Friday, October 17, 2008

Ross Bleckner Selling Truman Capote's House

SELLER: Ross Bleckner
LOCATION: Daniel's Lane, Sagaponack, NY
PRICE: $14,800,00
SIZE: 4 acres, 2,000 square feet, plus outbuildings
DESCRIPTION: Hear the ocean from this very private and breathtaking setting in the heart of Sagaponack. Once the home of Truman Capote, this property has an ocean view main house, legal 2 bedroom guest house, 1,900 sq ft artist's studio, detached garage and swimming pool. It is an oasis with stunning gardens, lawns and mature trees set 1,000 feet from the ocean. Main house is a south facing, mid century modern home tastefully appointed and has plan and permits to expand. Guest house is ideally situated with its own privacy, gardens and parking.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: We are way late to the rodeo on the faboo Hamptons hideaway that noted abstract artist Ross Bleckner recently put on the market for $14,800,000, but we desired to discuss it anyway for three reasons.

1. The 4 acre, L-shaped compound on Daniel's Lane in quietly swanky Sagaponack, NY sits just a hop, skip and a jump from Gibson's Beach where Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter often took our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly to frolic in the sand and surf.

2. The mid century modern main house was built in 1961 and owned for many years by one of Your Mama's favorite fey writers Truman Capote (Breakfast at Tiffany's, In Cold Blood, and his dee-lishusly scandalous Answered Prayers). And as far as we're concerned real estate provenance doesn't get any better than that.

3. As we mentioned above, the property is currently owned and being sold by screamingly successful artist Ross Bleckner, a man who once invited Your Mama over to his big building on White Street that used to be the Mudd Club where he proceeded to show us his luminous and enigmatic abstract paintings and then unceremoniously shoved his hand down our pants. The much older Mister Bleckner was, of course, roundly rebuffed and Your Mama made a quick exit down the very scary manually operated elevator at the back of the building. This was an ice age ago when Your Mama was a still pretty young thing, so we can't blame Mister Bleckner for wanting to sample our buffet. However, we just weren't interested in anything but his paintings. True story children, true story.

Anyhoo, Miss Bleckner has excellent taste–not to mention access to any number of nice gay decorators–and although the listing is no longer available online, we can assure the children that if it were you'd see a well put together weekend hideaway in the Hamptons perfect for hunkering down from the humidity and entertaining all the other very rich artist types that people the East End.

Recent reports reveal that Mister Bleckner picked up the property for just $800,000 back in May of 1993. The prime piece of property was purchased from the Nature Conservancy who was bequeathed the property when Mister Capote's long time man friend Jack Dunphy died in 1992. The property was left to Mister Dunphy when the sassy and wickedly smart Mister Capote passed on to the big Black and White Ball in the sky in 1984.

The property includes a flat roofed main house with floor to ceiling windows that provide long vistas towards the roiling Atlantic Ocean, a two-bedroom guest house at the front of the property built for Mister Dunphy, a detached garage and a 1,900 square foot artist's studio where we imagine Mister Bleckner pushes his paint around. In addition to what the listing calls "stunning gardens," there is a swimming pool which we have no doubt has been the scene of all kinds of nudity over the years.

It's hard to believe that the long time figure on the Hamptons well heeled social circuit would flee the Hamptons all together, but as of today we have no word on whether Mister Bleckner is going to take his money and run or if he's planning on taking his $14,000,000 profit and buying himself new summer digs.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thought this would be good for a laugh

Layoffs at Zillow, Redfin: 'We're headed for a big dip.'

Zillow.com and Redfin.com, rapidly growing web-based real estate companies, both announced major layoffs this week amid a weakening housing market and what Zillow says could be a "prolonged recession."

Zillow, the Seattle-based website that estimates home values, said it will slash its workforce by 25% in hopes of surviving what it calls "a major economic storm." From a blog post by Zillow CEO Rich Barton:

The unprecedented economic events that are playing out on a global stage began in our own industry and have made a prolonged recession likely, in our judgment. We are a young company that is not yet making a profit. Despite having sizeable cash reserves, we deemed the responsible course was to meaningfully reduce expenses, so that Zillow emerges from the other side of the recession in a very strong position, even if the recession lasts many years.

