Sunday, March 30, 2008

Jonathan Sheffer Makes Beautiful Real Estate Music in East Hampton

SELLER: Jonathan Sheffer
LOCATION: Ocean Avenue, East Hampton, NY
PRICE: $18,500,000
SIZE: 6 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Circa 1888 restored charming village 1880s published Dutch Colonial house with 6 bedrooms and 5.5 baths set on multi-acre site steps from village and ocean beach. Gorgeous gunite pool and spa, all weather tennis court and separate cottages with gym, 2 car garage and guest house. One of a kind compound.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama has become quite accustomed to listening to some of the Honda driving children wax, whine and complain about the obscenely pricey properties in Malee-boo sitting far too close together and that for eighteen some millions of clams of their money they would require enough land not to be subjected to the sounds of neighbors farting and fornicating. Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter happen to L.O.V.E. us some Malee-boo and aren't so bothered by the proximity to neighbors, but we can certainly understand the desire many have to put a little distance between themselves and the crabby Mrs. Kravitz next door. With that in mind, Your Mama is pleased to start the week with some multi-acre Hamptons happiness which offers plenty of room to roam and enough privacy to sunbathe nekkid, nood and in the buff without being watched by the porno loving neighbor who's always trying to snap photos of your naughty bits with his mobile phone camera.

Located on Ocean Avenue between East Hampton's boo-teek lined downtown drag and the swanky sands of Main Beach, sits this dignified Dutch Colonial with the well preserved shingled skin of another century stretched over updated interiors that have been fitted and kitted with all the mod-ren conveniences required by the pampered princes and princesses of the East End who do not care to rough it on summer weekends.

Property records show the owner is a gentleman named Jonathan Sheffer who some of you–although not likely many of you–will know as the young and charismatic composer and conductor of the Eos Orchestra in New York City. Before Mister Sheffer set up shop with Eos, he studied under the Mister Leonard Bernstein, and scored a slew of cinematic treats such as Zits, The Omen IV and Grandpa's Funeral. It's true. Look it up. Mister Sheffer also conducted the orchestras for films like The Good Sheperd, Interview with the Vampire and the Batman and Robin franchise.

All of which, apparently, paid may-jor money because Mister Sheffer was able to buy, maintain and go to town de-ko-ratin' a generously sized compound in the Hamptons that he recently put up for sale with an impressive $18,500,000 asking price. Listing information for the property shows that there are 6 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms as well as several detached buildings that include a two car garage (where the Dr. Cooter would park the vintage 450SL, natch) and a large and lofty guest house at the rear of the property. A home gym occupies another small cottage on the property. Your Mama realizes that many rich, vain and well toned people spend the big bucks to have private gyms installed in their homes, and we understand they're convenient and all that crap. However, if we're being truthful, and we always are, home gyms usually make Your Mama cringe and (no offense intended) feel a little sorry for the owners of the torturous exercise contraptions. It's something we're working on with our lovely lesbian therapist, but for now we're still a little creeped out by them.

Other features of the sprawling and high-hedged compound include acres of lawn for running the dogs and playing gin and tonic fueled Bocci tournaments, a spectacular in ground swimming pool shaped by several interconnecting hexagons, and an all weather tennis court tucked into the back of the property. Can anyone explain an "all weather" tennis court to Your Mama? Who plays tennis in the rain or snow? Generally speaking, isn't tennis a fair weather sport and not an all weather sport?

Anyhoo, moving inside, Your Mama is loving the large living room with its dark floors, two fireplaces and warehouse full of white slip covered furniture. (We can't help it, we love white slip covered sofas. It's a sickness we can't explain much like we're unable to explain our dysphoria regarding home gyms.) The children will note the artwork casually placed on the mantles and Your Mama would like for Mister Sheffer to give us that shin bruising but gorgeous gnarled wood coffee table because it would look amazing in Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's beach house living room too. If we had our way, we would instruct someone to immediately remove the slip covered slipper chairs which make us gag a little (too much of a good thing is just too much) and surely there was a more elegant solution for the flat screen than sticking it to the wall like a used piece of chewing gum, right?

We know some of you will not like it, but Your Mama thinks the dining room has been magnificently pared down to the barest necessities required for eating...a shiny table (that beautifully mirrors the gorgeous glossy wainscoting), 8 or 10 mixed and matched chairs, and an austere chandelier (on a dimmer, of course). The kitchen, while not blazing any new paths of high design, is fully functional and looks like a nice place to make coffee and eat donuts.In truth, as the children might expect, the only real issue we have with the kitchen is that crazy pot rack hanging above the sink waiting for just the right moment to give the dishwasher a concussion. Mister Sheffer, please understand that in the main Your Mama adores your house and the simple beach house day-core, but your potentially lethal pot rack gives us hives and has us reaching for the Xanax.

