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 Hamptons doting
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July 4th fireworks from a Murray Hill rooftop. |
A grey and foggy first July weekend in New York with some rainfall keeping the pavement damp and shrouding the cityscapes by the river with a luminous grey mist.
I read Michael Shnayerson’s piece in the new Vanity Fair (with the Gossip Girls on the cover) on Hamptons real estate. Evidently any property under five million isn’t moving these days. |
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The opening spread of the beach at East Hampton from Michael Shnayerson's piece on Hamptons Real Estate in the latest Vanity Fair. |
Only the eight and nine figure properties are moving, re-affirming what has now become cliché in these times: The Rich Still Have Money. This phrase is often repeated (by the unrich) as if to imply some future promise for all (or some) of us.
In the 1990s, I spent my weekends and a good part of my summer in the Hamptons. I had excellent and convenient lodging and so I was privy to the pleasure of that part of Long Island with its quick proximity to the beaches and the sea. The social life, however, was hectic and frenetic as Manhattan in wintertime and ultimately an unfortunate distraction to the point where I was looking forward to Sunday when I could go back to the city.
Now I look at that part of the world from afar and have vision of ever increasing bumper-to-bumper traffic to the bumper-to-bumper parties and the bumper-to-bumper “conversations” about Who Has and Who Gets. Another reason to rush back to town.
However, that said, possibly the most compelling part of Mr. Shnayerson’s article are the aerial photographs of the real estate. The waterside real estate looks absolutely luxurious from “up there.” Although back down on the ground, the sense of luxury is quickly dispelled by the reality of the place which, once a community, is now a warren of financial transactions, be it real estate, interior decorating, marital arrangements; a once farm land populated on weekends by masses hoping to have some of the illusions of that aerial shot rub off on them.
Also interesting was Shnayerson’s asides about Stephen Schwarzman. Mr. Shnayerson doesn’t exactly write with a poison pen, but there’s a “dart” here and there to make the writer’s point.
Steve Schwarzman made a name for himself as a financial genius by the time he was in his early forties (that famous birthday party last year celebrated his 60th). Whether or not he really was/is, he had a reputation almost without peer in the “he’s absolutely brilliant” department on Wall Street. He was also known as a “nice guy,” a “regular guy” (that is, in the really rich regular guy department) And indeed, if you’ve ever been in his company, he’s very low key and good-neighborly in his approach to people socially.
Then, several years ago, he bought the Saul Steinberg apartment for the highest price paid (then) for a co op in New York. Then he bought two houses in Palm Beach (one from publisher Chris Meigher) as sort of a (big) starter house while he refurbished/ renovated/razed the landmarked Hutton property -- much much bigger than the Meigher property – so that eventually the new house will be twice as big as the old (Hutton) one – something like 35,000 square feet. According to Shnayerson, Mr. Schwarzman is doing something comparable with the property he bought in Water Mill from Susan Burden, the widow of Carter Burden. For $34 million.
Now Mr. Schwarzman is known as someone who likes Big, including provenance: Shnayerson points out that the Steinberg apartment originally belonged to John D. Rockefeller Jr. and the Burden provenance includes Vanderbilt antecedents (he forgot to point out the Hutton name’s not so slouchy either). This kind of thing has altered his public image. Gilt by association. |
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The Cornelius Vanderbilt cottage in Newport, The Breakers. |
None of this stuff is new in the history of boom times and their busts. These guys all follow the money and many of them like following in the footsteps (filling the shoes) of those “giants” who preceded. When old Henry Frick first came to town from Pittsburgh, very rich and wanting to play in the temples of the gods, he rented the Vanderbilt mansion on 51st Street and Fifth Avenue (where Rockefeller Center stands today) with thoughts of buying.
After that great fortune is acquired, we still need affirmation (“pinch me, I’m dreaming”). Houses, or castles rather, often seem like a good solution. Even geniuses are human, remember. |
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A coaching party at the Golf Club House, Newport, circa 1899. |
Coincidentally I spent the past weekend doing some research on something related to Newport and the Gilded Age. Steve Schwarzman had nuthin’ on those Vanderbilts, let me tell you; and those Whitneys and even a Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, when it came to spending. A hundred years ago in Newport they built cottages that made everything in the Hamptons today look like huts or pup tents. (Ira Rennert’s spread in Sagaponack notwithstanding). Plus, they were shameless when it came to flaunting it: Two-three-four-five hundred grand a summer (ten weeks max) for entertaining (at home, mind you) was almost de rigueur and that was when a dollar was worth thirty times what it’s worth today. And their large staffs (who were fulltime) were paid peasant wages. You will notice history doesn’t have any problem with their extravagance, however, except maybe to ooh and ahh. Alas, poor Steve.
Alva Vanderbilt’s Marble House, built in the early 1890s cost about the equivalent of a quarter billion in today’s dollars; maybe a lot more. And a few years after that she dumped her husband and moved in with Mr. Belmont down the avenue. How’s that for chump change? Her sister-in-law Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt’s “we’ll show them” palazzo, the Breakers cost even more. And they all had enormous steam and sailing yachts out in the bay too, waiting to whip them off to Europe; not to mention the palatial mansions on Fifth Avenue as well as various estates hither and yon.
In those days the richies in Newport were widely written about, but with a difference. The press published guest lists and menus, descriptions of the dresses women wore; wedding and death notices, and of course the occasional murder and divorce. However, the Mesdames and Misses Vanderbilt, as well as their social peers were NOT photographed al fresco. And they didn’t want to be. They didn’t “borrow” clothes for their parties and balls either; nor “design” handbags either -- although ironically it was a Vanderbilt – Gloria – who started the whole social celebrity merchandising with her famous “jeans.”
Brooke Astor said money makes men arrogant. I would qualify that. Money goads the arrogance that exists in many of us. Sometimes it makes these same people more generous, however. Some, like Steve Schwarzman who recently committed to a $100 million contribution of The New York Public Library, even give a lot.
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Marble House. |
What I found most interesting about Michael Shnayerson’s Vanity Fair piece was the opinions he garnered about the price of real estate. More than one “informed” person concluded that these pieces of real estate will now always be “worth” the multi-millions they are going for now.
One man pointed out that Beach Front is now rare and therefore will always go at a premium because the rich will always want to live on the ocean. That makes sense. I was reminded of the massive brick beachfront house that belonged to Southampton’s dowager Mrs. McDonnell, that was carried away by the sea in a hurricane in 1961. She rebuilt several hundred yards inland.
In the last three or four years I’ve become increasing interested in the financial state of our nation and our world. These days I almost compulsively follow the FT writers and reporters, and certain financial web sites of writers with the kind of knowledge, thinking and insight that makes almost everything else dull and routine.
For just as we are experiencing “extreme weather” on this planet of ours, in these times, so are we in the process of experiencing extreme alterations in the way we live, the way we think, and the way things are. By the time the storms have passed, there will be many mansions washed out to sea, metaphorically speaking. All prices will be re-evaluated and re-assessed. Even in the Hamptons where hurricanes hardly happen. Except when they do. |
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| Click to watch a video of highlights from the July 4th fireworks display along the East River (beautifully accompanied by "This Land Is Your Land" from Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Live/1975-85. |
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