Six years ago, Chris Whittle, founder of school-management company Edison Schools, decided to sell his Hamptons home. The Wall Street Journal Private Properties column reports that he tried to sell the entire estate for $45 million, then $36 million, but eventually took it off the market. Now he is offering a 3.7-acre property which is home to a classic shingled four-bedroom, four-bath guest house, designed in 1990 by architect Peter Marino. It is listed at $27 million which is a bit high but does include 403 feet on prized Georgica Pond and it is the Hamptons after all. The home has a large living room, country kitchen, master bedroom suite plus three guest bedroom suites and powder room. It is listed at $27 million.

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It's hard to feel sorry for the hedge fund managers. They not only have lavish New York apartments they also often have sprawling Hamptons vacation homes. Today we consider the case of John Paulson, founder of Paulson & Co. In January, he plunked $41.3 million for a Southampton estate known as Old Trees. Of course this meant selling his existing Southampton home. Paulson bought the home for $12.75 million in 2006 so when he put it on the market in April he priced it at $19.5 million, anticipating a tidy profit. No takers so in late August he dropped the price to $16.9 million. In October he finally got a nibble but he had a buyer with a signed contract walk away from the deal. Paulson really needs to unload this puppy so now it is down to $13.9 million which means he resigned himself to not making a huge profit on the sale. What do you get for your money? The 6,8000 square foot cottage has seven bedrooms and an enclosed pool with a sauna room. It is on three acres and has a private master suite with a sitting room and two separate baths and has a charming cottagey decor.

As the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties reminds us, on Thursday, Mr. Paulson testified on Capitol Hill at a closely watched hearing on whether hedge funds require more regulation.
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Last week we saw the Maryland home of Freddie Mac CFO, Anthony Piszel, now check out another estate being sold, I'm assuming, due to the financial crisis. The Real Estalker Mama alerted me to the extravagant Hamptons getaaway home of Joseph Gregory. Who is Joseph Gregory? He was, until last June, the Chief Operating Officer, President and Managing Director for Lehman Brothers. Gregory's Hampton's home is a relatively new eight-bedroom spec house which was built on 2.5 acres in Bridgehampton, New York. The Real Estalker Mama reports that after buying the home for $19 million, Gregory and his wife Niki spent several million dollars in renovations. The home includes two master suites, a second floor deck, The property includes a pool area surrounded by plush green lawns and a sandy path leading across the dunes and to the ocean. The astounding thing here, aside from the $32.5 million pricetag, is that the couple reportedly spent just 14 days in the home over two years that they owned it.

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Supermodel Christie Brinkely has had this home, Tower Hill in the Hamptons on the market off and on since 2002 (although I first became aware of it in 2005). Now with a messy divorce behind her, she's trying her hand at selling it again. The impressive property in Bridgehampton was originally built in 1898 by Dr. John Gardiner and named Dulce Domum. The home is on a 20-acre parcel 200 ft. above sea level. The key piece of the estate is the 50 ft. observation tower which offers sweeping views of the ocean. The 12-bedroom compound includes a main house with multi-level stone terraces, a guest house with a greenhouse conservatory overlooking a botanical nursery, a gunite pool, a barn artist studio with gym and living quarters with a 4-car heated garage. The property includes lawns, walking paths, gardens, tennis courts, basketball court and playground. This estate is now listed at $30 million. It's lovely but perhaps a bit pricey for a home that isn't closer to the beach.

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This summer, luxury charter service V1 Jets opened up its seaplane service from Manhattan to the Hamptons (formerly reserved for members) to anyone with the price of a ticket, and it's proved to be very popular with the gliteratti. The 40 minute trip on an 8-passenger Cessna, which costs $495 one-way, has been taken by the likes of models Adriana Lima and Petra Nemcova, actors Pierce Brosnan and Jeremy Piven, and mogul Barry Diller. V1 Jets was founded in 2003 by hedge fund manager Andrew Zarrow who envisioned a way to utilize the excessive amount of "dead legs" created by private aircraft returning empty after delivering clients to their destinations, saving money and resources in the process.

The annual Mercedes-Benz Polo Challenge will kick off at the JetOne Jets Field at the Bridgehampton Polo Club on Saturday, July 19 this year. This season's partners include Coca-Cola, Fiji Water, T-Mobile, Pernod Ricard, Ralph Lauren, Hpnotiq and Zino Platinum Cigars, and the MVP Player Award will be presented by Westin Rinehart. The matches, which will run for six consecutive Saturdays through August 23 this year, are the social mainstay of the Hamptons season and feature some of the world's best polo players competing for one of the sport's most treasured prizes. Anyone can watch from the stands, but the invitation-only V.I.P. tent is the real scene. Celebs in attendance in years previous have included Anne Hathaway, Elizabeth Hurley, Heather Graham, Howard Stern, Jared Leto, Jay Z, Jessica Alba, Mischa Barton, Natalie Portman and Prince Albert of Monaco, to name a few. All proceeds will go to a good cause, the South Fork Breast Health Coalition.

