Real LI

Another summer, another Hamptons party scene at The EMM Group Estate, a seven-bedroom mansion on 8 acres in Noyack.

The Estate, which over the past two years has been visited by celebrities such as Aretha Franklin, Mary Kate Olsen, James Blunt and Mischa Barton, will be open for its third season of private parties for “a select group of influencers” who will be treated to hotel-like amenities and entertainment.

The home has 10,000 square feet of living space, six fireplaces, tennis courts and an Olympic-sized swimming pool with a fountain. The spread is owned by EMM Group’s Eugene Remm, Mark Birnbaum and Michael Hirstenstein, who are also responsible for Manhattan’s Tenjune nightspot.

Other celebs who’ve partied at the Estate include Russell Simmons, Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Ryan Seacrest.

- LAURA MANN

Dragon's Head, the controversial Southampton castle on Meadow Lane, is finally being torn down, says one eyewitness. Owner Calvin Klein wants to build a smaller home on the beachfront site.

- VALERIE KELLOGG

Photo by Karli Kittine

Southampton village officials held a press conference this week to announce that even day workers can't find work in this economy. Falling behind in their rent, about a half-dozen are living in makeshift homes near the Long Island Rail Road tracks. Read more here.

- VALERIE KELLOGG

Photo by James Carbone

Another star of "The Real Housewives of New York City" is trying to rent out her Hamptons digs.

Ramona Singer is asking $295,000 to live in her Southampton home for the Memorial-Day-to-Labor Day-season.

The 7,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style house has been featured several times in the hit cable TV show, now in its second season. It has six bedrooms and six bathrooms. The property has a bocce court, a heated pool and a sunken har-tru tennis court. The lower level has a 70-inch flat screen TV and a pool table.

For July and August, Singer is asking $180,000. The asking price for the rental from August to Labor is $100,000. For July only, $90,000.

Kelly Killoren Bensimon is trying to rent out her home in East Hampton , which is also on the market for $10.9 million.

- VALERIE KELLOGG

This house in Southampton is for sale.

Retake this photo, please ...

The oceanfront Dragon's Head estate in Southampton Village is going to be torn down. Southhampton has given the demolition the OK, allowing Calvin Klein to move ahead with plans to build a 17,850-square-foot home.

Here's the latest shelter scuttlebutt on the new season of "The Real Housewives of New York City," which starts Feb. 17 on Bravo: The show will be back in the Hamptons.

Star reports that chef Bethenny Frankel will stay with Jill Zarin at her summer home on the East End. Zarin says her house is in the Sag Harbor-Water Mill area. It’s the same home featured in the first season of the hit show.

Public records show that Ramona Singer and Countess LuAnn de Lesseps also have places on the East End -- Singer in Southampton and de Lesseps in Bridgehampton. Alex McCord and husband, Simon van Kempen, tell Newsday that they rented a house in East Hampton over Memorial Day weekend and another in Southampton for the July 4 weekend. Other weekends, they stayed with friends in Water Mill, they say.

And where does new cast member Kelly Killoren Bensimon likes to hang her tennis racket when she’s out East? In East Hampton, where, she tells Newsday, she owns a house she built.

Sag Harbor resident Libby Langdon has some advice for anyone who lives in a small space: Use color on your walls, go for well-proportioned furniture and look for big accessories. These are just some of the tips she offers in her forthcoming book "Libby Langdon's Small Space Solutions" (Knack, $24.99).

Langdon -- who has decorated homes from Southampton to Sagaponack -- appears regularly on HGTV's "Small Space, Big Style."

The neighbors on Meadow Lane in Southampton need to wait a bit before taking the welcome wagon to a nine-bedroom, 9 ½- bath mansion until very recently owned by Lauren and John Veronis. The home fetched $27 million in a sale recorded Jan. 2.

The buyer, according to public records, is one James M. Nicholson, who apparently has had a change of heart. The home is already back on the market for $33 million with Sotheby’s International Realty. The exclusive agent is John McHugh of Sotheby’s Southampton office. McHugh confirmed that the 1.95-acre property is back on the market, but declined to give any further details.

