Real LI

Get a glimpse of how artists live — or at least how they work — when the Oysterponds Historical Society’s annual spring house tour next month opens the studio doors of nine North Fork painters and watercolorists.

The artists who will allow you to tramp through their studios as they display their works — much of it landscapes of North Fork vistas — are Kinga Crary, Dom DiLorenzo, Gerard E. Lehner, Sylvia Newman, Suzette Delia Reiss, Alanna Rose (whose painting is seen above), Marianne Weil, Laura Westlake and Marilyn Uhl-Utz. Most of the studios are connected to the artists’ homes in Orient and nearby East Marion.

The tour is from 1 to 4:30 p.m. June 6.

Tickets are $22 ($20 for historical society members), and are available by sending a check to OHS, P.O. Box 70, Orient, N.Y., 11957. Or you can buy them on June 6 at Orient Congregational Church on Main Road. For details, call 631-323-2480 or click here.

— STEVE PARKS

The asking price for this Mattituck house is being reduced by $5,000 every Wednesday until a deal is struck, reports New York magazine. Now at $1.52 million, the 5,200-square-foot, six-bedroom, 4.5-bath house on nearly five acres, which is owned by a builder, started at $2.85 million.

The listing is included in a look at New York-metropolitan area weekend houses in the magazine's "Opportunist Guide to a Cut-Rate Market."

In the Hamptons, the biggest drop in prices has occurred in Bridgehampton, reports the magazine. Still, according to the article, "the really covetable houses aren't being reduced." Says appraiser Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel, homeowners "may think, Maybe next spring."

- VALERIE KELLOGG

The Cutchogue home of author and BBC journalist Alistair Cooke is on the market for $5.2 million. The four-bedroom, 2 ½-bath contemporary house sits on 1.4 acres on the southern tip of Nassau Point, on a bluff overlooking Peconic Bay. There is also a separate guest studio with a half-bath.

British-born Cooke, who died in 2004 at age 95, is perhaps best known for his 22-year stint as host of public television’s "Masterpiece Theatre." The home is being sold by Cooke’s heirs.

The home was built for him in the 1940s by architect William Muschenheim, who also designed the Marine Transportation Building at the 1939 World’s Fair, and the exhibition space which was the precursor to Manhattan’s Guggenheim Museum.

Listing agent Nicole LaBella of The Corcoran Group says that the scenery, with 248 feet of waterfront and views of Shelter Island, is reminiscent of the south of France. “It’s a rare opportunity to find a property like this on the bay.”

To see how Sagaponack inspired interior designer Marshall Watson, check out the September issue of House Beautiful. Watson is a former set designer and Broadway actor, who also played the character of Ernie Ross on the soap opera "As The World Turns" in the early 1980s.

The color scheme of his clients’ vacation home is mostly blues and greens. “This area is famous for a fog that rolls in every morning … the dining room walls are a blue-gray that looks like fog,” Watson says. “The living room sheers are a gray-blue-green, the diaphanous color of the mist and the ocean.” The “hot limey green of the potato fields nearby are reflected in the fabrics found in the living room. To keep the house looking “shipshape” clean, Watson painted all the moldings and many of the walls in a high-gloss milk-white paint.

A retired couple with many children and grandchilden own the home, which was built by architect Sam Mitchell. Like so many second homeowners on the East End, they built the home to bring together their extended family. “They wanted to pull everyone together from disparate parts of the country,” Watson says.

The magazine’s September issue also features a Hamptons beach house, inspired by the design of a luxury yacht, down to the living room’s rounded furniture.

Could the Hamptons be losing the shine in home prices?

Median closing prices for Hamptons and North Fork homes dropped a combined 9.2 percent in the second quarter compared to a year ago, even though spring is considered the strongest season for sales, according to a report commissioned by Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. That means the median closing price is $817,500, compared to $900,000 the same time last year.

The decline was largely due to the Hamptons’ 11.8 percent drop from a year ago, because the North Fork saw closing prices go up by 13.1 percent in the same period, data showed.

“You have a contraction in credit, which diminishes affordability, and you have concerns over the financial services sector in the city, with Wall Street layoffs and bonus cuts,” said chief executive Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel, the Manhattan-based appraisal company that did the report. “Those have an impact on the bulk of the East End market.”

