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Hot sales & listings…with a dollop of gossip by Zoe Langstrom

MADGE MISHIGAS

Even if you’re Madonna you still get mishigas from neighbors. The night before Madge turned 57, she held a gypsy-themed birthday bash at her Bridgehampton property, but an anonymous neighbor complained to the police at 2:30 am that the music was too loud. When the cops arrived, however, all was quiet.  According to Fox News, Madonna threw a “wild” Gypsy-themed party. The festivities included other Hamptonites including “Live!” co-host Kelly Ripa, her husband, Mark Consuelos, and Andy Cohen, host of Watch What Happens Live.

NO LEMONADE FOR YOU

Nor is Jerry Seinfeld immune from ticked off members of the community. According to the New York Post, “a sourpuss neighbor put the squeeze on” the comic’s family lemonade stand set up on the roadside near his East Hampton estate. When picky neighbors complained the police were called in to enforce a village law prohibiting such enterprises. The drink stand was an ongoing family venture to raise funds for Baby Buggy, a charity set up by Seinfeld’s wife, Jessica, which has donated gear such as clothing and strollers to needy children. “Lemonade dreams crushed by local neighbor but not before raising lots of money for @loverecycled,” Jessica wrote on Instagram.

TONIGHT SHOW STALKER

In August neighbors of Late Night host Jimmy Fallon were surprised to witness beefed-up security outside the funny man’s Hamptons property. “A guard in a golf cart has spent hours outside Fallon’s Sagaponack home, sparking fears there’s a threat against the late-night host,” according to Page Six. Happily, an inside source reported that the father of two and his family are not the “target of a stalker,” but just subject to stringent security.

PRESIDENTIAL ESTATE

A historic house on Lily Pond Lane, which was rented by Bill and Hillary Clinton for two summers, has been put on the market for $32.5 million. Designed by John Custis Lawrence in 1920, the landmarked building featuring six fireplaces is owned by developer Elie Hirschfeld, “who is responsible for such New York classics as the Grand Sutton, the Hotel Pennsylvania, and the Crowne Plaza Hotel,” according to The Real Deal. The publication reports that during the Clintons’ first stay they “re-arranged the house’s library by subject matter, to Hirschfeld’s surprise.”

TRENDY HOMES

The U.K.’s Telegraph Luxury magazine has spotlighted a clutch of “the chicest homes for sale” in the Hamptons. First billing is the stunning modern Fred Stelle-designed beach house at 1320 Flying Point Road, which features ocean and Mecox Bay views (listed by Tim Davis of Corcoran, $17.9m). The slide show then goes on to highlight an East Hampton Cotswold-inspired house set on 23 acres of landscaped gardens (listed by Dana Trotter of Sotheby’s, $55m). Another of Tim Davis’s listings is front and center: a palatial ten-bedroom estate designed by Peter Schulte at 385 Great Plains Road ($25.8m). Also featured is a modern waterfront at 40 Dune Road in Bridgehampton, a glass palace with 300 feet of water frontage and panoramic views (listed by Andrea Ackerman of Brown Harris Stevens, $22.995m).

for the birds

When Leslie Mandel, the widow of author Arthur Herzog who penned such bestsellers as The Swarm, died in June friends wondered what would become of the 32 cockatiels she kept in an aviary on her Town Line Road property. Not to worry, Mandel, who was a successful business woman in her own right, bequeathed a trust fund valued at $100,000 for the upkeep of her pet birds. While she left instructions in her will as to how her stepson, Matthew Herzog, should care for them, she apparently removed him as heir to her fortune and replaced his name with her sister’s name in her most recent will. In October, the parties will be duking it out in court. In the meantime, we trust that the birds are being well cared for.

PLUM CRAZY

Plum Island, the subject of conspiracy theories and even an eponymous bestseller, will soon be auctioned off by the federal government. The 840-acre unspoiled spot, east of Orient Point in Gardiner’s Bay, boasts miles of shoreline, large tracts of forest, and a lighthouse. But don’t start planning your dream house yet. Designated as a “research district,” it can only be developed for reasons of research or education. There’s another catch. Its current inhabitants suffer from foot-and-mouth disease – the remote island has been the center of research on the condition. Fortunately, the disease is harmless to humans and is only contagious among cloven-hoofed animals. The date of the auction will be set when a new location in Kansas is ready to host island’s menagerie of pigs, sheep and cows.

LAND’S END

One of the last remaining contiguous parcels of land in Southampton has been put on the market for $34 million. The 20-acre estate with a whopping 3,165 feet of frontage on Bullhead Bay, sunset views across Ram Island and Bullhead and Peconic bays, and a pond boasts a waterside pool and deep-water dock.  The West Neck Lane property of the late Garrick Stephenson, a top “taste arbiter” in the art and antiques world, also has views of the National Golf Links. The listing broker is John Vitello of Brown Harris Stevens.

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