When Quogue, N.Y.'s 16,000-square-foot Belle Mead estate last appeared on the market, the Gilded Age "cottage" was snatched up for $5.4M after many price cuts by a buyer looking to "rip the mansion apart piece by piece to recreate it to its former glory as intended by the famed architect Stanford White." Now it's back with fresh photos of said recreated glory, which the current owners hope will score them a hefty flip with a $15.5M asking price, and the most Hamptons-y argument of all time is playing out among Curbed Hamptons commenters. First came the charge that "those black floors were a massive miscalculation," particularly "in the room with the red Scalamandre wallpaper." Next, the complaint that the 1906 estate by Beaux Arts bigwig Stanford White ended up looking "soooo formal," way too much so for "anyone under 60," and "BTW they have that zebra wallpaper at Almond." From there, the suggestion that Scalamandre was made famous in "West [sic] Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums" was met with accusations of name-dropping and "strutting provenance," until someone else decided to really strut provenance, noting that Gino, an Upper East Side Italian restaurant, employed the zebras-and-arrows print "before Almond was even a seed."
Next came the suggestion that a prospective buyer is better off giving the $15.5M ask to charity, because Scalamandre is "so 1990's," the "dining room is ugly," and moreover, the entire house is "depressing," with "bad karma" that can be felt right through the listing the photos. There was a moment of possible clarity when it was pointed out that wallpaper might not be the most pressing concern with an historic multimillion-dollar home, but quite naturally, that was quickly followed by the suggestion that "the new owners and their decorateurs should be subject to prison time" for "their abundant stupidity." The scene closes with a reminder that come what may for this Stanford White home, at least "the Kardashians will be nowhere near Quogue." Finally, some sense!
· Historic Quogue Estate Belle Mead is Back on the Market [Curbed Hamptons]
· 23 Shinnecock Road [Douglas Elliman]
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