Two real estate sources say the sale took months to close. One says the buyer kept renegotiating. “He didn’t want to close,” the source says. “But he didn’t want to walk away from his deposit.”

Nicholson could not be reached for comment.

Records show that John and Lauren Veronis originally purchased the estate for $3.7 million in 1992 from infomercial king Ira Smolev. John Veronis is co-founder and managing partner of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, an independent media merchant bank. He also founded the magazine Psychology Today. Lauren Veronis is a philanthropist and socialite who is also the mother of newswoman Perri Peltz.

The estate boasts 222 feet of oceanfront, a heated gunite pool, a covered deck, a 55-foot gunite pool and a sunken Har-Tru tennis court.

Another house on Meadow Lane in Southampton has sold for an impressive price.

Public records show that a six-bedroom, 7-½-bath home owned by John and Lauren Veronis fetched $27 million recently. The sale was recorded Jan. 2.

Veronis is co-founder and managing partner of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, an independent media merchant bank. He also founded the magazine Psychology Today, and was once editor of Ladies Home Journal. Lauren Veronis is a philanthropist and socialite who is also the mother of newswoman Perri Peltz.

According to records, the couple purchased the 1.95-acre property in 1992 for $3.7 million from infomercial king Ira Smolev.

Seems like oceanfront property on Meadow Lane is a very good investment. In 2007, 7.5 acres of vacant land sold for $35 million, and media executive Robert F.X. Sillerman paid $30.5 million for a home next door to the one he already owns. Howard Stern and then-fiancee Beth Ostrosky also reportedly paid $1 million to rent a home on Meadow Lane for a year.

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.

Lydia Bach -- whose fitness studios on the Upper East Side and on Butter Lane in Bridgehampton have attracted A-list clientele for the past three decades -- has sold her home on First Neck Lane in Southampton for $6.5 million, records show.

Bach developed and popularized the Lotte Berk Method, a fitness regime that Kelly Ripa once said was the “most incredible” workout she had ever done.

Public records show that the home sits on .72 acres. Property taxes are $11,275 a year. The Victorian home has 10 bedrooms and six baths, a grand reception hall and a formal dining room.

Records show that the buyers are a British couple, Nigel and Bambi Lee Goodhew. He is an executive in the restaurant and catering business, and she is an interior decorator.

In 2007, Patricia Kennedy Lawford’s estate sold her home on First Neck Lane for $9.8 million.

George Simpson of the Suffolk Research Service, Inc. has released his third quarter 2008 report on Long Island’s East End real estate market. As expected, the numbers look grim compared to the third quarter last year.

According to the report, median prices for single family homes in all five East End towns fell 14.6 percent, from $717,000 in the third quarter of 2007, to $612,500 in the same period this year. There was an even bigger decrease in the total dollar sales figure, which dropped 46.9 percent, from just over $1 billion in the third quarter of 2007 to $534 million for the third quarter of 2008.

Of the five towns, Shelter Island had the largest drop in total dollar sales (-59.1 percent) followed by East Hampton (-56.5 percent). Southampton had the largest drop in median prices (-26.8 percent), followed by East Hampton (-17.5 percent). The one bright spot in the report was Shelter Island’s median sales price, which rose 4.1 percent, from $860,000 to $895,000.

Despite the gloomy numbers, the East End real estate market stills fares well when put into perspective. In the the third quarter of 2000, the median sales price for a home in the five towns was a relatively low $280,000.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that author Truman Capote’s former Sagaponack home is being listed for $14.6 million with Sotheby’s International Realty. The listing, which went online within the past two days, has since been pulled from Sotheby’s Web site. For a peek at the cached version of the listing, check out the Big Time Listings real estate blog.

Capote’s home is currently owned by painter Ross Bleckner, who reportedly purchased the 4-acre property in 1993 for $800,000. The property includes a 2,000-square-foot main house, a two-bedroom guesthouse and an artist’s studio. Capote is said to have lived in the saltbox house until his death in 1984.

The home was profiled in August in Hampton Style magazine.

It seems all the recent bad economic news has not dimmed the expectations of those in the Hamptons real estate game. A 4.08-acre property on Meadow Lane in Southampton is set to hit the market soon with a pricetag of $38 million, sources tell Newsday.

