Real estate repartee: tattling in the (then) new age of information and celebrity
Talking and talking and talking about real estate.
When Juan Tripp, who was well known for having built Pan American into the most powerful airline of its time, lived in a big house on the ocean in East Hampton, it was hardly noteworthy. Some problems he had with the East Hampton Village Zoning Board concerning a revetment were covered in the East Hampton Star. Later, when Calvin and Kelly Klein moved into that house everything they did was widely covered by newspapers and magazines nationally.
The difference is that twenty years ago real estate in the Hamptons did not exist--as a topic. Then, as now, there were properties and a market and brokers and deed transfers – but it was not analyzed, publicized or commented on. Sure, there were tycoons and fat cats buying the big estates, but, perhaps selfishly, they kept their own business their own business, and nobody, particularly complete strangers, critiqued their deals. How then did we get from real estate as a local and discreet activity to “Real Estate in the Hamptons” as sustenance for the media food chain and a spectator sport for people who have never even crossed the Shinnecock Canal?
It took the interaction of three groups. First, because it’s easy, blame the media. For the print and television media, fresh from their victory at creating celebrity as subject matter in this age of communications, it was a short, logical step to explore where those celebrities live. When you have a critical mass of celebrities in one area, as you do in the Hamptons, it is an even shorter step to making that area and its residents and their homes yet another subject unto itself. Even The New York Times ran “Is Martha Going Modern?” after her purchase of a sleek modernist house on Georgica Pond. And so we have this sui generis creation: real estate in the Hamptons. This public recognition gives the subject legitimacy, even a veneer of objectivity, and certifies it as a topic for the other two groups.
Second are the players themselves, the buyers and sellers in the rarified big bucks stratosphere. They are not the quiet principals from twenty years ago; they are active participants in the game. They expect their deals to be news, and have their handlers and public relations people manage the information. The players also speak to one another about real estate; they stay in touch with their brokers long after their deals are done, just so they can keep up on the news; they even go look at the interesting new listings so when they prattle on, it’s first-hand.
Third are the real estate wonks, exercising their constitutional right to criticize how other people spend their money. Don’t mistake this for the voyeurism of maps of Beverly Hills showing where the movie stars live. This is not the rabble gazing at the high-priced gates. In this incarnation they are all insiders, the cognoscenti of land deals. It’s very inclusive. Anyone can participate—anyone that is who learns a bit of geography and the right buzz words.
To give the whole things an entre nous sensibility real estate wonks always use first names: Martha, Billy, Alec, Ron, Ralph. Even if friends know that you don’t really know them, using first names creates a ripple of uncertainty. It chips away at the degrees of separation. If you are to talk about these people’s personal lives—and one’s home is decidedly personal and intimate—it is only right that you call them by first name. When Calvin and Kelly separated, topic A among the wonks was who keeps the house. (Kelly did.) What might have been nervy at one time is now an accepted convention.
Wonks know the streets—not too hard, not too many. These celebrities seem to buy near one another. East Hampton’s Further Lane, for example, is a geyser of celebrity real estate news. It’s important to know your ponds too if you want to dish with the big girls and boys. (The Lauders are on Wainscott Pond, not Sagg, not Georgica.) Knowing who the neighbors are enhances credibility. Celebrity neighbor feuds, e.g.: Martha and mega-developer Harry Macklowe, quickly become tabloid headline material. It’s also essential to know prices, but things are so expensive now you can be off by a million or so and still speak with critical authority.
Breaking news is a touchstone of expertise. Everyone claims to know that Barbra is—or was—looking for house. But spotting her in a pulled down wool cap checking out the shoreline of Mecox Bay is real information. Contrary to press reports, she never did buy, but fortunately she always has her room at Donna Karen’s house on Gardiner’s Bay. Who else is looking? Not Melanie Griffith. She hasn’t been back since she allegedly trashed a rental on Further Lane. But it might have been an overly fussy landlord. Cindy Crawford (known for her beauty spot) is renting again this year, not too close but not too far from Revlon boss Ron Perelman, while she looks to buy her own Hamptons beauty spot.
