The former SNL fall-downer and current Community curmudgeon sold the property back in 2001, but for years he roamed the historic home, presumably bought with his Cops & Robbersons riches. Now it can be yours, for $33M.
A stormy winter has taken a toll on beaches in the Hamptons, and repair crews have worked non-stop rebuilding dunes and constructing sea walls. But this endangered bird's nesting season starts soon and crews have only until Friday to finish.
• Conan O'Brien's tenure as Tonight Show host has ended, but it looks like he and wife Liza may be planning to stay in LA, since they're reportedly looking to unload their penthouse duplex at the Majestic on Central Park West. The 17th and 18th-floor spread, which features three terraces and Central Park Views, is being "quietly" shopped around for $35 million. [NYP]
• The buyer of Bernie and Ruth Madoff's penthouse has been revealed. It's Al Kahn, the CEO of 4Kids Entertainment and the man behind Pokemon and the Cabbage Patch Kids, who is said to be buying the place at at 133 East 64th Street for "just under" the asking price of $8.9 million. [NYP, previously]
• Jimmie Johnson has unloaded one apartment and picked up another. The Nascar driver has sold his 3,200-square-foot loft at 32 West 18th Street, which he put on the market last year, for $4 million. Meanwhile, he and his wife paid $8.33 million for a condo in the Superior Ink building on W. 12th St. [NYT]
• Tory Burch has a new place to call home in Southampton. The fashion designer/socialite has closed on the deal to buy the late Howard Gittis' 14-acre estate on Ox Pasture Lane. The 14-acre property, which Burch went into contract to buy in September, sold for $32.5 million. (Update: The Post has since corrected its story and now says Burch is "only" buying part of the property for $16 million; an "unnamed neighbor" is buying the rest for $16.5 million.) Meanwhile, Burch's former home on Meadow Lane is still on the market for $17.9 million, if you're interested. [NYP]
• Walter Cronkite's former apartment at the UN Plaza has gone into contract just a month after it went on the market. The two-bedroom co-op had been listed most recently for $2.995 million. [Curbed, FRG]
Interested in a beach bag that says "Westhampton Beach?" An Southampton-branded umbrella? A wallet with "East Hampton Beach" stamped on it? We can't imagine you would be. Nevertheless, we're also guessing the powers that be on the East End of Long Island won't be happy to hear that they no longer control their own names. This week, a variety of Hamptons-related trademarks were granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Washington. And it isn't a local who has the right to exploit them in the future. It's a German national who operates a garment factory in Hong Kong who does. A few of the trademarks Mr. Frank Fleischer acquired this week are listed below.
A casino could be coming to the Hamptons in the near future. Washington indicated yesterday that it's prepared to grant official recognitition to the Shinnecock Indian Nation, a tribe that occupies 800 acres in Southampton, "not far from some of Long Island's wealthiest communities and expansive celebrity-owned estates."
Fashion designer Tory Burch and her ex-husband, venture capitalist Chris Burch, went their separate ways back in 2006. But it looks like the couple is of one mind when it comes to Hamptons real estate. Over the summer, Tory received permission to tear down her Southampton home and upgrade to something bigger and better, a plan she abandoned recently since she's now preparing to move to a much grander—and much more expensive—estate nearby. And now Chris is looking to gussy up his digs in Southampton, too.
• Kimora Lee Simmons is looking to unload a decidedly modest home she owns in East Hampton. The 2,300-square-foot home, which Kimora picked up for $690,000 in 2003, is currently listed for $800,000. Don't expect to find any evidence that the Queen of Bling has spent much time there: In addition to the much larger estate she owns nearby, she also has a $20 million mansion in Saddle River, NJ, which has been on the market since 2007. [Real Estalker, PDE]
• Retired tech exec Lawrence Mueller and his wife Mary Kay have dropped the price of their three-bedroom condo at 15 Central Park West five months after first listing it for $16.5 million. The 25th-floor condo, which the couple bought for $5.99 million in late '07, is now priced at $15.5 million. [Curbed, PDE]
This hasn't been a very good year for Ira Rennert, the shadowy tycoon who built a fortune by scooping up steel, magnesium, coal, and lead companies around the world. Rennert reportedly lost $100-$200 million by investing his money with Bernie Madoff (although considering the new installment of the Forbes 400 lists his net worth at $4 billion, it's not like he's going to have to start panhandling anytime soon). Today, however, there's a bit of good news for Rennert: According to Zillow.com, Rennert's ridiculously massive house in the Hamptons once again takes top honors for being the largest home in the U.S. Don't believe it? A few photos of Rennert's 66,395-square-foot, 29-bed, 39-bath Italianate mansion are below.
