This is what a townhouse looks like...!

Isabella Geist

Southampton White Elephant

One of the most famous–or infamous–houses in the Hamptons, the property currently called Elysium has been a lightning rod of controversy for more than three decades.

Take a historical property on one of the most beautiful stretches of beach in Southampton, throw in a crooked parvenu with bad taste, add a whiff of financial monkey business, a dollop of tough zoning laws and top it off with a $37 million price tag, and you get the makings for a true real estate disaster like this one. In a part of the world where no one bats an eye at homes that cost upwards of $20 million and excess is a foreign concept, Elysium is a tough sell.

Imagine if someone turned a beautiful vintage Rolls-Royce into a stretch limousine and painted it hot pink, and you get the idea. Underneath there is a truly fine house–but so much has been done to it that it might be easier to just tear it down and build a new one rather than bother with fixing it.

Originally built for the du Pont family in the 1930s, this massive 55,000-square-foot house is located on Meadow Lane, one of the best addresses in this exclusive summer enclave. It was then acquired by financier Barry TrupinBarry Trupin in 1979. Trupin, who was eventually convicted of tax fraud, called the house Dragon’s Head. He spent years breaking almost every zoning law in the book while, to the horror of many long-time residents, enlarging and changing the residence beyond almost all recognition. Among the features added by Trupin was a movie theater and an enormous aquarium designed to contain several sharks.

In 1992, Trupin went bankrupt and sold the 60-room house to real estate developer Francesco Galesi Francesco Galesi for $2.3 million. Galesi is now looking to sell. He put the house on the market for $45 million in 2000 but has recently taken $8 million off the price.

“It’ll probably go for around $28 million,” says Raymond Smith, one of the two brokers from the Sotheby’s International Realty office who have the exclusive on the property. “Look at the location,” he adds. “You’re talking nearly ten acres on the ocean on Meadow Lane. The land alone is worth around $18 million.”

Smith readily admits that the house is not for everyone. “It’s for someone with buckets of money who likes this sort of thing. Someone like Michael JacksonMichael Jackson .”

Forbes Fact

Barry Trupin was arrested in 1997 on charges of evading more than $6 million in taxes and lying to the IRS. According to the indictment, Trupin submitted a false financial statement in which he claimed that his only assets were $500 in cash and a $48,000 line of credit. He was convicted in May 2000.