No one will mistake the connoisseurs of Hamptons’ real estate news for a bunch of hicks looking out of a bus window in Beverly Hills. No, they are the sophisticated fans of a new sport in a new stadium. Not the geeky kids who remember batting averages and bases stolen going back to Mesozoic times. This is the age of information and celebrity. They sit around at dinner parties dishing up intelligence. They can name the names, recite the acreage, quote the prices and, as they advance up the ladder of insider knowledge, even the erudite “has-to-put-in” costs. Is it true that Kim and Alec spent three times more on renovations than they paid for the old farmhouse in Amagansett? One of the wonks had been shown that same property and had turned it down as “not up to our standards”
In Hollywood all the homes belong to movie stars. They all do the same thing for a living, for Pete’s sake. Ho-hum. Here, we have a savory mix, much tastier for copy and conversation. Wonks discuss how the privileged few made their money and how they are spending their money. We have Hollywood to chatter about here, but we also have Wall Street and Madison Avenue and Seventh Avenue. We have the artists and writers. We have the media honchos. There’s Peter and Roone and Binky and Bill and Pia. In a delicious moment of indulgence we have the print press covering the broadcasters and television covering the editors. And the rest of us speculating on which pricey English fixtures they put in their bathrooms.
One nice thing about celebrities is they pay a lot for their real estate. Big names and big numbers, that’s what the wonks want to hear. Each extra zero carries a note of splendor. But what happens if a nobody steps up for a really big ticket? With ruthless efficiency the media will make him or her into a celebrity. There’s a media package to fit everyone with enough money and the right address in the Hamptons. And there is an audience ready to embrace that person, on a first name basis of course.
This is as democratic as it gets. (Speaking of Democratic, President Clinton will be here in June and will be having lunch at a posh East Hampton residence with some neighbors who write big checks.) Real estate in the Hamptons is more fun than baseball. And anyone with even a quarter share in western Suffolk gets bragging rights, gets to talk about Calvin’s house or Donna’s house with some authority.
Along the way, as a result of the media attention, the Hamptons became homogenized. Twenty years ago all real estate was local, village by village. Brokers ran generic ads, a business card ad with name, address and phone number. It must have been terribly frustrating. You couldn’t whip through the Star or Press on Thursday and glean enough information to gossip respectfully that weekend about what’s on the market. Discerning among the little villages was an annoyance for the big media. Celebrities, that was good stuff for the media. Real estate, that was good stuff for the media. A real estate aristocracy, terrific. But all these townships and villages, that was confusing. So they put it all into one pot and cooked it up as The Hamptons. Simple, clean, elegant. And it works. We all say Hamptons now. We all think Hamptons now. Your local brokers think that way too. Witness the establishment of multiple offices. There were none twenty years ago. Now it’s the only way to grow the business. It’s been some twenty years!
Profile of a property:
Two and a half acres, flag lot, south side of Lily Pond Lane, East Hampton
Title goes back to the Mulford family, one of the original thirteen families to settle East Hampton. The settlers were given home lots in the village on which to build their houses, and grazing and woodcutting lots in outlying areas. Since land near the ocean was not suitable for growing crops this was probably grazing land in the seventeenth century
Acquired along with some neighboring land by Evan Frankel, known as the “Squire of East Hampton” and at one time the largest property owner in East Hampton, in the late 1940’s.
Sold to Melvin Heller, a major owner of commercial property in New York, in 1980 for $225,000. Heller never built his planned house, and sold the property to Gabyro, Inc. (developers Shulman and Tramatano) for $950,000 in 1990.
Gabyro constructed a spec house that due to market conditions did not sell until 1995. It was purchased by Allen Grubman, show business lawyer, and advisor to Madonna and Martha Stewart, in 1995 for $2,800,000. Grubman changed and enlarged the house. Current estimated value: $4,500,000.