Premiere jet charter broker Halcyon is arranging luxury helicopter packages between New York City and the Hamptons this season via the purchase of a special flight club card. The trip, which can take up to four hours on the Long Island Expressway in typical summer traffic, is a mere 45 minutes by helicopter. The Halcyon coordinated flights offer high-speed premium helicopters with luxurious cabins -- Bell Jet Ranger, Long Ranger, Augusta or Eurocopter -- staffed with two pilots, and can accommodate up to four passengers. Their Southampton Flight Club Card costs $7,700 (plus fees) and includes two one-way transfers from NYC to East Hampton or vice versa. The East Hampton Flight Club Card costs $22,500 (plus fees) and includes six one-way transfers. With the purchase of a card you also get a bottle of champagne, a carton of strawberries and a Halcyon Jets' gift basket containing Keihl's sunscreen, Origins organic lip balm, a Ralph Lauren beach towel and a bottle of Evian Mineral Water Spray, so you're ready to hit the beach the moment you arrive.

In his preface to Jake Rajs' beautiful new book, Beyond the Dunes: A Portrait of the Hamptons (Monacelli Press, $60), New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger notes the photographer "shows us a vision of the Hamptons at once beautiful and fragile, prosperous but not smug." No easy feat when it comes to portraying such a storied locale, and Rajs manages it magnificently. The book is divided into geographical sections of the South Fork: Westhampton, Quogue and Hampton Bays; Shinnecock and Southampton; Water Mill, Bridgehampton and Sagaponack; Sag Harbor and the Springs; East Hampton and Amagansett; and Montauk (or, as we like to call them: No Money, Old Money, New Money, Some Money, More Money and What Money?). Along the way he finds everything from privet hedges to pumpkin fields and fishermen to polo players. Pictured here is an imposing "cottage" on Southampton's fabled Gin Lane. The book won't be out for another couple of weeks, but you can pre-order it now on Amazon. Meanwhile see the gallery for a preview.

The Carnegie Club, one of Manhattan's only cigar/cocktail lounges to survive the draconian smoking ban in style, is celebrating the onset of warmer weather with a "Cigars of Summer" selection specifically tailored to New York fat cats who head out of town on the weekends. The club's "Summer Beach Pack," for $45, includes three light, creamy robusto cigars, an Avo Classic Robusto, Fonseca Vintage Robusto, and Romeo y Julieta Exhibition #3, all of which are specially chosen to suit strolling the sands. The "Hamptons Weekend Pack," for $125, consists of a Montecristo #2, Greycliff Château Grand Cru Pirate, and a Davidoff Anniversario #3, all high-end smokes suited to the pricey vacation spot. The Carnegie Club is part of Mark Grossich's sophisticated cocktail lounge empire, which includes the amazing Campbell Apartment in Grand Central Station, one of our favorite spaces in all of New York.

I'm amazed it's taken somebody this long to come up with the idea of an all-inclusive plastic surgery package, unless I'm just out of the loop? Either way, if you're into cosmetic surgery and have both a long "wish list" of procedures and a pretty much bottomless wallet it might be a fun deal to go rent a house in the Hamptons for the summer and spend your days getting fixed up in surgery and your nights recovering in luxury. Dr. Stephen Greenburg of Park Avenue is now offering this service in the form of a $500,000 package deal that includes a Hamptons luxury home rental on the beach from Memorial Day to Labor Day, unlimited plastic surgery procedures ("within reason"), a full-time nurse, a chauffeur, a mix of exclusive invites to VIP and celebrity parties, and even a shopping allowance so you can get a new wardrobe to go with your new body.

Wanna do it? What procedures would you get?

Via Gawker

We've seen some expensive homes in the Hamptons but if there's anything I've learned in years of covering the high-end real estate market, it's that there is always another even bigger place around the corner. This home in Southampton Village has nine bedrooms, four floors and +13,500 sqft of living space. The home was the last project of renowned builder Kurt Andresson and famed New York Architects DAquino Monaco. It sits on approximately 11 acres of which six are Peconic Land Trust natural preserve lands with 1,000' oceanfront and 1000' pond front. On particularly winning detail is a two story enclosed gazebo with beautiful ocean views. The property also includes a sunken tennis court, gunite pool and Jacuzzi, pool house, two-car garage with h garden/potting area and second floor storage, private walkway to beach and pond with wooden dock. This home is listed at $80 million which puts it at the top tier of Hamptons real estate.

