LVMH, the luxury conglomerate run by billionaire Bernard Arnault, has purchased a new property in East Hampton for $22 million.
The sale of the 5,000 square foot property represents the largest ever price per square foot commercial real estate transaction in the Hamptons, Suffolk County or Nassau County, according to Daniel Abbondandolo, an investment broker at Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate firm which worked on the sale.
“LVMH saw it as an opportunity to create a flagship store,” he said, adding that the transaction took around 90 days.
Located at 1 Main Street, the building is priced at $4,400 per square foot, while the average cost of a square foot in an East Hampton’s commercial property is $1,348, as reported by the East Hampton Star.
The luxury conglomerate, which owns a number of companies including Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Moet, is valued at $458 billion, making it the world’s most valuable luxury company. In December, its founder and CEO Arnault, who currently has an estimated net worth of $198 billion, surpassed Elon Musk to become the world’s wealthiest person.
Earlier this month, Arnault’s net worth briefly exceeded $200 billion, a mark which only previously been met by Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Why did Arnault purchase a Hamptons property?
LVMH’s new East Hampton property will likely be used as a store for Louis Vuitton, according to Jeremy Tahari, who previously co-owned the building alongside his father Elie Tahari, a fashion designer with an eponymous clothing line who purchased the property in 2006 for $7.5 million to open a store for his brand.
In the past two years, jewelry company Cartier has leased the space for a pop-up showroom. The two-story building, which was built in 1917, has also been used as a post office and grocery store over the years.
The property is “the best piece of real estate in the Hamptons,” said Jeremy Tahari. “It’s a grandiose facade and it sits on the corner of Newtown Lane and Montauk Highway, it’s the most trafficked street in all of the Hamptons.”
LVMH and Robin Zendell & Associates, a real estate firm representing the luxury company in the transaction, did not respond to requests for comment.
