Real LI

The median closing price for the spring house hunting season went up .1 percent from the same time last year for most of Long Island and Queens, according to the second-quarter report commissioned by Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

The $445,450 median is not only a slightly higher than $445,000 median closing price for last year, it’s also higher than the $435,000 median closing price for the first three months of the year. That’s no surprise, considering housing sales warm up as the weather grows warm too.

It’s not clear if that year-over-year increase is a blip. The Multiple Listing Service of Long Island has been consistently reporting drops in median closing prices compared to a year ago.

The quarterly report, prepared by Manhattan-based appraiser Miller Samuel Inc., does not cover North Fork and Hamptons sales, which are done separately.

Hamptons Designer Showcase home, for sale for $12.5 million.

Sagaponack will be a hotbed of design ideas this summer when two world-class designer showhouses open, just minutes from one another.

Prudential Douglas Elliman is the real estate sponsor of this year’s Hamptons Designer Showcase, which kicks off with a gala preview on July 19 at 59 Farm Ct. in Sagaponack. The gala’s honorary chair is the “Prince of Chintz” Mario Buatta. The showcase runs through Aug. 31, with proceeds to benefit Southampton Hospital. The house itself is for sale for $12.5 million, co-listed by Bonny Aarons and Janette Goodstein of Prudential Douglas Elliman and Andrew Saunders of Saunders & Associates. The six-bedroom, 7 ½-bath home has many green features, including geo-thermal heat and solar panels.

At nearby 151 Sagg Main, the 2008 Hamptons Cottages & Gardens Idea House opens with a gala July 25. The 150-year old house, the former home of "From Here to Eternity" author James Jones, has been given a “green” makeover by developer ModernGreenHome and a retinue of architects and designers. Proceeds of the Idea House will benefit five East End charities, including the Peconic Land Trust, the Child Development Center of the Hamptons, Fighting Chance, The Nature Conservancy and The Retreat. The Idea House runs through Aug. 24.

Photographer Peter Beard and wife, Nejma, have gone private in their efforts to sell their five-acre Montauk estate, which has been on the market for nearly three years.

The couple have shared the blufftop property for two decades, listing it for sale in 2005 for $32 million with Linda Stein of Prudential Douglas Elliman. Stein was the “agent to the stars” who was murdered in her Manhattan apartment in October 2007. At the time of Stein’s untimely death, the Beards’ property was listed at $26 million. John Golden of Prudential co-listed with Stein.

Nejma Beard tells REAL LI that the estate was taken off the public market on Dec. 1, 2007, but that is indeed still for sale. “There is no hurry,” Beard says. “I am selling through personal contacts only now, and we have quite a lot of interest. However, I only want someone who is not a developer, who will respect the environment and will not despoil it as so many buying in Montauk have done.”

The property has a carriage house and several cabins, and is the last oceanfront parcel before the Montauk Lighthouse. Property records still bear the name of model Cheryl Tiegs, to whom Beard was once married. The Beards' neighbors include musician Paul Simon and J.Crew chief executive Millard Drexler.

Beard declined to provide details on the current asking price. Of her efforts to find the right buyer, she says, "It is a special and magical place ... One can only ever be a guardian to land, one has to respect it and pass it on to like minds. It is a true sanctuary and needs the right people."

The price has been lowered on Elaine de Kooning’s former studio in East Hampton. The 1.2-acre property went on the market early last year for $2 million. The asking price is now $1.6 million. The home has been used by a succession of creative types including de Kooning, abstract expressionist and scrap-metal sculptor John Chamberlain, and the current owner, abstract artist Richmond Burton.

The 2,500-square-foot studio is located in the Northwest Woods, has 20-foot ceilings and an additional 2,900 square feet of living quarters. It is listed with Josiane Fleming and Robin Kaplan of Prudential Douglas Elliman.

De Kooning was married to abstract expressionist icon Willem de Kooning in 1943. The couple separated in 1957 but never divorced. Elaine moved into this home in the late 1970s and designed and added the studio. Her husband maintained a separate residence in nearby Springs.

Elaine, who died in 1989 (Willem died in 1997), was known for her portraits, including a commissioned painting of President John F. Kennedy, and her "Bacchus" paintings, which Kaplan says were created in the studio.