In those regions, figures show second-quarter prices going up by 3.5 percent from the previous quarter, not unusual with more buyers getting out when the weather warms.

The North Fork has been attracting more year-round residents with relatively cheaper prices than the Hamptons. In the second quarter, it had a $605,000 median closing price, versus the Hamptons’ median closing price of $970,000, the report said. That was a 17.8 percent increase from the previous quarter for the North Fork, versus the Hamptons’ 9.9 percent hike, data showed. North Fork homes sold faster and at smaller discounts than Hamptons homes, according to the figures.

Miller said North Fork price hikes may be a blip, because other indicators of real estate health were either flat or showed bigger discounts in prices as houses stayed longer on the market compared to a year ago. For example, it took an average of 133 days to sell a North Fork home during the second quarter, compared to 103 days a year ago.

Paul Brennan, Prudential’s regional director of the Hamptons, said the rich aren’t dropping $20 million easily any more.

“There’s plenty of people looking,” he said. “There’s plenty of activity, but there’s not seriousness about buying. It’s eerie — people out here with lots of money but they’re not spending it.”

The next best thing to living in the heart of wine country is having a vineyard to call your own: Whoever buys this 3,200-square-foot Victorian in Jamesport won't only be across from Martha Clara Vineyards but will be entitled to share a vineyard with their neighbor. Figure on about six rows consisting of about 25 vines of Chardonnay grapes.

The vines, which need cultivating and lots of nurturing, will provide the owner with the opportunity to create his or her own label, says Patricia Wilson of Colony Realty in Jamesport, who is handling the sale of the property.

The asking price for the newly constructed four-bedroom house, which sits on a one-acre parcel, is $725,000.

Looking for something to grace the walls of your North Fork home? For an estimated bid of $80,000 to $120,000, you might be able to snag “The Dock,” a circa-1927 oil painting by Irving Ramsey Wiles, created at “The Mooring,” his summer home and studio in Indian Neck, Peconic.

Wiles summered at the home from 1895 on, and many of his paintings took inspiration from the scenery there. This work depicts the artist’s daughter Gladys on the family dock overlooking Peconic Bay, with Shelter Island in the distance. The painting is part of Doyle New York’s American Art Auction on May 20.

House hunters in the really high-end market may be seeing less of a discount than most.

A year ago, homes for sale in the Hamptons and North Fork were discounted by about 4.5 percent off the listing price, then by 8.1 percent at the end of last year and now by about 9.7 percent, according to the latest quarterly report from Miller Samuel Inc., a Manhattan-based appraiser.

But in the most expensive 10 percent of all sales, the discounts are dwindling. A year ago, the discount was 15.3 percent before it fell to 8.8 percent by the end of last year and then 4.8 percent for the first three months of this year, the report showed.

The inventory of high-end homes waiting for buyers has increased over the past 12 months, and first-quarter sales this year have fallen by 41 percent from a year ago, the appraisal firm said. But median closing prices in 10 percent of the most expensive sales have gone up by 5 percent from a year ago and 26 percent from the last quarter of 2007, the firm calculated.

The report was commissioned by Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate, which specializes in the big-ticket East End sales.

Despite those figures, the appraisal firm’s president, Jonathan Miller, said the upper end of the luxury market is still “doing very well.”

“It’s not like people are buying things at bargain basement prices,” he said.

Long Island agriculture may be almost gone, but the few farmhouses left have "captured a fanciful place" in the collective imagination, according to an article in today's Newsday. "People have a romance with farmhouses," says Mary Ann Spencer, a photographer living in East Setauket and a former board member of the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities. This farmhouse in Cutchogue is now on the market. The McGrath family, picture here, is asking $510,000. Read more about it and other farmhouses for sale by clicking here.

Photo by Ken Spencer

A source has confirmed to REAL LI that a 4 bedroom, 3 bath home in East Quogue has been purchased by William Zysblat, whose company, RZO Productions, has handled business and management affairs for rock icons U2, David Bowie, The Police and the Rolling Stones, among others.

The sale of the oceanfront post modern home on Dune Road closed in December. Zysblat paid $6.2 million. The asking price for the 3,200 sq ft dwelling had been $6.7 million. The property includes 166 feet of ocean frontage on 2.5 acres. The home was designed by Quogue-based architect Jay Sears, and has a heated gunite pool, guest house, and tennis and bocce courts.

