Realty Check

Former Warhol Estate Sold
Having been marketed for $85 million, the 30.4-acre Montauk estate Eothen, AKA the Warhol Estate, is in contract to be sold to Adam Lindemann, a billionaire art collector with a gallery on Madison Avenue. While the price has not been divulged, scuttlebutt has it at circa $50 million. The property, being sold by J Crew CEO Mickey Drexler who purchased it in 2007 for $27 million, includes an oceanfront main house, six small cottages and more than 24 acres of pasture. Now Lindemann just needs to sell his nearby house, reportedly on the market for $29.5 million.

Ch-Ch-Changes
Brown Harris Stevens has named Robert M. Nelson as senior managing director of all seven of the firm’s Hamptons and North Fork offices. The 31-year veteran who has closed more than 1,000 properties, will be directly managing the Southampton, Westhampton Beach and Sag Harbor offices. The announcement was made by William Zeckendorf, the co-owner and co-chairman of Terra Holdings, the parent company of Brown Harris Stevens, who lauded Nelson for his “innovative marketing savvy, trusted counsel and dedication to clients and the community.”

Sotheby’s has appointed Dianne LeVerrier as Brokerage Manager of its Bridgehampton office. The lawyer brings 15 years of experience in litigating land use, real estate and environmental matters. While a partner at Jordan & LeVerrier P.C. in New York, she worked closely with Sotheby’s on various transactions and litigation. In 2006 she founded the LeVerrier Law Firm in East Hampton to provide representation in land use, environmental and tort cases. She is succeeding Debra Reece, who will be living her dream in her new role as Brokerage Manager of the company’s Palm Beach operations.

Quogue Bidding War
One of the oldest residences in Quogue was sold after a bidding war by five parties that pumped the price up by several hundred thousand dollars. Built in 1734, the “Miss Mary Post House,” straddling two acres on Quogue Street and hidden from view by mature foliage, still contains many of its old-world characteristics including wide plank pine flooring, cast iron registers, wainscoting, bead board ceilings, and exposed hand-hewn beams. Later additions feature a first floor master bedroom, sunroom with brick fireplace and skylights, and of course a Gunite pool with a bluestone patio. The five-bedroom, five-bath residence, listed for $2.5 million by Marcia Altman of Brown Harris Stevens, was sold for $2.9 million. “I was taken by surprise,” says Altman.

On Its Last Legs
Call it the end of an era. The infamous large scale Larry Rivers sculpture known as “Legs,” will finally be removed from the side of a Sag Harbor home where they have irreverently straddled the side of the former church since 2008. Once called a “sassy pair of female legs in retro stockings stepping out into Sag Harbor’s historic district,” by the New York Times, the 16-foot controversial gams outside the house of gallerists Ruth Vered and Janet Lehr, have been the center of a legal battle for more than seven years. According to Curbed Hamptons, the “statue was deemed by the town board a structure that required variances (which have all been denied) because it was too tall, too close to the property line, and protruded into the sky plane.” The final coup de grace was a decision by the state supreme court, which agreed with the Zoning Board of Appeals who determined that the legs were a “structure.” We have a one-word response: Really?

11 Shades of Grey
Grey Gardens, the storied home of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, “Little Edie,” has been rented from September through July, according to listing agent Gary DePersia of Corcoran. Homeowner and journalist extraordinaire, Sally Quinn, will be in residence during August. The 11-month rental of the seven-bedroom home/6.5 bathroom abode, designed in 1897 by Joseph Greenleaf Thorpe, was listed at $175,000.

Architectural Gem
The Amagansett home of Francis Fleetwood, once called “the architect for the A-list in the Hamptons” by Forbes magazine, has been put on the market for $11.5 million. Known for resurrecting the area’s Gilded Age Shingle Style, the prolific architect who died in May designed more than 200 such local edifices in his outstanding career. The imposing residence, smack dab in the tony Devon Colony, boasts Fleetwood’s signature motifs from colonnades to sweeping verandas. While set atop a knoll on an almost unheard of 33.67 acres of land with open views of sky and a pond, the house is small for Hamptons’ standards at 3,600 square feet. The architect, whose clients included Calvin Klein, Paul McCartney, and Lauren Bacall, told friends that the massive porches make it look bigger. The listing is by Tim Davis of Corcoran.

Price Chop
The asking price of a 23-acre horse farm on the fringes of East Hampton Village has been reduced by a whopping $16 million. Listed in June for $55 million, it is now asking $39 million. The huge estate – an unbelievable size so close to town – boasts a “Cotswold-inspired” 18,000 square-foot main house, stables, paddocks, riding fields, a six-bedroom guest house with its own 20 x 50 foot saltwater pool with underwater music, two smaller guests houses, fabulous gardens and on and on. Perhaps the biggest draw is that it is divided into 11 parcels with zoning flexibility, making it a “dream family compound or equestrian estate opportunity,” according to the listing by Dana Trotter of Sotheby’s.