Today, the 12-bedroom mansion belongs to a local islander, investor and entrepreneur Christopher Knight, who spent summers as a boy playing on the property. “I am living my childhood dream,” he says while playing catch with his son on the vast lawn. He purchased the sleeping estate in April of this year for an unbelievable $10 million, and is now in the process of breathing love and life back into the old place as it awaits a deserving buyer.
The estate’s three-story observation tower spills 360 degrees of unrivaled views of the bay, most points of the island, and the Hamptons mainland. Harry DiOrio of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Sag Harbor office, who is a childhood friend of Knight as well as his broker, has the $33 million listing. The realtor has dubbed the estate as the ultimate fixer-upper. “The land alone is easily worth $3 million per acre,” says DiOrio, as he fondly reminisces childhood antics that took place on the property with Knight. “The property stands on its own, as there are no state of the art features, no media room, no spa.” Instead, there is a sunroom jutting off the main house, and onto an expansive lawn where the sun has risen and set through its floor-to-ceiling windows for more than a century. At Shorewood Manor, there is no need for technology when white yachts performing on a denim-blue bay provide their own brand of theater.
Open House, Open Bar
On a sunny May afternoon in Water Mill, hors d’ourves are passed amidst a well-dressed crowd as Hamptons brokers jump-start their summer season. The high-rolling realtors circulate through the crowd sipping local Nork Fork wine at the patio wine bar and talking up their listings. Cocktails are mixed poolside. Hushed deals are abuzz in the mansion that young Russian heiress Anna Anisimova rented last season. It is just one of the many estates that are occupied by one of the many celebrities and socialites that frequent the Hamptons each year.
Wide, white smiles, brush cheek kisses, and polite exchanges clearly display the social prowess of savvy professionals working in one of the most competitive markets in the world, where the term “open house” is often followed by “event”, leading to full-scale real estate parties being in vogue. Realtors who possess an instinctual understanding of the Hamptons’ culture know that promoting a property is so much more than an old-fashioned open house. The Corcoran Group’s East End division is well known for such functions; the debut fundraiser Corcoran Cares at the Cobb Lane estate of Glenn Simon would be no exception. The 170 guests were greeted outside the grand foyer and invited to stroll the grounds and peruse the interior of the stunning $19.5 million mansion in Water Mill. Checkbooks came out for five local charities, raising $25,000 for various causes, at the same time promoting one of the agency’s prize listings. The 8,500 square foot main house has dual staircases leading to 7 bedrooms and 10 baths. A three-bedroom guesthouse, pool and pool house are set inside two estate-section acres. The property is listed with Corcoran’s Senior Vice President of the East Hampton office, Gary DePersia.
The market on Eastern Long Island is a unique one that remains an entity unto itself, virtually unaffected in an otherwise ever-shifting industry. There has been endless speculation to the bubble bursting theory circulating through the real estate world of late, yet it is quite obvious to anyone that has tracked the Hamptons market closely that the only bubble on the East End of Long Island is the one that high-end Hamptons market sits securely inside.
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May 25, 2007Halstead’s Glamorous Tribeca Loft