According to public records, the oceanfront mansion was owned by Virginia Salomon, who died last month. She was married to Citigroup’s honorary chairman William R. Salomon for more than 70 years. He was former managing partner at Salomon Brothers, Inc. before it became part of Citigroup. The couple has a department named after them at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan.

Records show the 6,000 square foot house, built in 1992, has six bedrooms and eight baths, with a gunite pool. Annual taxes are $43,595. The mortgage on the property was with Citibank, naturally. The property is just west of designer Calvin Klein's home.

Listing agents Jack Hangen and Robert Lohman of Century 21 Agawam Albertson Realty could not be reached for comment.

Oceanfront property on Meadow Lane commands hefty prices. In 2007 alone, 7.5 acres of vacant land sold for $35 million. That same summer, media executive Robert F.X. Sillerman reportedly paid $30.5 million -- $1 million more than the asking price -- for a Meadow Lane home next to the one he already owns. Radio personality Howard Stern and then-fiancee Beth Ostrosky reportedly paid $1 million to rent a Meadow Lane home for the year. This past summer, Harald Grant of Sotheby’s International Realty listed a Memorial Day-through-Labor Day rental there for $1 million.

According to an article in the August issue of Vanity Fair, Southampton residents have been occupying themselves with the “parlor game for the summer” which involves trying to figure out just who really bought the former Marty Richards mansion at 104 Gin Lane.

The home sold for $60 million in March to South Lane Properties LLC. At the time, Tiger Woods was reported to be the buyer, but he has denied his involvement in the sale, as has real estate agent Beate Moore, who handled the deal through Sotheby’s International Realty.

Now Southampton developer Kim Pape weighs in, telling the magazine, “I’ve heard it’s Tiger Woods after all.”

Pape’s source? “The seller told someone who told me.”

Forget the gift registry at Tiffany’s. When the King of All Media and his longtime girlfriend Beth Ostrosky get married later this summer, they’ve requested that guests acknowledge their wedding with a donation to the Hamptons Wildlife Rescue Center.

Ostrosky, who is marrying shock jock Howard Stern in a matter of weeks, tells Hamptons magazine, “We live in the Hamptons, the wildlife surrounds us, and it’s so amazing and beautiful. Howard and I want to protect and help them. Donations to the Hamptons Wildlife Rescue Center are all we want.”

The blond beauty models wedding dresses in the cover story of the magazine’s current issue. The photo shoot took place in the East Hampton gardens of interior designers Tony Ingrao and Randy Kemper, who decorated the 16,000-square-foot beachfront home that Stern recently built, reportedly on a 2-plus acres parcel on Squabble Lane in Southampton. Public records show that the property was bought by a limited liability corporation for $18.75 million in 2005.

Ostrosky tells Hamptons magazine that the couple will wed privately this summer and will invite their families to spend a weekend at the house they now consider home. Weekends are spent in the Hamptons, and Stern and his fiancée plan to honeymoon out East as well. “There’s no place we’d rather be,” she says. Favorite haunts include the Red/Bar Brasserie in Southampton for dinner, the Green Thumb in Water Mill for organic produce, and the Wolffer Estate for a favorite wine.

The pair will follow up their wedding with an October reception in Manhattan with 150 invitees. “It’s going to be a beautiful next few months for us,” she says

When Kelly Ripa and husband, Mark Consuelos, head out to the Hamptons, the plan is to have no plan, the actress and star of "Live with Regis and Kelly" tells Hamptons magazine in the cover story of the current issue. “I spend far more time cooking in the Hamptons, where I actually have time,” Ripa says.

According to the magazine, the Ripa and Consuelos and their three children decamp at a year-round house in Bridgehampton, where the newly installed backyard fire-pit is a main attraction. “It’s stone and really nice,” Ripa says. “We have Adirondack chairs around it. We make s’mores and the kids get so excited. Then we put them right to bed since they’re too tired to take a bath after that, and they wake up in the morning and smell a little like smoked hams.” Ripa burns off the s’mores by running several times a week. In the Hamptons, running is, “like a religious experience. It’s so beautiful.”