Anonymous said...

YAWN!

Anonymous said...

That's a tidy little appreciation..............it would only be worth that if lil' old Truman greeted me on his knees every night for the 30 year mortgage. A hand down my pants simply would not suffice.

so_chic_darling said...

Nice house but I'm one of those New Yorkers who NEVER goes to the Hamptons, sorry Mama just not my cup of tea. But I would like to say to the first commenter SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Why is it that the media keeps screaming recession and acting like all the lights are going to go out and we'll be digging in the ground for worms to eat? Why do they keep saying this is like 1929 WHEN IT'S CLEARLY NOT? Look around you the world is still spinning and the lights have not gone out and after the election the stock market will go up. This whole thing has just been a huge fix by the rich(republicans)to devalue everything, stocks and property, so they can buy more of it a bargain prices. DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY TELL YOU!

Anonymous said...

so chic

because it is true

where do you live ?

I am in cleveland ohio

Anonymous said...

LA...Malibu...Ibiza.......Cleveland?

Somehow I think we are finally hearing the truth.

bob2008 said...

Real estate is a legal term that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as buildings, specifically property that is stationary, or fixed in location.
The content is very good.
=======================================
Bob
FSBO

pch said...

Fantastic story, Mama.

The Kitchen said...

This Momma is the world's biggest TC fan - ever. How I wish those walls could talk!

Ivy Lane said...

So Chic...I too am from Cleveland..and I am a Realtor who is living/working in this night mare... Homes are NOT selling and the "lights have gone out" in some areas..the media is not totally wrong....I believe that the market is not going to stabilize for a few years and that we are all in for the long haul..regardless if we are republicans or democrats..the damage is done, now we have to ride out the storm!

Anonymous said...

Seriously, so chic. Stay in the dark, darling.

Anonymous said...

Did anyone see that ghastly site someone slipped a link into their comment earlier? Not only did they forget to buy an ad, the site looks worse than that ping pong ball my dear friend Gloria stepped on during the finals of the ping pong tournament at the club.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe the post is about Capote, Sagaponack, Bleckner- and there's a tiff over Cleveland in Comments. Zzz!

Loved your story, Mama. Met RB many times when I was a pitty ting, all I got was an ogling, and he never ever remembered meeeting me before. BUT his paintings are indeed very beautiful.

It's a dream property, even out here..sweet provenance and privacy. But 13 mil profit more than he paid for it? Yikes. Also, even for 1993, 800k is suspiciously low for 4 freaking acres steps from the ocean. And bought from a non-profit? VERY fishy, I'm sure he knew someone, sweetened the deal with a few paintings. He was riding very high then..

Seriously, I grew up out here, 800k was a steal, even in 1993.

Anonymous said...

If I ever meet Miss Bleckner I will slap her in the face for insulting the name of a lady. Outrageous!

Anonymous said...

Oh Mama. You outdid yourself this time with the tale of the "White Street" incident. I nearly died laughing, that was exceptionally well written.

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Anonymous said...

I can't believe Ross Bleckner (hellooooo, people!) stuck his hand down your pants and no one gives a shit?

For shame.

Awesome blog, BTW.

lil' gay boy said...

Dear, dear, Mama, did you not even slap him?

I know, I know, shit splatters, but still ––– you had your reputation to protect!

Rumor has it that Capote & Dunphy maintained the separate residences all their lives, and would pass back & forth from house to house through a gap in the privet hedge separating the two houses.

For the truly adventurous (or bored), one can scroll southwest, (toward the top left corner of the screen) to catch a glimpse of the stunningly vulgar Ira Rennert Estate, Fair Field, the largest privately occupied house (outside of the Vanderbilt's Biltmore) in the US, comprising 110,000 sq. ft. on 63 acres, just down the road.

Chilling.