Shaniqua Tompkins has filed suit in Supreme Court in Manhattan alleging “breach of contract.”

Tompkins says that 50 Cent promised to put all or part of the house in her name. Instead, the 5,200-square-foot house is in his name — Curtis Jackson. He bought the house in January 2007 for $1.4 million. Taxes are $16,815 a year. “It’s a very big home,” says Paul Catsandonis, Tompkins’ attorney. And, he adds, 50 Cent “was planning to live in that house ... as a family.”

The home is located on an acre and has six bedrooms and five bathrooms, as well as a three-car heated garage with a dumbwaiter to the kitchen. The house, built in 2002, also has a pool. The previous owner, builder Robert Defeo, built the house for himself and his family.

Once Tompkins and son are out of the house, it is unclear what 50 Cent will do with the property, Kimmel says. In the meantime, Catsandonis says, Tompkins plans to appeal the eviction. "I think it's preposterous to view your son as a trespasser -- a minor at that," Catsandonis says.

Read more about the house -- and the fight -- here.

Newsday photo / Thomas A. Ferrara

A lawsuit filed in Manhattan by 50 Cent's ex and the mother of his son alleges that the rapper is trying to evict her from his Dix Hills house, AP reports. Shaniqua Tompkins is accusing 50 Cent of "breach of contract" because he supposedly promised to buy the house for her and their 10-year-old son. The house is now in his name -- Curtis Jackson.

Public records show he bought the 5,000-square-foot house in January 2007 for $1.4 million. Taxes are $16,815 a year. "It's a very big home," says Paul Catsandonis, Tompkins' attorney. The house is located on an acre and has six bedrooms and five bathrooms, as well as a three-car heated garage with a dumbwaiter to the kitchen. The house, built in 2002, also has a pool. The previous owner, builder Robert Defeo, built the house for himself and his family.

Someone close to the deal says that 50 Cent wanted to buy the house so that his son would be in a good school district, Half Hollow Hills. He also liked that the property is private, with a steep driveway so that the house is "not at street level." "He actually came to see the house," the source says. "He was very shy ... polite ... humble ... lovely."

But it was clear at the closing last year that there was a problem. Tompkins was at the closing; 50 Cent was not. "It was obvious that she was very upset," says the source. "She wanted the house, or at least half in her name." But the deed only had his. After the closing, Tompkins was seen crying, the source says.

Promoting their new E! realty show "Living Lohan," Dina Lohan and daughter, Ali, let a camera crew from Access Hollywood inside their North Merrick home. Among the revelations: They have five dogs, "lots of pictures everywhere," and keep magazines with Lindsay Lohan on the cover in a magazine bin on the floor. And then there's this one: Ali is home-schooled because some "mean girls" teased her -- so much so that a You Tube video they posted mocking her led to their suspension. See the Access Hollywood clip and read more about the Lohan home.

Dolly Lenz has seen many houses in her career as Prudential Douglas Elliman's top broker. So when she says that rocker Billy Joel's Centre Island estate is the "truly most amazing, breathtaking house and property I have even seen," that says a lot. Lenz, who is listing Joel's property for $32.5 million, adds that it "beats every Hamptons mansion, beats every Malibu and Bel Air mansion." She goes on in the e-mail: "I was speechless from the setting alone ... The house itself took my breath away." See more photos of the house here.

Powerhouse broker Dolly Lenz of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate now has the listing for Billy Joel's "Middlesea" estate in Centre Island. The 14,000-square-foot house is listed for $32.5 million. Lenz describes the property on her site as a "magnificent Tudor-style waterfront manor ... sited on over 14 acres of rolling lawns and naturalized landscaping." The estate "boasts 1,550 feet of direct waterfront that affords mesmerizing water views from every vantage point." Apparently "Oprah" designer Nate Berkus not only did up Joel and wife, Katie Lee's place in the West Village, as we discovered this week on the show. According to the Prudential listing, Berkus designed the living room here, too.

The property includes a gym, indoor and outdoor pools, a gourmet kitchen, a tennis court, a bowling alley, a guest cottage, a music room, a smoking bar and a wine cellar. There are threef buildings, with a total of 24 rooms, including eight full baths and five half-baths. There are 13 fireplaces.

Annual taxes are $208,463.

Joel last had the house listed with Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty for $32.5 million. The listing lapsed last year, although word was that he still wanted to sell it.

See more photos of the property here.

Another denial about the $65 million Hamptons compound, this time from Tiger Woods himself. In an interview on his "real estate holdings," Woods denied that he bought the Gin Lane property in Southampton when he spoke to CNBC's Scott Wapner. "He quashed that one pretty quickly," Wapner says. See the interview -- which shows renderings of a real estate complex where Woods will be buying some property -- by clicking here.

Heather Mills will have to buy her own Hamptons home.

In the weeks since a British judge handed down a decision in the bitter divorce battle between Sir Paul McCartney and estranged wife Heather Mills, copies of the judgment have been leaked and have surfaced on the internet. Included in a copy of the judgment found on the Smoking Gun Web site are details of the former Beatle’s assets, including some real estate here on Long Island that Mills sought to obtain in the divorce settlement.

According to the document, in 1998, several months after his late wife Linda’s death, McCartney purchased a home on Pintail Lane in East Hampton. By August 1999, McCartney had taken Mills on vacation to the wood-frame home. That home, according to the document, and another in Manhattan, were among the assets that Mills sought to obtain.

But the judge did not grant Mills's request.