But don’t expect to see the family out and about. Ripa prefers to spend her Hamptons time at home. “We’re really not on the scene … it seems like we’re everywhere, but we’re not.” Ripa does get out for charity events including her annual stint at hosting the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund’s Super Saturday, which will be held this year on July 26.

Real estate sources have confirmed reports that talk show host Rachel Ray has finally closed on a 6.2 acre Southampton home that she and husband John Cusimano contracted to buy last year for nearly $3 million.

Ray’s publicist Charlie Dougiello told Newsday that the closing, “was held up because of an encrochment issue between the former owner and a neighbor.”

Published reports have indicated that the neighbor in question is the Southampton Golf Club. Now that the dispute is settled, the couple and their pooch Isaboo have the run of the place. When asked recently about their plans for the summer, Cusimano told OK! Magazine, “we may go out to Long Island and spend time at the beach with our dog, who is so spoiled!”

Getty Images photo

Supermodel Elle MacPherson has fond memories of summers lived in a one-bedroom shack at the end of Dune Road in Southampton. “It was the most elegant space on the street -- discreet and tiny,” she tells Hamptons magazine in its latest cover story.

Australia-born MacPherson especially enjoyed partying in the Hamptons on July 4, where “everyone dressed up in red, white and blue, and we went to lots of barbecues. I remember much sangria; I remember buying fresh vegetables at the roadside markets,” she tells the magazine. “I’m a huge fan of American culture. I appreciate the rebel spirit of Americans -- I think it’s something Australians share.”

The former Victoria’s Secret model has had a top-selling intimate apparel line for almost 20 years in Europe and Australia. She recently launched a new line of intimates called Boudoir, available to the American market at upscale stores like Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.

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.

Even if you’ve just spent millions of dollars on a new vacation home, you’ll never really fit in out East until you understand the local lingo and the ways of the uber rich. Thankfully, just in time for summer, two new guides are here to help.

Last year, Miles Jaffe, son of reknowned architect Norman Jaffe, self-published his satirical "Hamptons Dictionary: The Essential Guide to Class Warfare". Now he’s back with an expanded and upgraded "platinum" edition published by The Disinformation Company ($17.95).

Whether you’re in BriHa (Bridgehampton), EaHa (East Hampton), SoHa (Southampton), NoHi (North of Montauk Hightway) or SoHi (South of Montauk Highway), it’s all “unreal estate” in the Hamptons. Renting a share for the summer? Then you’re a “hampster” or a “grouper,” or better yet, a “bottom feeder." Saw a Hamptons home listed for sale for less than $1 million? That’s called “affordable housing.” Don’t know what to call your neighbor’s newly built 10,000-square-foot house? It’s a “McMansion” or “megacottage” and your neighbor is a “McMoron” living in a “rich man’s Levittown.”

If you’re still perplexed about the ways of the truly rich, The Official Filthy Rich Handbook" (Workman Publishing, $11.95). will help. The new title pokes fun at the way the rich dress, shop, party and vacation. Summer hotspots include the Hamptons, of course, where Amagansett, Springs and Sag Harbor are “hippie-luxe”; East Hampton is a refuge for “WASPs”, and Southampton has become somewhat “flash.”

The book also has practical advice for anyone in the new-money set, like a list of star-worthy decorators that includes Hamptonites Campion Platt, Jamie Drake and Victoria Hagan. There's even a primer on staffing your new house, making sure to keep straight the pecking order and duties of a housekeeper, a nanny, a chauffer, a valet, a maid and a chef. And if you're looking for a place to network, skip the Maidstone Club unless you're a true blue-blood, and check the listings on The Atlantic Golf Club or The Bridge, both in Bridgehampton, or the Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton.

For those not interested in the Hamptons scene, the Handbook also gives a nod to Long Island's North Shore with an entry on Locust Valley, where $18 million will get you a waterfront Mediterranean-style mansion and neighbors like Nelson Doubleday Jr.

This house in Southampton is for sale.

Yes, the home needs a lot of work.

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.

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.

"Sagaponack was the most expensive Hamptons enclave," reports The New York Observer, which is basing its data on numbers from Jonathan Miller. Other findings: East Hampton was the second most expensive, followed by Southampton, Amagansett and Quogue.