Listing agent Lynn November of Prudential Douglas Elliman declined to identify her client or comment on the sale.

The Corcoran Group has announced a record-breaking sale on the North Fork.

According to the company, broker Sheri Winter Clarry recently completed at $19.5 million transaction for 135 acres in Peconic. The property, known as Indian Neck Farms, has a 5,000-square-foot, four-bedroom, five-bath mansion, a working organic farm and a 19-acre vineyard. Fourteen buildings, including two barns and a two-bedroom guesthouse, dot the estate.

Property records show that the land belongs to Pat and Phil Marco. He is an internationally renowned photographer and the recipient of numerous awards for his still-life advertising photography. Marco, who was raised in Brooklyn, has also worked on numerous commercials, and has done filmography for movies such as "The Color of Money," "The Last Temptation of Christ," "Casino" and "Gangs of New York."

The so-called "PURE" house on Leslie Road in Peconic has sold for $1.9 million, says listing agent Sheri Winter Clarry of The Corcoran Group. What drew her client to the house, she says, was “the light that comes into it in any weather…the light is so pure and brilliant.” The home, aptly named “PURE” by its builders, is one of several that the Three Pillars Group has constructed overlooking the Raphael Vineyard.

The exterior design of this newly constructed five-bedroom, six-bath dwelling was influenced by traditional North Fork barns. The loftlike interior is “clean and sleek, with beautiful modern lines,” and lots of windows, Winter Clarry says.

The 5,200-square-foot home has 20-foot ceilings in the great room, a detached guest suite, an art gallery, a library, a pool and a fireplace. The most recent asking price for the one-acre property was $2.25 million.

More summer renters are setting their sights on the North Fork, says Patricia Gleason, senior vice president of The Corcoran Group’s Cutchogue office. Many of these renters, she says, are looking for high-end properties and are opting for extended season leases into September and October.

Gleason just clinched a deal on what she says may be a record price, $90,000, for an extended season rental for a home in Mattituck. “I have not heard of anything higher for this area.” The five-bedroom, 6.5-bath home on Lloyd’s Lane has been leased from the end of April to the end of September. The Long Island Sound-front home is also for sale for $3.4 million.

“There’s a whole different feeling on the North Fork…it’s much more laid back,” she says. “We have beautiful beaches, all with public access, open rural spaces, vineyards and no traffic problems.” Gleason says that renters in September and October enjoy “beautiful weather, changing leaves and fall pumpkin festivals.”

Gleason says that while North Fork rents are still less expensive than those on the South Fork, “the prices are getting closer and closer.” Other recent deals she has closed are a $60,000 summer rental and a $25,000 rental for the month of August.

In the Hamptons, the founder of Dan's Papers is known for his trademark hoaxes, from lions set loose to control North Haven's deer population to butchers donating meat dropped from police helicopters to sharks, right before "Jaws" debuted.

But it was a fake news account about abandoned real estate that really got Dan Rattiner's hoaxes noticed.

Decades ago, when reclusive billionaire businessman Howard Hughes left his Las Vegas penthouse, no one knew where he was. Rattiner put him in Montauk. Hughes' new whereabouts, the newsman wrote, was the "penthouse" of a long-abandoned, seven-story office building in Montauk. The story got tourists and locals staring at the building.

"That was some hoax," Rattiner said. "People believed he was up there, and they were taking pictures."

Continue reading "Dan's Papers founder knows his Hamptons real estate" »

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.

Continue reading "Sagaponack 'barn' for sale has Billy Joel kitchen" »

We reported yesterday that former Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde is putting his Oyster Bay Cove property on the market for close to $7 million.

Now we know why. According to an ESPN.com report, Testaverde has signed a one year contract with the Carolina Panthers. Presumably, the Elmont native will be moving south.

Glen Cove designer Greg Lanza might have staged this Oyster Bay Cove house. But did he need to? Built in 1993, the 12,000-square-foot Contemporary features a lighted tennis court, an indoor pool with sauna and lots of style. "It's very cool ... very sleek," says co-listing agent Deborah Hauser of Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty. Price: $3,999 million.

Billy Joel's Centre Island listing with Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty has expired. See the story here.

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

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