Real estate developer and author R. Donahue Peebles, who purchased a 10.1-acre Bridgehampton compound last year for $5.39 million, has just added another East End home to his collection.

Florida-based Peebles will close next week on a $1.91 million, three-bedroom waterfront home in Sag Harbor, just minutes away from his current property. He acquired the house in an estate trust auction. Peebles plans to keep both homes, using the Sag Harbor place as a cabana and guest house, says Lori Barbaria of Prudential Douglas Elliman, who represented Peebles in the purchase of both his Long Island homes. He also owns homes in Coral Gables, Fla., and Washington, D.C.

Of the new property, Barbaria says, “It’s very hard to get a house in that location … They rarely hit the market.” Barbaria says that the house is perched high, affording panoramic views across to Shelter Island and Connecticut. “It’s on the only Sag Harbor waterfront that has a real beach in front of it.”

Peebles is the chairman and chief executive of the Peebles Corporation, a Miami real estate development firm. He is currently developing a $2 billion, 13-acre property near the Las Vegas Strip.

Peebles recently raised more than $300,000 in Miami for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. A source tells REAL LI that there has been talk of a possibility that Peebles will host another Obama fundraiser at his Bridgehampton home.

There’s been a price drop on Belle Meade, the Greek Revival mansion in Quogue once owned by Ford Models founders Eileen and Jerry Ford.

The 11-bedroom home originally went on the market with The Corcoran Group last year for $10.5 million. It is now listed with Michael Shaheen of Prudential Douglas Elliman for $8.999 million.

Belle Meade was built in 1906 and is attributed to architect Stanford White. The home is being sold by the heirs of the latest owners, Dr. Robert and Robin Cushing, whose daughter Hilary married at Belle Meade in 1985. The wedding, catered by Martha Stewart, was featured in Stewart’s 1987 book, “Weddings”.

Belle Meade sits on 3.5 acres enclosed by privet hedges. Amenities include a heated Gunite pool and a Har-Tru tennis court.

The new buzz on Shelter Island's Bumble Bee Manor is a drastic price reduction from $35 million to $21.9 million.

The 3.25-acre estate is a co-exclusive between Andrea Ackerman of Prudential Douglas Elliman and Harald Grant and Ingrid Brownyard of Sotheby’s International Realty. Built in 2005, the gated estate overlooks Coecles Harbor with 325 feet of open, expansive waterfront. The 10,000-square-foot cedar-shingle style main house has 16 rooms, a banquet-sized dining room and an elevator, office, fitness room and media room.

Ackerman says that in addition to the estate’s own deepwater dock that will accomodate a yacht, there is also a nearby association dock that can hold any overflow of boats when guests come to party. There’s a three-bedroom guest house, a Caribbean-style poolhouse with a glass cupola and an infinity pool that looks as if it disappears into the harbor.

Bumble Bee Manor first went on the market in 2006. Shelter Island's Shorewood Manor recently sold for $12.4 million after a drastic price reduction from $33 million to $22.4 million.

Dottie Herman, chief executive officer of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate, will be honored June 21 at the 12th annual "Heart of the Hamptons" gala for the American Heart Association. The part-time Hamptonite will join honorees Robert McMahon, president of U.S. Pharmaceuticals, Merck & Co., Inc., Dr. Michael Wolk, past president of the American College of Cardiology, and super model Christie Brinkley, whose Bridgehampton house is on the market with Prudential rival The Corcoran Group. WNBC newsman Chuck Scarborough will be the master of ceremonies for the event, which will be held on the grounds of the Hayground School in Bridgehampton.

Newsday file photo

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.

The Hamptons meets pop culture in Paramount Pictures’ mega-hit, “Iron Man," starring Robert Downey Jr., who got married there, and Amagansett’s own Gwyneth Paltrow. During one scene, Paltrow’s character Pepper Potts rolls her eyes and tells Downey’s character Tony Stark that a painting he's about to buy is not from the artist’s “Springs” period as Stark thinks…it was painted in an area of East Hampton called Springs, where the artist had a studio.

This moviegoer's recollection of the dialogue is that Potts refers to a Willem DeKooning painting; a blogger at Dan’s Papers remembers it as a Jackson Pollock painting. Whether Pollock or DeKooning, both artists did have studios in Springs, and longtime connections to the Hamptons.