Last month, the East End was abuzz with news that golfer Tiger Woods may have purchased a home on Gin Lane in Southampton for $65 million. Woods steadfastly denied that rumor, as did listing agent Beate Moore of Sotheby's International Realty.

Rumors have now begun to circulate that hedgefunder David "Tiger" Williams is the new owner of the property. However, REAL LI has been assured by a source very close to Williams that while he does have a home in the Hamptons, he is not the buyer of the Gin Lane property.

What we do know for sure is that the final sales price of the home was $60 million and the new owner is South Lane Properties LLC, a Delaware limited liability corporation. We may just have to wait until the moving trucks pull up to find out more.

REAL LI had been hearing whispers, and then The Palm Beach Daily News reported yesterday that Donald A. Burns closed Monday on the sale of Old Trees, the 10-acre Southampton compound that has been listed for $48 million with Harald Grant of Sotheby’s International Realty.

Grant confirmed to REAL LI that the sale had indeed closed but cited a confidentiality agreement in not providing further details.

The News reported that the buyer is Manhattan real estate developer Rodney Propp and that the sale price was $40 million. When the News asked Burns if he had chartered a separate plane to carry his millions, Burns replied, "Not necessarily. Minus the commish."

Old Trees was built on Lake Agawam in 1911.The 15,000-square-foot home has 13 bedrooms and a dining room that seats 60 people. It had been on the market since 2006.

Propp currently has his six bedroom Bridgehampton home on the market for $13.995 million, listed with Susan Breitenbach of the Corcoran Group.

Propp could not be reached for comment on either sale.

Sources tell RealLI that Old Trees in Southampton closed for $40 million. The 10-acre compound had been listed since 1996, most recently for $48 million. Read more about 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.

Property records show that the Gin Lane house in Southampton that Tiger Woods' representatives have denied he has purchased sold for $60 million. The asking price was $65 million. The new owner is South Lane Properties LLC, a Delaware limited liability corporation. And the seller, as RealLI has reported, was Ivar W. Mitchell. South Lane Properties formed in Jan. 24, and listed attorney Charles T. Dowling as the manager earlier this month. Dowling, an attorney for Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in Manhattan, could not be reached for comment.

It seems that the Tiger Woods story just won’t go away. The East End real estate world is still abuzz with the news that Woods may or may not have purchased a $65 million home on Gin Lane in Southampton.

On Monday, RealLI reported that the sale of the home, listed with Beate Moore of Sotheby’s International Realty, had closed last week. On Tuesday, a New York Post story declared that Woods was the buyer of the 6-acre property.

Both Moore and representatives for the golfer steadfastly denied the Post’s claim, yet the paper says that it stands by the story.

And now this from the Long Island Business News: David Winzelberg reports that his sources say that Woods is indeed the buyer, having paid full price for the mansion. (We had heard the closing price was closer to $62.5 million). Winzelberg says that other bidders for the home may have included designer Ralph Lauren and money manager Eddie Lampert.

As Winzelberg says, stay tuned.

A representative for Tiger Woods today denied reports that the golfer is purchasing a home in the Hamptons. The woman fielding phone calls at agent Mark Steinberg’s office said the claim is “totally false.”

Beate Moore of Sotheby’s International Realty — the listing agent for the $65 million Southampton estate Woods was said to have bought — continued to cite a strict confidentiality agreement in not revealing the parties involved in the sale last week. But she said she is “stunned” by a New York Post story that Woods was the purchaser.

“It is hilarious ... I don’t know where this comes from,” said Moore, adding, “there’s not an ounce of truth to it.”

Through a spokeswoman, Post editor in chief Col Allan, when asked about the veracity of the report, said, “We stand by our story," declining to elaborate further.

As Newsday reported yesterday, the deal closed a week ago on the home, which was once owned by film producer Marty Richards and wife, Mary Lea Johnson, granddaughter of the founder of Johnson & Johnson.

Real estate records list the current owner as 1776 Investments Corp. Public records show that 1776 Investments Corp. is headed by Ivar W. Mitchell, managing director of Andlinger & Co., Inc., a private investment and management firm with offices in the United States and Europe.