The bedrooms at Mister Sheffer's, at least some of the six of them, appear to provide guests with sitting areas perfect for smoking pre-dinner joints and playing before bed checkers. Sitting areas in guest rooms are really great if you like to make your house guests comfortable enough to want to extend their stay well beyond your invitation, which Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter most certainly do not. Our guest rooms are tiny. Cute. Comfortable. But tiny. Makes 'em ready to go back to their own damn home after just a day or two, which is just the way we like it. In and out.

In our humble and totally meaningless opinion, Mister Sheffer's East Hampton getaway is a nice change of pace from the old-school chintz and Chinoiserie palaces that are all too common in the Hamptons. It looks and feels like a kick off your flip flops East Cost beach house done up for an arty farty (and very rich) New York City fella and Your Mama is down with that whole bizness.

Your Mama feels deep in our ever expanding gut that the house will be sold quickly to someone really rich who will pay a premium get their nice gay decorator in there to whip the place into shape before the East End social season begins in earnest on Memorial Day. We wish Mister Sheffer well as he moves on to wherever it is he may be going...and seriously, dude, have your people call Your Mama's people if you're looking to get rid of the coffee table.

17 comments:

scrap happy girl said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Alessandra said...

We'll have to agree to disagree about the appeal of white slip covered living room furniture, Mama, though I will concede that Mr. Sheffer's living room is far less offensive than most.

The place works for me. I'm one of those silly privacy nuts, who feels that part of the money one spends on real estate (when buying a SFR) is on the actual land. It must be the small part of me that claims frugal Scots heritage or it's my inherent distaste for hearing my neighbors noisy ablutions, but in any case, this is a nice spread. I can't claim enough knowledge of the East Hamptons to remotely say whether it is well priced, but it doesn't seem outrageous, either.

pch said...

Now, this is my idea of the way some shingles, a covered porch and a gambrel roof should look.

Anonymous said...

The great debate - Malee-boo or Hamptons? I say both...

Anonymous said...

My only beef is the lack of any curb appeal. Hamptons reminds me of Stinson beach ($2500/ sq ft)-- very nice lots, major zoning regualtions (stinson has max 350 building permits) issues - I can accept the zoning regulation; but at $2500 a sq ft I need a lttle more effort then Uncle Fester's outhouse being pawned off as a beach home.

Anonymous said...

Did you hear that Donald Trump has lowered the price on his estate in Palm Beach 25MM it is now 100MM he also hired an agent that can get it sold quietly, if it sells for 100MM that will be a record in Florida.

so_chic_darling said...

That Trump thing looks like a Ramada Inn.Who will buy it at any price?

lil' gay boy said...

I'm with you, Alessandra - if I buy real estate, I want real estate.

Don't know how much acreage there is but Ocean Avenue is one of the main drags down to the beach; let's hope it's set back far enough from the road . . .

Anonymous said...

For a listing this price, could they at least have their gurl scrub the soot off the fireplace and repaint the mantle?

luke220 said...

I am not loving this place. It looks cramped and not well put together. I think the price is aggressive- not being on the water. The pool seems out of context and very uninviting with all of the hard angles and edges.

Anonymous said...

The coolest attribute about this compound, for me anyway, is that it’s not perfect by today’s standards of interiors straight out of catalogs or design center acquisitions.

This genuinely quaint--albeit grand--getaway is long on comfort and short on pretense; just the way I like it. I could easily go from my jammies to shorts and a tee-shirt, fast ponytail and a baseball cap to protect my natural high and low lights (LOL). I’d have no need to obsess over my Bonannos coordinating with my fresh cache of Salmon Cove pop collar polos. Nope. Not here. And what’s up with popping collars anyway? Didn’t that go out a few decades ago?

I’d buy it furnished, of course, just so I could send Our Mama that lovely tree root coffee table she’s cooing over. There is however, one small (18.5) stumbling block I’ll first need to address …

pch said...

Sandpiper, I'm totally with you on the appealing relaxed feel of this house. Luke, have to agree on the geometric pool, which I hadn't noticed.

And Sandpiper's popped collar reference is reminding of the strange fashion for knotting a blucher's gold laces at the top eyelet and walking on the heel so it got flattened out. I doubt it'll make a similar comeback...

Anonymous said...

Donald was told by Dolly Lenz months ago that he needed to cut the price by 25+. Finally listened to her, she knows her stuff.

As far as the hamptons home is concerned, the kitchen needs a re-do. Not that it's bad quality, but the position of the range is driving me insane.

Anonymous said...

also, shouldnt they have cleaned the fireplace before taking the listing photos?

Anonymous said...

No.

Anonymous said...

the piano is perfectly placed for once. I'm not crazy about the house I like mjf better.

Anonymous said...

I look at this place and I see no life. (no indoor plants - big giveaway.)

First glance, charming. Upon enlarging the photo and wanting to absorb the photography and enjoy the beauty... lifeless.

House... pleasant, technically correct = 50% & the chimneys add character to give it 60%. Second room, white spotless furniture, soot all over the fireplace - no. (However, beautiful HERMES orange vs white - coulda been a contenta.) The rest, sparse. Without thought, without talent and frankly, without substance. Some of it, i.e. bedrooms, really present as institutional.