Incidentally, the 2,500-square-foot Springs former studio of DeKooning’s wife, Elaine, has been on the market since last year. The most recent listing price is $1.6 million, a reduction from the original $2 million asking price. The studio is listed with Josiane Fleming and Robin Kaplan of Prudential Douglas Elliman.

AP photo

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.

It’s hard to imagine what you could ask for that “The Point” in Westhampton does not already offer. This newly constructed 11,500-square-foot, cedar-shingle Nantucket-style home sits on 2.2 acres with 180-degree views overlooking Moriches Bay, the inlet and the ocean beyond.

The second floor of the home includes a master suite with its own office, fireplace and captain’s deck and three guest suites, each with private baths and terraces. An elevator opens to both the master and guest suites. The property also includes a two-bedroom guest house, a heated pool, cabana with full bath and wet bar, 380 feet of bulkheading, a boardwalk and a deep water dock.

But see the place at your own risk: Listing agent Lynn November of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate says that visitors should “prepare to be overwhelmed by the combination of breathtaking waterviews, gracious elegance, and sweeping grounds of a timeless treasure." The price for the home is equally impressive at $20 million.

For photos of The Point as it was being built, see here.

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.

How has Long Island real estate fared so far this year?

"The pace of inventory growth may be easing," says Jonathan J. Miller, president and chief executive officer of Miller Samuel Inc., the real estate appraisal and consulting firm. "Also given the abundance of weak economic news, price indicators were better than expected, although still weak, ranging from flat to small declines, depending on the market."

First quarter statistics for Long Island and Queens (minus the Hamptons) compiled by Miller Samuel for Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate also show the following:

- The median sales price in Nassau dropped to $449,500, down 2.3 percent. In Suffolk, the median sales price was $360,000, a drop of 6.5 percent.

-The median sales price in the North Shore market was up 6.4 percent, with a median sales price of $750,000.

-In the luxury market, it took an average of 141 days for a property to sell, up from 121 days at the same time last year.

-There were 14,141 listings in Suffolk, an increase of 5.3 percent from the same period last year. "With more inventory competition, properties took an average of 18 days longer to sell," the report says. There were 9.862 listings on the market in Nassau. "Sellers are listing at a pace that is rising faster than the market can support," according to the report.

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.

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.

"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.

A home on First Neck Lane in Southampton, which went into contract in December, sold last month for $8 million. That amount was just shy of the $8.25 million asking price. The owners were real estate investors John and Anthony Punnett, who purchased the property in 2004 for $2.8 million.

The 5,800-square-foot traditional home was built in 1820 and has six bedrooms, 6.5 baths and seven fireplaces. It had recently been renovated and features a heated Gunite pool and a carriage house with fireplace that has been converted to a pool house. Michael Shaheen of Prudential Douglas Elliman had the listing.

Last October, Pat Kennedy Lawford's First Neck Lane home sold for $9.8 million. Read about that home here.

A new BBC Radio documentary features an interview with a former FBI agent who claims that Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger escaped an assassination plot almost 40 years ago, here on Long Island. Details of this plot were also released in a book published in 2001 by thesmokinggun.com.

Despite the downturn in the housing market, the co-listing agents of the Estates at Green Fields in Old Brookville pulled out all the stops for an open house last week. NUVO, a new sparkling vodka, was served at the cocktail party inside a Hamptons-style Colonial at the development. Organizers from Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty and Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate also arranged for the latest Jaguar to be on display. Representatives of Wells Fargo and Preferred Mortgage were on hand to discuss financing with prospective buyers. The development used to be called the Estates at Green Fields.

Photo by Patrick McCarthy

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 listing for Winfield Hall, the Glen Cove estate built in 1917 for businessman F. W. Woolworth, has been removed from the Prudential Douglas EllimanWeb site. Nancy Donin, who had represented the property for the past year, says that the mansion has temporarily been removed from the market while negotiations are under way with a potential buyer who lives outside the United States.

The most recent asking price for the 16.30-acre spread was $19.5 million. In November, a source told REAL LI that the property’s owner, Martin Carey, had rejected an offer of $15 million from the Crown Prince of Dubai. At the time, Donin denied that report saying that the offer had been significantly higher, and that the potential buyer, whom she identified as “an Arab gentleman,” was not the Crown Prince of Dubai.

