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Location: Newport, R.I.
Price: $17,800,000
The Skinny: Long Island's Gold Coast might have been the setting for F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, but with that region turned over to bedroom communities, increasingly few bastions of old-money leisure remain. Yeah, Ira Rennert might be trying to revive Jazz-era excess in Sagaponack, N.Y., but even he can't match the authenticity of Newport, R.I.. Thanks to a reputation as a yachting mecca, with its accompanying influx of cash, Newport has managed to maintain its stock of classic architecture and a luxuriously lazy aura—but not without scandal.
Clarendon Court, this Georgian English estate, might be the most notorious of all the Newport mansions. In December 1979, heiress and socialite Sunny von Bülow was discovered in a coma on the floor of the master bathroom—under suspicious circumstances, naturally. Authorities soon suspected her husband, Claus, of inducing the coma using an overdose of insulin. After a major legal circus that included a conviction, a successful appeal, and an appearance on the witness stand by Truman Capote, Claus was acquitted and the house was sold. With any luck, that sort of drama won't return to haunt the new owners, but we're all for full disclosure.
· 626 Bellevue Avenue [Libby Kirwin R.E.]
· Ira Rennert Has 39 Bathrooms, But Would Like One More [Curbed Hamptons]
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