Local residents said today that the report has created a media frenzy, with helicopters circling the Gin Lane estate and vehicles parked outside.

Just catching up with this one: Back in January, Kelly Ripa talked about what it was like to eat dinner with husband, actor Mark Consuelos, at Howard Stern and Beth Ostrovsky's house rental in the Hamptons. In the clip from "Live with Regis and Kelly," Ripa said, "He's building a house, you know, out there, so he's renting a house and it's gorgeous." She went on to tell Regis Philbin that the salmon dinner in Southampton actually took place last summer. "The boys talked about architecture because we had just renovated our apartment, and they're building this house, and they looked over blueprints," Ripa said. Read more about the house Stern is building here.

Talk about a quick turnaround.

A Southampton house listed for $65 million — which hit the market in January and went into contract a month later — recently closed. When asked about the final selling price, Beate Moore, the Sotheby’s International Realty listing agent, said, “It was a big number, that’s all I can say.” Moore told Newsday in February that she expected the owner to get close to the asking price.

The eight-bedroom, 8.5-bath Gin Lane mansion, which closed last Tuesday, once belonged to film producer Marty Richards and his wife, Mary Lea Johnson, granddaughter of the founder of the Johnson & Johnson Company.

Moore declined to give the identity of the buyer or seller, citing a strict confidentiality agreement. Public records show the seller is listed as 1776 Investments Corp. That corporation is headed by Ivar W. Mitchell, managing director of Andlinger & Co., Inc., a private investment and management firm with offices in the United States and Europe.

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 five-bedroom, five-bath Norman Jaffe-designed home on Meadow Lane in Southampton is now in contract. The oceanfront dwelling, built in 1986, sits on 4.2 acres and has a heated Gunite pool and outdoor spa.

The asking price for the property was $26 million; a source tells REAL LI that the sales price is closer to $18 million.

Listing agent Pat Petrillo of Sotheby’s International Realty acknowledged that the home was in contract, but would not discuss the parties involved in the sale or the sale price, other than to say, “we’re proud of it.”

Public records indicate that the home is currently owned by Amy and Van Greenfield. She is managing partner of Van Prooyen Greenfield Llp, a law firm that specializes in providing strategic communications counsel. He is the founder of several investment and money management firms, including Blue River Capital Llc. Three years ago, the SEC accused Greenfield of securing a spot on WorldCom Inc.'s creditors' committee in 2002 by falsely claiming to own $400 million of the company's bonds. Greenfield paid $150,000 to settle the case without admitting or denying wrongdoing.

The Greenfields’ home, which records show was purchased in 1999 for $659,000, is next door to one owned by former ITT chairman Rand Araskog, who is currently a board member at Cablevision.

Beate Moore’s $65 million Gin Lane listing is now “under contract” according to the Sotheby’s International Realty website. The 8 bedroom, 8.5 bath Southampton mansion once belonged to film producer Marty Richards and his wife Mary Lea Johnson, granddaughter of the founder of the Johnson & Johnson Company.

When asked about the current deal, Moore would not divulge any details citing a strict confidentiality agreement.

Last month Moore told REAL LI that there had been “a lot of activity” and that she expected the seller would get close to the asking price.

Real estate records list the current owner as 1776 Investments Corp. Public records show that 1776 Investments Corp. is headed by Ivar W. Mitchell, managing director of Andlinger & Co., Inc., a private investment and management firm with offices in the United States and Europe.

Moore is also listing several other properties with high pricetags including a $1 million summer rental in Sagaponack that is also on the market for $19.95 million.

The latest time Southampton town reassessed all 51,000 residential parcels was 2006, reports today's Newsday. "There were about 9,000 grievances. So many people were angered that the town canceled a 2007 reassessment." Can you guess what might happen this time? Read on.

