Nathan Lane enjoyed this last summer in East Hampton so much that he’s poised to become a local. The Producers star recently signed a contract on a $2.1 million house in East Hampton Village. His new three-bedroom home sits on a small street that branches off Main Street.
Reached at his home in Manhattan, Mr. Lane declined to comment on his impending purchase, as did his broker, Kathy Konzet of Sotheby's International Realty.
The current owners of the house are Jack Rosenberg, an oral surgeon turned investor, and John Murphy, an interior designer who redesigned the East Hampton residence. Both men declined to comment on the sale, but according to real-estate records, they purchased the house in July of 2002 for $975,000. The 1935 traditional-style house has a detached studio, heated pool and three bathrooms.
Because of its proximity to Main Street, the house is within a stone’s throw of places like Citarella’s and the local cinema.
Mr. Lane was a visible presence in his new neighborhood this summer. In mid-August, the New York Post ‘s “Hamptons Diary” spotted him dining with Mel Brooks and Susan Stroman, the creative forces behind the runaway Broadway hit The Producers .
A few days later, the Post spotted Mr. Lane dining with Mr. Brooks again, this time with the show’s former co-star, Matthew Broderick, who has a house in nearby Bridgehampton. The sightings added fuel to speculation that Mr. Lane and Mr. Broderick will reprise the roles they made famous last year.
PLAYWRIGHT KENNETH LONERGAN INVESTS $1.45 M. IN HAMPTONS
The playwright who penned and directed the Academy Award–nominated 2000 film You Can Count On Me may soon be countingon friends Matthew Broderickand Sarah Jessica Parker to warm his new $1.45 million house in Bridgehampton.
Kenneth Lonergan’s 1980 clapboard-style house has four bedrooms, two and a half baths, a vinyl pool, a two-car garage and two fireplaces, and sits on a 1.8-acre lot on Matthews Lane. He now shares a Bridgehampton address with Mr. Broderick, whom he befriended when the two attended the now-defunct Walden School in Manhattan together.
But that was their youth. Mr. Lonergan, who is in his early 40’s, has since then co-written the screenplay for Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York and provided the story for Analyze This . His script for You Can Count On Me garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, and the film’s star, Laura Linney, got a Best Actress nomination.
In addition to his film credits, Mr. Lonergan is also a respected playwright, having penned the Off Broadway plays This Is Our Youth -the London production of which starred Matt Damon and Casey Affleck-and The Waverly Gallery . Ben Brantley, the New York Times theater critic, called those works “two of the best American plays of recent years.”
Broker Kathy Konzet of Sotheby’s International Realty declined to comment on the deal.
GOLDEN HANGS UP GLOVES, READY FOR MAIN EVENT
John Golden, who is arguably the top residential real-estate broker in the Hamptons, has quit his post at Sotheby’s International Realty and accepted a job in the Portland, Me., office of LandVest, the large New England real-estate company. Mr. Golden, who has worked in the East Hampton branch of Sotheby’s for the last 16 years, said he’s grown tired of working in the Hamptons and just needed a change of scene.
“After [almost] 20 years, it all became too easy-too much of the same thing,” he said. “When you reach the top, you have to fight to stay there, or go on and do something else.”
Over the years, Mr. Golden has sold and resold some of the most prized properties in the Hamptons. His clients have included financier Carl Icahn, actor Chevy Chase, Kennedy sister-in-law Lee Radziwill and the estate of former Treasury Secretary William Simon.
His biggest sale came in 2002, when he sold financier Bernard Marden’s East Hampton oceanfront house to money manager Ron Baron for $23 million. Mr. Golden said he brokered $90 million worth of real estate in 2001, his biggest year to date.
Although Mr. Golden is generally well-respected in the industry, he acknowledged having some occasional detractors.
“Everyone thought I was this killer,” he said. “I’m really not-I’m mild-mannered. I just didn’t socialize much with other brokers.”
For the last 15 years, Mr. Golden has been making summer excursions to the coast of Maine, and he is actively involved with the Portland Museum of Art. He will be making the move with his partner of 20 years, in addition to his 18-year-old cat and his four-year-old cocker spaniel. Mr. Golden’s new boss at LandVest said she’s excited about her new hire.
“He comes with a pretty stellar reputation as being one of the pre-eminent brokers in the Hamptons,” said Patricia Brassard, a senior vice president at LandVest.
Mr. Golden approached Ms. Brassard about the job earlier this summer, and they just finalized the deal last week. Although the relocation is a permanent one, Mr. Golden said he will still continue to work for his clients in Palm Beach and the Hamptons.
“Often I can sell a property just by picking up a phone,” he said. “But I’ll be coming back [to the East End] whenever necessary.”
Mr. Golden’s old boss at Sotheby’s gave him a pleasant sendoff.
“For nearly two decades, John Golden and Sotheby’s have shared a very successful affiliation, and I know we wish him the best of luck in all his new endeavors,” said Alice Bell, the vice president and manager of Sotheby’s East Hampton office.
BISHOP OF CARNEGIE HILL
André Bishop, the artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, has purchased a $3.45 million townhouse in Carnegie Hill with his partner, Peter Manning. Mr. Bishop and Mr. Manning closed earlier this year on the four-story townhouse at 119 East 91st Street.
Through a spokesperson, Mr. Bishop declined to talk about his purchase.
“He is really shy about his private life and would rather not comment on his house,” said the rep.
During his 12-year tenure at Lincoln Center Theater, Mr. Bishop has overseen the production of a slew of critical and commercial successes, including QED , Mostly Sondheim and Mornings at Seven . In 2000, the theater’s production of Contact won the Tony Award for Best Musical.