Designer Tory Burch received approval last month to tear down her $22.5 million home in Southampton so she could replace it with something more to her liking. But is she also involved in the purchase of the $45 million estate owned by the late Howard Gittis? RealLI seems to think so, although it admits the "details are sketchy," and the Post reported yesterday that the buyer was "unidentified, recession-proof financier." Then again, Burch's fashion business seems to be enduring the recession just fine and it's always possible she decided to start up a hedge fund on the side, so maybe they're all right. [RealLI via Curbed]
• Kelly Klein, Calvin Klein's second ex-wife and a photographer, horse enthusiast, and social fixture, has paid $2.091 million for a two-bedroom co-op at 2 West 67th Street, the building that she's resided in for years. [Cityfile]
• The Southampton mansion once owned by Howard Gittis, the right-hand man to Ron Perelman who passed away in late 2007, has reportedly gone into contract for "about $45 million." The 14-acre estate, which Gittis picked up for $9 million in 1993, is being bought by an unidentified financier. [NYP, Corcoran]
• Bjork and Matthew Barney have closed on the purchase of a condo at 160 Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights. The couple paid $4 million for the four-bedroom pad. Meanwhile, their former place at 180 West Houston Street is still on the market for $1.7 million. [Brownstoner via NYO, BCRE]
• Attorney Bruce Kaye and his wife Deborah have sold their two-bedroom condo at 15 CPW. The 32nd-floor apartment, which the Kayes bought for $7.8 million in July 2008 and put back on the market for $11.9 million in April, sold for $11.7 million to an unidentified buyer. [Cityfile]
• Matt Lauer has picked up some new real estate in the Hamptons. The Today show co-host paid $2.15 million for a 1,500-square-foot waterfront cottage in Southampton. The 0.7-acre estate features a boat dock and a wraparound deck overlooking a pond connected to Little Peconic Bay. [WSJ]
• Luigi Zunino didn't come through. Three months after it was reported that the Italian exec was having difficulty closing on the three-unit spread at the Plaza he put a $9 million deposit on last year, the 10,026-square-foot apartment is now back on the market. It's currently listed for $39 million. [NYO, Stribling]
• Retired Pfizer exec Gary Jortner and his wife Cindy, have picked up a new apartment at 15 CPW, just a few floors up from the smaller apartment they listed for $3.195 million earlier this month. The couple paid $5.9 million for developer Gerardo Capo's apartment on the building's 12th floor. [Cityfile]
• Jewelry designer Lorraine Schwartz has a new home at the Olympic Tower on Fifth Avenue. The woman who's been called "the Queen of Bling" (and been namedropped in a Beyoncé song) paid $4.7 million for a 2,900-square-foot duplex on the building's 39th and 40th floors. [Cityfile]
• Steven Oesterle, a managing director at Giuliani Partners, and his wife Nancy, have sold their three-bedroom apartment at the Park Imperial on West 56th Street for $4.9 million. [Cityfile]
• British architect Lord Norman Foster has closed on the purchase of a second apartment at 912 Fifth Avenue. The eighth-floor pad, which Foster was first reported to be buying back in July, was bought for $6.7 million. [Real Deal]
• Christina Ricci is reportedly looking to unload her home in LA. The three-bedroom house is on the market for $1.549 million. [Real Estalker, Movoto]
Goldman Sachs partners were supposed to be keeping low profiles these days, as per instructions from the bank's CEO, Lloyd Blankfein. And Lord knows anyone related to NYC Prep's PC Peterson—even by marriage—would be well advised to avoid the limelight for a spell. But that didn't stop Richard Kimball Jr., a Goldman partner and the ex-husband of Manny author Holly Peterson, from hosting a series of "rowdy" parties in Southampton over the summer, at least one of which featuring topless women:
• Jennifer Esposito is looking to sell in the Village. The actress has put her one-bedroom apartment at 23 East 10th Street on the market, along with the one-bedroom co-op she owns upstairs. The two apartments, which Esposito once planned to combine into a duplex, are currently listed for a combined $1.435 million. [NYM, MDNY]
• Peter Buffett, the son of Warren Buffett, and his wife Jennifer have closed on the purchase of a condo at One Madison Park. The couple paid $3.5 million for the three-bedroom pad. [Cityfile, previously]
• Tom Flexner, a former vice chairman of Bear Stearns who joined Citigroup in April of 2008 to oversee its global real estate investment banking business, has closed on the sale of his four-story townhouse at 136 East 80th Street. The three-bedroom home, which Flexner first listed for $12 million last July with broker Kirk Henckels, and which went into contract to sell in May, sold to one Regan Fitzpatrick for $8.3 million. [Cityfile]
• Real estate investor Michael Hirtenstein has paid $16.8 million for five units on three floors of the Enrique Norten-designed One York, which he's planning to combine and use as a place to host "philanthropic events." [NYP]
Just in time for the end of the summer season, an enterprising Horace Mann student has released a "Hampton Star Map," which features directions to 67 "celebrity homes and hotspots." The fold-out map will run you $7.95. You'll just have to hope his sense of direction is better than his spelling skills. [Hampton Star Map via Curbed Hamptons]
• Blackstone Group co-founder Steve Schwarzman and his wife Christine have put their East Hampton home on the market. The 2.1-acre property, which the couple purchased for $2.3 million in 1996, is listed for $7.2 million. The couple will hardly be homeless if and when they sell it. The Schwarzmans are finishing up construction work on the much larger estate in Water Mill they agreed to buy in 2005 for $34 million. [WSJ, BHS]
• Developer Bruce Ratner has sold his 4,500-square-foot home in Montauk to art dealer David Zwirner for $10 million. He's reportedly looking for a "less pricey" estate in Quogue. [NYP]
• Actress Molly Shannon has sold her apartment at 66 Ninth Avenue for $2.61 million. The three-bedroom pad, which Shannon bought for $1.6 million in 2003, had been listed most recently for $2.85 million. [Real Deal]
