An 18-acre property in East Hampton is now the most expensive residential property ever to trade hands in the United States, having sold for $147M to hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein. The sale beats out Connecticut's 50-acre Copper Beach Farm, which was scooped up less than a month ago for $120M, a $132.5M sale of 124,000 acres of working Montana ranch, and all other members of the elite club of U.S. properties to have garnered nine-figure sums.
Sited on the area's exclusive Further Lane—next to comedian Jerry Seinfeld's "laid back" $32M mansion and art bigwig Larry Gagosian's place—the beachfront spread, with formal gardens and a pond, until recently belonged to Christopher H. Browne, the managing director of an investment firm, and his boyfriend, architect Andrew Gordon.
Browne died of a heart attack in 2009, leaving his holdings to his partner of 10 years, though legal disputes between Gordon's and Browne's families weren't resolved until December 2012, when parties made a secret settlement that allowed Gordon, who was dying of cancer, to live out the rest of his life at the house. When Gordon passed last fall, Browne's family began quietly shopping around the place, described by the New York Post as Browne's "dream house."
Browne's family sold the spread without using a broker to avoid paying fees and commissions. (Hence, details and listing photos are disappointingly scant.) According to a source quoted in the Post, real estate pros in the area are "crestfallen" at the loss of revenue. One broker even "fumed" that "the trustees of the estate, one would think, have a fiduciary responsibility to get the top dollar, which would have happened on an open market."
The deal is more than $40M higher than an undeveloped 40-acre parcel on Further Lane that sold in 2007 for $103M, setting a record for residential sales at the time.
· Activist investor buys NY mansion for record $147M [NY Post]
· Mystery buyer snatches East Hampton mansion for $145M [Page Six]
· Mapping the 11 Most Expensive Houses Ever Sold in America [Curbed National]
· All Blockbusters posts [Curbed National]
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