The New York Post's real estate cover story today is about The Estate. As Newsday reported back in June, it's "the newest hot spot in the Hamptons" with "an eight-acre Southampton spread" owned by Eugene Remm and Mark Birnbaum, proprietors of the Manhattan A-list nightspot Tenjune. As Laura Mann reported, "The seven-bedroom, 8 1/2-bath mansion -- which has 10,000 square feet of living space, six fireplaces, tennis courts and an Olympic-sized swimming pool -- will be hosting celebrity guests at private parties all season." The piece went on: "Remm and Birnbaum have created what they call a 'recreational oasis' for a 'select group of influencers' who will enjoy luxury hotel-like amenities, entertainment and chauffeur service. Actor Kevin Spacey was among the guests at The Estate's private dinner on Memorial Day weekend to celebrate the opening of designer John Varvatos' new East Hampton store. Other celebrity guests expected this summer include Scarlett Johansson, Eve, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Serena Williams." The Post's report also lists James Blunt, David Blaine, Mischa Barton and Michelle Rodriguez as guests at the Sag Harbor house.

AP photo

Are seven-figure summer rentals becoming commonplace?

Last month, Beate Moore of Sotheby's International Realty listed a landlocked Sagaponack home for $1 million for summer 2008. Another million dollar rental has now hit the market, this time a 6-bedroom oceanfront contemporary dwelling designed by Norman Jaffe.

Harald Grant of Sotheby's International Realty is listing the Memorial Day through Labor Day rental situated on Meadow Lane in Southampton. The 6,500 sq. ft. home sits on more than 4 acres, with 200 ft of ocean frontage, and has a Gunite pool and sunken tennis courts.

This is at least the second year in a row that Grant has listed a home for that amount, although he declined to give details of last year's rental, other than the price, when questioned by Newsday earlier this month.

Looking to transform your summer place into a year-round retreat? The February 2008 issue of House Beautiful features Ashley Whittaker’s design makeover of a Southampton home.

Whitakker used bright colors and warm materials like velvet and cashmere to make the house light in the summer and cozy in the winter. Whittaker says colors like turquoise in the dining room and sunroom make sense in all seasons, brightening “even the grayest of February days…it has great impact and sets a tone for the colors throughout.”

But don’t pick your color swatches before a outlining a furniture plan. “I don't even think about fabrics or colors until I have a furniture plan in my mind…. it really is the most important aspect of designing a great room,” she says.

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

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

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

Matthias von Wrede, former manager at Engel & Volkers Southampton, faces five to 20 years in prison for possessing "a video of girls younger than 10 engaging in intercourse, a photograph depicting the 'sexual killing' of a child, video of sadomasochistic torture, and images of babies being sexually abused." Read the full report here.

Newsday file photo, 2006 / Ken Sawchuk

A source tells Real LI that Old Trees, the 1911 Southampton estate owned by financier Donald Burns, is in contract. The current asking price is $48 million.

The 10-acre compound has been on the market since 2006. Situated on Lake Agawam, the 15,000-square-foot home has 13 bedrooms and a dining room that seats 60 people.

Listing agent Harald Grant of Sotheby’s International Realty did not return a call about the sale, but last May Grant told Newsday: “It’s probably the premiere estate in the Hamptons. I am fortunate to have it as a listing.”

The home was previously listed with Jay Flagg of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein had reportedly offered $41 million for the property early last year, rescinding the offer once word of the sale leaked to the press.

Another Gin Lane estate has hit market with an astounding price tag, this time $65 million. Listing agent Beate Moore of Sotheby’s International Realty tells Newsday that there “has been a lot of activity” on the Southampton property and that seller should get his asking price.

Moore says that the eight-bedroom. 8.5-bath, 13,000-square-foot oceanfront home was once owned by film producer Marty Richards and his wife Mary Lea Johnson, daughter of J. Seward Johnson, Sr., whose father founded the Johnson & Johnson Company. The current owner, she says, is a “European gentleman” who owns several other homes and “does not want such a beautiful house to sit empty”.

Public records show the mansion was purchased from Richards in 2003 for $23 million by 1776 Investments. Moore says the current owner renovated the home “to the highest standards” at an expense of over $20 million. The house, originally built in 1924, has five fireplaces, a music room, a library paneled with cypress wood, and a living room that overlooks a bluestone terrace and the ocean. There’s also a guesthouse and an olympic-sized pool, lily pond and rose gardens.

Moore says there is also 400 feet of ocean frontage with a deep rock revetment so that the house, “will never fall into the ocean.”