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    Marilyn Monroe Once Stayed in This Windmill in the Hamptons. Now You Can Buy It for $12 Million.

    Like a lot of artists, literary figures and actors in the 1950s, including Edward Albee, Jackson Pollock and Truman Capote, newlyweds Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller headed to the Hamptons in the summer of 1957.

    The couple reportedly shacked up in a humble cottage at the historic Stony Hill Farm in Amagansett, part of which is nowadays owned by Alec and Hilaria Baldwin. However, so the story goes, to thwart the press, the frequently paparazzi-tracked pair would also stay at another place on nearby Quail Hill, in an old windmill that was invisible from the road and that had been converted into a unique and simply appointed residence. It was only five years later that Monroe died in her home in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles that was recently purchased by a neighbor who initially wanted to tear the house down.

    Monroe and Miller’s funky, romantic hideaway in the Hamptons, not quite two miles inland from popular Atlantic Avenue Beach and appropriately known as The Windmill House, has recently popped up for sale for $12 million. The almost 5.5-acre, mostly wooded property offers total privacy thanks to it being bordered on two sides by protected land owned by the Peconic Land Trust.

    The 19th-century windmill was expanded and converted into a rustic residence in the 1950s.

    The windmill sits on the high point of Quail Hill and was built in the mid-1800s. It pumped water for the farm on which it sat for about 100 years, but sometime around 1950, Samuel Rubin, the founder of Fabergé Perfumes, converted the three-story windmill into a rustic guest house. It was around this time that a structure was added to the back of the windmill to house a kitchen, along with a bedroom and a bathroom. 

    The property was acquired in 1967 by Deborah Ann Light, a philanthropic heiress to the Upjohn pharmaceutical fortune (and a Wiccan priestess!), who donated the adjacent 20 acres to the Peconic Land Trust, a Southampton-based land preservation nonprofit organization for which she was a founding member. Tax records indicate the seller has owned the property for at least a dozen years.

    The kitchen has all that is necessary for whipping up simple summer meals.

    Today, the approximately 1,300-square-foot home remains an unpretentious getaway in one of the most exclusive and expensive resort enclaves in the United States. It has a cozy sitting room, a pint-sized kitchen with a tiny built-in table for two, a couple of bedrooms, one of them an octagonal space on the second floor, and a single bathroom. The unfinished third floor, a one-of-a-kind walk-in closet or storage space, still has the windmill’s mechanical equipment; a metal brake holds the blades of the windmill in place.

    Just outside the windmill’s front door is a large brick patio for enjoying sea breezes, and elsewhere there’s a detached two-car garage and a small accessory building that has previously been used as an art studio.

    The original mechanical equipment remains in place; a metal brake keeps the windmill from turning.

    Besides Monroe and Miller, The Windmill House has been a temporary refuge for several decorators and designers over the years, along with English actor Terence Stamp (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) and satirical novelist Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five).

    Listing agent Bobby Rosenbaum of Douglas Elliman has also stayed at The Windmill House over the years and told Robb Report, “You can really sense the awesome power of Mother Nature in the beauty that surrounds this special home, from the aroma of fresh, clean, salty air blowing gently over Quail Hill, to the musical sounds of the gusts of wind that kiss the trees and rustle their branches.”

    Still, this is the Hamptons, the summertime playground of the world’s richest and most famous. And so, the value of this property may not be so much in its literary and show business provenance but rather its potential to build, according to marketing material, a residence of up to 20,000 square feet with distant views of the Atlantic Ocean and the Montauk/Napeague Bay. 

    Click here for more photos of The Windmill House. More

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    Mid-Tier Hamptons Homes Are Seeing Massive Price Cuts. Here’s Why.

    After a pandemic-era boom, home prices in the Hamptons are starting to plunge.

    Last month, the interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage hit a whopping 8 percent for the first time since 2000. Back in 2020, the average rate clocked in at around 3 percent, and it’ll likely be a long time before rates dip that low again.

    As a result, a slew of properties in the $2 million to $5 million range—the middle range for luxury homes in the notoriously expensive string of Long Island communities that comprise the Hamptons—are seeing major price cuts, the New York Post reported. In recent months, seven-figure homes in the affluent enclaves of Sag Harbor and Amagansett have seen asking price reductions of up to 20 percent as rising interest rates continue to spook buyers.  

    The asking prices of homes listed in the $2 million to $5 million range are being slashed across the Hamptons.

    Susan Wood/Getty Images

    In addition, New Yorkers who fled to the Hamptons during the pandemic are now facing a return-to-office push that’s putting an end to the work-from-home era. “Now that people are back at the office, they don’t need all that space for a ‘Zoom room’,” a source told The Post. “I know a lot of people turning their remote offices in the Hamptons back into bedrooms and putting them on the market.”

    According to a report by Douglas Elliman, the median sales price for a Hamptons home was $1.4 million, an 11.4 percent drop from a year ago, while the average price for a luxury property was just shy of $6.2 million, a 3.2 percent decrease. Conversely, sales at the top end of the market are booming. Deals in the East End spiked 11.6 percent from the second to the third quarter, while trophy home sales were up 11.5 percent. In fact, it was the second time in almost 20 years that there were more transactions between July and September than between April and June. 

    “There’s a ton of wealth, and people will always want to be in the Hamptons,” David Mazujian, a realtor with the Corcoran Group, told The Post. “There’s a ton of demand.”  More

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    13 Spectacular Hamptons Summer Houses That Are Still Available to Rent

    Courtesy of Douglas Elliman New Yorkers, anxious at the best of times, are having an especially angst-ridden year. For those free from health or employment woes, What-To-Do-About-Summer has been a mounting source of anxiety—especially for working parents facing months without camps or nannies. The classic Hamptons rental season, bookended by the Memorial and Labor Day […] More

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    Luxe Rentals in the Hamptons Skyrocket as the Wealthy Look to Quarantine Away From the City

    “People were calling on a Wednesday and wanting move in by Friday. They’d sign the lease, wire the funds and be on their way,” says Gary DePersia, noted Corcoran broker who has specialized in Hamptons’ luxury real estate for over 25 years. “It started in mid-March when people realized there would be a shutdown. The calls haven’t stopped.” […] More

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    As Sales of Second Homes Collapse, Sellers Hunker Down for the Long Haul

    For those living in cramped, Covid-infested cities, vacation homes are worth more than gold. In the US, anyone who has one is living there right now. In countries with a stricter lockdown, retreating to a rural weekend bolthole is less straightforward—Scotland’s chief medical officer had to resign on Monday after being given a police warning […] More

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    The Hamptons’ Most Expensive Rental Is This $1 Million Per Month Estate With its Own Baseball Field

    Those living in the Empire State have become somewhat desensitized to exorbitant rental prices—especially since they hit an all-time high earlier this year—but this opulent estate’s monthly fee is sure to make even the most seasoned renter’s eyes water. Located in bougie Bridgehampton, the expansive mansion is now available to rent for a cool $1 […] More