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Showing posts from June 12, 2010

In his heyday, there was no brighter star in the Hamptons social orbit than Truman, but after the serialization in Esquire magazine of his thinly veiled satire Answered Prayers, the writer entered a darker phase, in exile by the shore, taking solace in a bottle. The devastating impact of Capote's fall came swiftly. According to John Knowles, "he was completely unstrung" by the reaction and fell into an irrevocable depression. "Towards the end, of course, he was drinking too much," Clarke recalls. In July of 1980, Dunphy found Capote collapsed on the steps of his cottage with broken glass all around him. Dunphy rushed him to Southampton Hospital, where Capote told him, "I drink because it's the only time I can stand it." Three summers later he was dead. These days, it's fittingly that another creative figure, artist Ross Bleckner, resides in Capote's storied cottage, having preserved the compound now adjacent to protected lands, never to be overshadowed by the McMansions Capote would have despised. And what would Capote have made of the Hamptons today? "There was a different sort of society out here then," says Clarke, "and it was so much quieter. Who's out here now? Rock stars, movie stars... It's a publicity society." On second thought, Clarke muses, perhaps it would have suited Truman just fine. In the '70s he hobnobbed with Andy Warhol and the Rolling Stones. "Who knows? If he were still alive today, he might have been at the center of P. Diddy's latest party, making little asides...taking it all in."

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Meadow Lane

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A five-bedroom, five-bath Norman Jaffe-designed home on Meadow Lane in Southampton is now in contract. The oceanfront dwelling, built in 1986, sits on 4.2 acres and has a heated Gunite pool and outdoor spa. The asking price for the property was $26 million; a source tells REAL LI that the sales price is closer to $18 million.
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Triplex at 176 Perry st

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Hugh Jackman  was the  reported buyer  of Sun Mircrosystems co-founder Bill Joy's 11,000-square-foot triplex at  176 Perry Street , a staggering piece of minimalist beauty (if that's your type of thing), for "somewhere above $25 million." And what a deal that would have been! You see, Joy spent around $17.5 million on the apartment—the entire eighth through tenth floors of the Richard Meier-designed Far West Village building—and then hired Meier himself to build-out the interior ( above ) for probably a couple million more. Joy never moved in and  listed the spread  for a crazy  $40 million , then  chopped it down  to $33 million where it wasted away for another six months (monthly maintenance: $27,841) until Wolverine pounced. Indeed, "somewhere above $25 million" would have been a relative bargain, but there's a surprise twist ending.
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