Saturday, April 20, 2013

Its Official: Courtney Sale Ross Lists Cody House

SELLER: Courtney Sale Ross
LOCATION: East Hampton, NY
PRICE: $75,000,000
SIZE: 7,500 square feet, 7 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In late January and early February all us property gossips went cray-cray over the reported real estate rumor that wealthy widow and education oriented philanthropist Courtney Sale Ross* had quietly floated her pond-front East Hampton (NY) compound as a pocket listing with an ear pricking and publicity ensuring asking price of $75,000,000.

A brief and unexpected missive from our ever-vigilant aide de camp Hot Chocolate informed us that the property, dubbed Cody House, has hit the open market today with the expected $75 million price tag.

Listing details for the 5.42 acre spread comprises four separate parcels with 460 prime feet of Georgica Pond frontage and a small private dock for tying up dinghies, rubber rafts, kayaks, canoes, sail boats, row boats and/or other non-motorized water craft.*

Two of the parcels are essentially undeveloped but for the high hedges and broad sweep of well-watered and meticulously mowed grass that runs up the the pond's edge. A gated, tree-lined driveway cuts through the front lawn to the approximately 7,500 square foot main house that sits right up on the pond's edge on the largest of the four parcels and offers up seven bedrooms and six full bathrooms, according to listing information. The back of the house wraps around a jigsaw puzzle-like stone terrace and dark bottom kidney shaped swimming pool with long views over Georgica Pond. The final parcel includes a separate three bedroom guest house, barn and itty-bitty and undeniably charming waterside cottage.

In addition to a whole lotta insanely rich financiers, captains of industry and one or two scions of vast family fortunes, some of the nearby estates are owned by swanky, well-connected sorts such as Hollywood royal Steven Spielberg, the heirs of acclaimed screenwriter and filmmaker Nora Ephron and serious journalists Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee who own the famed Grey Gardens and had it up for lease for $125,000 for a short summer season from Memorial day through July.

Avid watchers of the high end East Coast property markets may recall that last year The Widda Ross dumped her sprawling, 20-plus room duplex at the hideously expensive and famous exclusive 740 Park Avenue for $52,500,000 to Left Coast based money manager and notoriously hardcore real estate baller Howard Marks.

In 2010 Miz Ross—not to be confused with the Miss Ross—spent $7,300,000 to acquire a far more modest by comparison condo crib New York's TriBeCa nabe from Fuze drinks founder Lance Collins. Listing details Your Mama dug up show the 2,758 square foot corner apartment has—or had when she bought it—2-3 bedrooms, three (windowless) bathrooms, a small but expensively equipped galley style kitchen, a 29-foot long living/dining room with humongous factory-style floor to ceiling windows and a 500-plus square foot private terrace.

*Miz Ross hails from a reasonably well to do Texas family but by far the vast bulk of her current fortune passed down to her in 1992 when Steve Ross, the well-compensated CEO of Time Warner and her husband of 10 years, died of complications due to prostate cancer. At the time he died, Mister Ross was estimated to be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion.

**As far as Your Mama knows—and we really know so little—except for crab boats, the Georgica Pond home owners association bylaws (or whatever) forbids the use of motorized boats on the pond.

listing photos: Sotheby's International Realty

21 comments:

East Hampton, NY said...

Is there a reason for keeping it as 4 distinct psrcels and not unifying them into one in the register?

Anonymous said...

Yeah that's kinda weird. Maybe four tax bills are cheaper than one giant tax bill?

Sandpiper said...

Became so absorbed, Mama, when you incorporated Grey Gardens into your Sunday surprise; it became a delightful two for one.
I've always had the utmost respect for Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee. Their home exemplifies character and taste beyond words.
The featured home has lovely siting and structure elevations, but once inside the Grey Gardens compound, seriously, can anything else compare?
I’m overdoing superlatives, I know. Can’t help myself.

Anonymous said...

You keep them separate because when you want to sell them you don't have to go through the hassle of splitting them up and dealing with the possibility of being denied to do it also. With regard to taxes they would be higher because there would be no homestead exemptions on the other parcels assuming they exist in that state.

Anonymous said...

Yeah the parcels are usually kept as seperate. As mentioned above it is much easier to sell them that way. Also, it can make it easier to do certain things to the property if they're seperate. For example should someone want to build a guesthouse or whatever on that last undeveloped parcel, it would be much easier to get approvals for (and harder for neighbors to complain) if you're building something on an undeveloped, smaller but seperate parcel, than it would be to build the same sized guesthouse on a larger parcel that already has a residence and guesthouse.

Anonymous said...

That may be the most delusional asking price for a property that I've ever seen...

Anonymous said...

Thanks 459!
And thanks 515! You stole my thoughts!

Anonymous said...

It seems a trifle high. There's a 2 acre compound across West Wend next to Grey Gardens on the market for $23 mill and it's direct oceanfront.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Property Management Orlando said...

The price is too high. Should've brought it down to guarantee buyers and investors.

Real Estate said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Desert Donna said...

Isnt there an advantage to being on the pond side...like less wind? I love an ocean view, but living with it has its disadvantages. This house looks tired and I am so over the tudor beam thing after thate Pac Palisades place a few weeks back.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, everyone, for the explanations about keeping the parcels separate!

exlowe said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

I'm laughing at the commenter who says they have the utmost respect for Sally Quinn. I'd love to know the basis of that opinion. Might want to talk to Martha Radditz, the ABC correspondent who was married to Ben Bradlee's son by his first wife, about that.

GiltEdgeGirl said...

L.A. Times tells us today that the wealthiest 7% of Americans saw their wealth increase 28% from 2009-2011, while the rest of us saw our net worth decrease about 4%. Thank you, Mama, for letting us peek-a-boo at that 7%!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
turesta, said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Free Stock market tips | Free share market tips said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
bsrealty said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.