Carey, brother of former Gov. Hugh Carey, has had Winfield Hall on the market for several years, previously listing with Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty.

This Huntington Bay home once belonged to George B. Cortelyou, who was a cabinet member for President Theodore Roosevelt. Cortelyou often entertained Roosevelt, an Oyster Bay neighbor, and other dignataries at the 1880 house. The 8,000-square-foot home is located on almost 3 acres on the highest point of Huntington Bay. There are nine bedrooms, five baths and four half-baths. The asking price is $3.999 million. "It's a huge house," says Jody Schmid, who is listing the property on behalf of the Huntington office of Prudential Douglas Elliman. "The landscaping is magnificent."

The Southampton oceanfront home of Blue Star Jets owner Todd Rome is under contract. The asking price for the 9,800-square-foot home is $12.5 million.

The 10,000-square-foot cedar-clapboard house, built in 1996, offers views of the ocean. There are eight bedrooms and eight baths. The 1.84-acre property includes a heated pool and a tennis and basketball court.

Public records show that Rome paid $6.05 million for the house in 2005.

Raymond Smith of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate is the listing agent.

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.

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.

Suffolk County and the Town of East Hampton are in contract to buy 26 acres of land in the Northwest Woods for about $7.2 million. The property operated as a summer camp for over 50 years, run by Boys & Girls Harbor, a nonprofit social services organization serving inner city children. The organization was founded in 1937 by Anthony Drexel Duke.

The Suffolk County Legislature passed a resolution in November 2007 mandating that the property be preserved for “passive recreational uses” with walking and jogging trails and “limited active recreational uses” like picnic areas and use of an existing ball field. In 2001, Duke sold 57 adjacent acres on Three Mile Harbor to the town and county for approximately $12 million.

Bryan Midlam of Prudential Douglas Elliman has the listing. The closing is expected by April.

Darius Bikoff, who sold his Queens-based Energy Brands line of VitaminWater and other enhanced drinks to Coca-Cola last year, recently bought an oceanfront home in Sagaponack for $19.250 million. The six-bedroom, 4.5-bath Contemporary is on Daniels Lane. Built in 1986, the 8,000-square-foot house has 170 feet of private waterfront. The 2.50-acre property has a pool and a tennis court.

The owners are Leonard and Phyllis Rosen. Leonard Rosen is the retired founding partner of New York-based law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, which counsels many of the nation's largest companies. According to the firm's Web site, Rosen specialized in representing major institutional lenders in the restructurings and reorganizations of large corporate borrowers

Paul Brennan of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate was the listing agent. The deal closed Jan. 4. The Corcoran Group's Jennifer Mahoney brought the buyer.

Bikoff founded his company, also known as Glaceau, in 1996. He sold the company last year to Coca-Cola for $4.1 billion. He is now running a Coke stand-alone unit.

The owners of actor-comedian Billy Crystal's famed childhood home in Long Beach have reduced the asking price to $649,000, says listing agent Joyce Coletti of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The two-family, two-story house on East Park Avenue had been listed for $679,000. Crystal’s one-man show “700 Sundays,” which included 8mm home movies and photos from his childhood, featured a replica of the home. Crystal left Long Beach in 1976. His brother, Joel, sold the family house in 2002.

How did Paul Brennan rise in real estate to become regional manager of the Hamptons for Prudential Douglas Elliman? Read all about him -- and how he's sold real estate to everyone from Calvin Klein to Ian Schrager -- in Dan Papers.

When a diner at Besito in Roslyn asked about the hullabaloo inside the restaurant last night, he had this to say when told that it was a panel on real estate.

"They better take out their hankerchiefs."

Yet many of the North Shore agents from Prudential Douglas Elliman who attended the event reported that sales are up in their tony territories. "We are selling," said Nahid Akins, executive director of Prudential's North Shore Group/Great Neck. "Houses are moving if the price is right."

The party was actually a meet-the-press event with reporters from The New York Times, Long Island Business News, Anton Community Newspapers and Newsday. (That's yours truly in the royal blue.)

Ron Roel, former Newsday and now head of Roel Resources, real estate editor; Valerie Cotsalas of The New York Times; Valerie Kellogg, Newsday shelter editor; Denise Nash and Angela Anton of Anton Community Newspapers; photo by Richard Lewin