Before being appointed to his current post, Mr. Bishop, who is in his mid-50’s, was the artistic director of the Off Broadway theater company Playwrights Horizons. Three of the company’s productions went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama under his watch: Heidi Chronicles , Driving Miss Daisy and Sunday in the Park with George .
Mr. Bishop and Mr. Manning’s new home is a four-story, five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom townhouse. It’s only 15 feet wide and built 55 feet deep, but it has a 15-by-45-foot garden in the backyard. The building has original moldings, three wood-burning fireplaces, a dining room, library and bay window.
MARCY CARSEY FEATHERS NEST IN LATEST SITCOM-HOTEL UNION
Marcy Carsey, one of the most successful producers in television history, has purchased a $2.3 million condo at the Essex House on Central Park South.
Ms. Carsey was one-half of the independent production studio Carsey-Werner, which created The Cosby Show , Roseanne and A Different World . Now called Carsey-Werner-Mandabach, the company’s most recent hits are That 70’s Show , 3rd Rock from the Sun and Grace Under Fire .
Ms. Carsey, whose company is headquartered in Studio City, Calif., closed in late June on the 2,800-square-foot condo at the Essex House, a hotel-condominium hybrid at 160 Central Park South. Her three-bedroom, three-bathroom unit has a terrace, dining room, foyer, library and full park views.
In 1998, Ms. Carsey and her company-widely regarded as the most successful independent production studio of all time-joined with Geraldine Laybourne and Oprah Winfrey to start Oxygen, a women’s cable network. The Los Angeles Business Journal this year estimated Ms. Carsey’s fortune at $600 million. Her company is currently executive-producing Whoopi Goldberg’s new sitcom, in which she plays a hotel owner. Ms. Carsey was traveling and unavailable for comment.
RECENT TRANSACTIONS IN THE REAL ESTATE MARKET
UPPER WEST SIDE
230 West End Ave
One-bedroom, one-bathroom co-op.
Asking: $269,000. Selling: $260,000.
Maintenance: $917; 48 percent tax-deductible.
Time on the market: nine and a half weeks.
DIALING FOR DOLLARS Back in February, New Yorkers had to start dialing 1, plus the area code, before making all local calls. That new policy is one reason why the first buyer who came looking was separated from some $26,000. The apartment’s last owner, Carl Rohling, had relocated to Silicon Valley in May of 2000 to work for a tech firm. After renting out his 600-square-foot West End apartment for two years (the maximum amount of time allowed by the building), he put it on the market without a broker. He found a potential buyer in a woman from Connecticut, who secured her choice with a $26,000 deposit. She then began a correspondence with the building’s managing agents to aid in due diligence for the property. It was a brief correspondence. The managing agents-perhaps flummoxed by the city’s new area-code-dialing policies-kept on dialing the potential buyer at a 212 number instead of a Connecticut area code. “They accused her of not returning their calls. She eventually got so disgusted working with the managing agents that she walked away from them and left her deposit,” said Karen Shenker, a sales associate at Citi Habitats whom the apartment’s owner, Mr. Rohling, later turned to for help in selling the 15th-floor apartment. Ms. Shenker ended up closing the deal with a special-education teacher in her early 30s’, whose parents helped out with the down payment. “Even I had difficulty working with the managing agents,” Ms. Shenker said. “Eventually the president of the co-op board had to talk to them. So I can understand what [the first buyer] had to go through.”
UPPER EAST SIDE
305 East 72nd Street
Two-bedroom, two-bathroom co-op.
Asking: $547,000. Selling: $475,000
Maintenance: $1,416; 50 percent tax-deductible.
Time on the market: two months.
TRIPLE-PLAY Lisa Holland-Davis, a sales-associate broker at Halstead, just scored a triple play at this East Side high-rise, wrangling three interdependent closings within six weeks. First she got the listing for this two-bedroom unit, whose owner was moving out west. Almost immediately thereafter, neighbors in the building made an offer on it-they live in a one-bedroom unit and needed more room for their expected second child. To pay for the purchase, they put their one-bedroom on the market. As soon as that happened, another neighbor in the building made an offer on that one-bedroom; she was upgrading from a studio. As it worked out, each apartment’s closing was contingent upon the other two. “It was a domino effect,” said Ms. Holland-Davis. “If one didn’t work out, then the other two wouldn’t have. That part was very stressful for the sellers.” The studio ended up closing first, and the other two closed on the same day, about six weeks later. In all, it took about four and a half months.
CHELSEA
252 Seventh Avenue
Studio loft
Asking: $725,000. Selling: $695,000.
Charges: $413. Taxes: $3,970
Time on the market: one day.
DETROIT HOUSE The seller of this apartment had only lived there for all of two days before word came down that she’d have to put it right back on the market. The unlucky buyer-she’s in her mid-30’s and works on the marketing side of a large car company-had been stationed in Boston when the higher-ups at work offered her a transfer to their New York office. Eagerly accepting, she put her house in Boston on the market and began apartment-hunting in New York-crashing at a co-worker’s place during the search. Six months later, she finally managed to sell the Boston place and close on this 990-square-foot studio at the Chelsea Mercantile, a newly developed condo building now home to Kyle Maclachlan. She moved in on a Tuesday. On Thursday, she dropped a line to her broker. “She called to say, ‘Are you sitting down?'” said her broker, Lee A. Modleski, an associate broker at Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy. It turns out that Ms. Modleski’s client had been offered an attractive new job-in Detroit! “It was an upward step in this corporation, and the offer was there and she felt she had to take it.” Not that Ms. Modleski was too bummed out about the situation. “It was good for me because I got to sell it again, but I felt bad for her,” she said. In fact, the apartment sold the first day it went on the market.
