Realty Check

Hot Sales And ListingsWith A Dollop Of Hamptons Gossip

Welcome to Columbus Day! The days are warm and mellow here on the East End, while the nights are crisp and cool. And while some real estate news may have taken a break over the summer, it’s time for the market to get active again. Let’s discuss some Hamptons happenings.

Montauk Mayhem
The good burghers of Montauk are in a tizzy. There’s currently a fight over whether to allow goats to forage on Hither Hills’ Benson Reservation next year. Perhaps more distressingly, the building where local institution White’s — drug store, variety store, all round purveyor of needed items — is housed is up for sale for the first time since 1970. The property, right on the Plaza in the very center of the village, includes the 4,600 square-foot-building set on 0.15 of an acre of land. There is also a basement for storage. No parking spaces are included, but there is a large municipal lot in the back of the property as well as in the front. Asking $4.6 million and available via Lee Minetree at Saunders, the plot is zoned Central Business, which means the space could be an office or a restaurant. Montaukers, already upset that they lost the only doctor in the town, are now distraught at the idea of losing their drugstore.

Meanwhile, Montauk home prices continue to climb. Amazingly, a non-oceanfront unit in the Montauk Shores trailer park is up for sale asking $4.4 million. Originally, the property was listed at $5 million. Unit 200, with 2,150 square feet, is represented by Keller Williams Realty Landmark’s Mackenzie Burniche. The eight-year-old condo unit offers two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a loft, a wraparound deck, and an outdoor shower. 

Yet, even if the unit sold at the current asking price, it wouldn’t set a record for price per square foot. That record was broken earlier this year when a 800-square-foot trailer sold off-market for $3.75 million. The trailer park includes amenities including a rec center, pools, a basketball court and a playground. Most importantly, the community is set right on the most popular surfing spot on the East Coast, which has attracted high-net-worth owners such as the late Jimmy Buffett, billionaire financier Daniel Loeb, and Energy Brands co-founder Darius Bikoff.

Place of Peace 
Lasata, famed for being the young Jackie Kennedy’s family summer home on Further Lane in East Hampton, has a new owner. Supposedly named after a Native American word meaning “place of peace,” the iconic Lasata is now the property of superstar fashion designer Tom Ford. Ford paid $52 million for the non-waterfront property, which went on the market in May asking $55 million.

The seller, David Zander, who purchased the estate in 2018 for $24 million, was repped by Charles Forsman and James Petrie of Compass and Eileen O’Neill of The Corcoran Group. Frank E. Newbold of Sotheby’s International Realty brought the buyer.

The 8,500-square-foot main house, with eight bedrooms, has been sensitively redecorated. There is also a two-bedroom guest cottage, a caretaker’s cottage, a pool house and a three-car garage.

Now including 7.15 acres, the gardens of Lasata were redesigned by French landscape architect Louis Benech, who was careful to preserve old growth linden, London planes, cork and American elm trees. The property was subdivided in 2017, with four acres sold separately.

Laffalot, Why Not?
An historic compound in Southampton’s Art Village has sold for $7.48 million. The property consists of a Dutch Colonial house that resembles William Merritt Chase’s nearby house with its gambrel roof, gabled dormers, inset porches, bay windows and classic old-world materials, clad in cedar and cypress shingles, along with three historic cottages, Laffalot Cottage, Tuck Cottage, and Garden Cottage. These are all set on 2.88 acres with three separate gated entrances to the property. Tim Davis of The Corcoran Group represented the sellers.

The main house offers eight bedrooms, six bathrooms, front and back staircases, two sunrooms, two patios, a gourmet kitchen and a finished lower level. Beautiful period features — original glass windows, fir floors, stone foundations, brick fireplaces — are complemented by stunning original gardens. 

Laffalot Cottage is a two-bedroom, two-bathroom built in 1891 by Katherine Budd, one of America’s first female architects, who studied at Chase’s Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art. Restored, it includes original features like exposed beams, a brick fireplace, fir floors, and cypress shingle.

Tuck Cottage offers one bedroom and one bathroom. It’s “tucked” behind tall hedges and offers its own gated driveway. Garden Cottage is even smaller, but does offer a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom and would be an ideal art studio or pool house. Not enough space? The compound even boasts an original building by Grosvenor Atterbury. Known as the Ballroom, the building includes high ceilings, an original brick fireplace and two bathrooms.