Rentals in the Hamptons are already getting scarce but those with the money can buy this historic waterfront estate on Quantuck Bay and offer the perfect summer vacation for family and friends.

Henry Bacon, once with McKim, Mead & White, and best known for his design of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.,was commissioned to design this historic shingle-style manor. In an extensive three-year renovation in the mid 1990s, the architectural details, floors and fixtures were carefully restored and all the luxuries of modern-day living were added.

The 10.37 acre estate is completely private, bordered on the front by 64 century-old European pruned Catalpa trees. The back border stretches across more than 1,000 feet of waterfront, complete with deep-water dock.

The main residence is around 16,000 square feet on three floors with nine bedrooms, nine full and two half baths, six original fireplaces and 5,000 square feet of hand-pegged mahogany decks and brick & bluestone terraces. There are water views from 22 of the 24 rooms.

The grand entry foyer has a three-story hand carved staircase that leads through the reception gallery to a formal living room with a fireplace as well as a banquet-sized dining room with a fireplace and murals recreated from the works of William Merritt Chase and Childe Hassam, who painted in the area more than a hundred years ago.

Other living areas include a billiards room, a sunroom and a chef's kitchen with a large dining area surrounded on three sides by water views. The ground floor also has a pantry with espresso bar, an office, two powder rooms and a large laundry room. The downstairs cantina has a temperature & humidity controlled wine cellar.

In addition to the sprawling 1,000 square foot master suite, which has two large mahogany decks plus his & her baths and dressing rooms; the second floor has a center hall with adjacent office with covered mahogany deck, a living room and three bedrooms with baths.

The third floor has an oversized living room with a mahogany deck and vaulted ceiling, five bedrooms and four baths, an exercise room, a walk-in cedar closet and a laundry room.

There is also an original 2,000 square foot poolside carriage house covered in century-old grape vines that has been updated to include his & her baths and dressing rooms and a full service kitchen. Other buildings include an oak paneled guest cottage, oversized four car garage and a two-story three-bedroom and bath gardener's house with a separate driveway. The grounds include recreation and meditation areas, a Lord & Burnham greenhouse, a Har-Tru tennis court and a heated gunite pool with waterfall spa all set amidst acres of expansive lawns and gardens . It is listed with Mark Roter (631 288 5233) and Marcia Altman (631 288 5004) Co-Exclusive Brokers Brown Harris Stevens, Westhampton Beach for $39 million.

NeighborhoodScout.com has used their matching function to find neighborhoods that are "discount equivalents" of some of the hot and pricey communities we recently covered in our Most Expensive Zip Codes estates.

It's getting increasingly hard to afford the Hamptons but if you head to Mattituck, New York on Long Island in New York there are still some deals to be found. Whereas the median price in the Hamptons is $1.38 million, in Mattituck the median price is $525,307. The area was once used predominantly for farming but is now prime real estate. You won't find the same celebrity power that you do in the Hamptons but you won't have to pay $65 million either. Today's home sits on a bluff 95 feet above Long Island Sound. It has amazing views which are showcased through the floor-to ceiling windows. There are five bedroom suites, a large formal living room and an an office. It has a huge basement that can be used as a game room or for entertaining. Outside there is a custom gunite pool and a covered patio. This home is listed at $3.4 million.

One of the most highly anticipated food events of the year is taking place at Nick & Toni's in East Hampton, Long Island on July 13th. The 2008 Great Chefs Dinner is a celebration of both gastronomy and philanthropy as top chefs from around New York City and the Hamptons donate their time and talent to support the Hayground School. A progressive and creative environment for children ages three to fifteen from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds, Hayground even teaches students the art of cooking. The proceeds from this grand event support both the school's teaching kitchen as well as scholarships for the many students who rely on those funds to go to the charter school.

Some of the premier chefs sharing this experience are Craft's Tom Colicchio, The North Fork Table & Inn's Claudia Fleming, and Five Points' Marc Meyer. Tickets are on sale for $1,500 inside Nick & Toni's and $350 in the tent and are sure to go fast!


[via Forbes]

At the start of the month, the NY Post's legendary real estate columnist Braden Keil reported on a $65 million sale of an estate in the Hamptons. Now he has said that the exclusive six-acre estate on the enviable Gin Lane has been purchased by Tiger Woods and his wife Elin. The property is anchored by a 3,200-square-foot Colonial Revival main residence, a 7,500-square-foot guesthouse and a four-car garage with staff quarters. We covered the property as an estate of the day in January.

But did Tiger really buy this home? The agent for the property, Beate Moore of Sotheby's International Realty tells Newsday's Laura Mann that Tiger did not buy the property and Radar says they have talked to Tiger Woods's reps who also confirm that Tiger has not bought this property. It's no longer listed so someone did buy, we'll just have to wait for property records to solve this mystery.