“In my judgment, her case overlooks the fact that all of the husband’s properties were acquired before their marriage, in some cases long before…I see no justification whatever for the homes on Long Island or in New York City.”

Paul McCartney’s links to the Hamptons go back to the early days with his late wife, Linda Eastman. McCartney told the court that prior to his marriage to Heather Mills, his need for a security detail was minimal. “There was an off-duty police officer who provided night cover when I was at Long Island, and on trips to and from the airport ... this was how I lived with my first wife and four children.”

According to McCartney, things changed after his marriage to Mills and the birth of daughter, Beatrice, in 2003. Mills then insisted on a heavy increase in their security detail to shield her from paparazzi. In 2005, he told the court, he spent about $70,000 on security in the United States alone.

In September 2006, the Daily Mail published details of McCartney’s Hamptons real estate holdings, including eight acres of land that surround the house, puchased under the corporate name Oakleaf Investments.

For more on McCartney's longstanding connection to the Hamptons, see here.

Rocker Billy Joel put his Centre Island estate on the market because the village gave him grief over repairing the dock at the 14-acre waterfront spread, writes legendary publisher Dan Rattiner in his memoir to be released next month.

“I thought I could put one of my boats there and speedboat to Manhattan in twenty minutes when I needed to go,” Joel tells Rattiner, “…in the end, they wouldn’t let me do it…so I just gave up on it…the house is for sale.” Joel’s estate has been on the market since 2006. The current asking price is $32.5 million for the home where he and wife, Katie Lee, married in 2004.

Rattiner’s book, "In the Hamptons: My Fifty Years with Farmers, Fisherman, Artists, Billionaires, and Celebrities" (Harmony Books; $24.95), is full of reminiscences of Hamptons icons, including artists Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, authors John Steinbeck and Spalding Gray, and his longtime friend Joel, who also owns a home in Sag Harbor and two in Sagaponack.

Over dinner at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor, Rattiner writes, Joel explained what brought him out to the Hamptons in the first place, and what keeps him there. “I’m a Long Island boy, born and raised,” Joel says, “but I’m from the working man’s Long Island, Levittown. Massapequa. The working men and women live out east. And I want to be among them.”

If your life is a bit of a soap opera, you may want to check out this Garden City mansion that’s on the market for $6.1 million, listed with Kathleen Thornton of Coach Realtors. The dramatic 14-room, cedar shingle Colonial, built in 1995, sits on 1.66 acres near the Garden City Golf Club. Amenities include a guest cottage, indoor lap pool, and putting green. The property is within walking distance to the village. The taxes are $42,864.61 per year.

Public records show that the mansion is just across the road from the home of actress Susan Lucci, Emmy-winning star of ABC’s All My Children. Lucci, who plays Erika Kane, lives in a 11-room, 7.5-bath 1929 Colonial. She also owns a home on Dune Road in Quogue with husband, Helmut Huber.

"I once got a customer because I knew John Lennon and Yoko Ono," Arlene Reckson, a Corcoran Group senior vice president, tells Dan's Papers. "I was part of their entourage in the '70s and when the Daily News did a piece on the anniversary of Lennon's death, I was mentioned. The customer had seen my name ... and made the connection." The article's other goodies: Beth Troy of Town and Country Real Estate in East Hampton got a client because of a great haircut, Christopher Stewart of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate in Amagansett finds customers on the playground with his son, and Katia Delouya of Devlin McNiff Real Estate in East Hampton hooks them in with her French accent.

Jennifer Lopez and month-old twins Max and Emme grace the cover of the March 31 issue of People magazine which hit newsstands today, complete with glossy interior and exterior photos of the Brookville home that Lopez shares with husband Marc Anthony.

The magazine declares, “the family’s redbrick mansion is kid country, with his and her rocking ducks from FAO Schwarz, a pink pedal car for Emme and a yellow one for Max, and two baby nurses on round-the-clock duty.” Lopez and Anthony are pictured outside the home pushing matching $3,000 prams, said to be gifts from their friends Eva Longoria Parker and Ken Paves. A 1962 Mercedes 190SL sits outside the home's columned portico. The pair are said to have just emerged from three months of seclusion at the estate.

The nursery, complete with wrought-iron cribs and crystal chandelier, is decorated in soft cream-colored tones. “Their room is right next to ours,” Lopez tells People. The proud parents are shown feeding the babies in front of a fireplace in the room.

Anthony says that just hours before a scheduled C-Section, Lopez was busy decorating a downstairs bedroom, and rearranging furniture.

That's what In Touch magazine is reporting on Jennifer Lopez. Read about her Brookville house -- and photos -- here.

Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow will soon have Mom nearby when she's out in the Hamptons.

Sources tell RealLI that Paltrow's mother, actress Blythe Danner, is set to build a house on a vacant parcel adjacent to her daughter’s home in Amagansett.

The Bluff Road property was purchased last month by West Fourth Street Trust for $3.4 million. The Paltrows are said to be the name behind that trust. The sellers were the heirs of author and editor Joel Carmichael, who had lived on the land for 40 years.

In 1966 Carmichael was instrumental in salvaging the circa 1902 Amagansett Life Saving Station by purchasing the building for 75 cents. He paid $10,000 to move the structure to his property where it sat until last year, when it was donated by the family to the Town of East Hampton. Today, it sits behind the East Hampton Marine Museum.

The 2.3-acre Carmichael property was put on the market over a year ago for $6.25 million with Martha Perlin of The Corcoran Group. The property was later subdivided, and sources say that Danner won out in