Update (12/18/15): According to the Wall Street Journal, the Montauk estate once owned by Andy Warhol has sold for $50 million, reportedly a record sum for the hamlet on the far tip of Long Island. Appropriately, the buyer is financier and billionaire art collector Adam Lindemann, who knew Warhol and collected his work. The seller is J.Crew CEO Mickey Drexler, who bought the property for $27 million in 2007.
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Original post:
Andy Warhol would have appreciated the wild and dramatic price tag attached to the Montauk spread that once belonged to the art-world-bending superstar.
The price for the place is so startling, that you are forewarned: It’s not a typo. The 30-acre, waterfront property at 16 Cliff Drive and 8 Old Montauk Highway is no longer a whisper listing. Warhol’s East End of Long Island paradise has hit the real estate market at full throttle at $85 million.
Just to be clear and to represent this list price in a visually compelling fashion befitting Warhol’s legacy for making some of the most iconic and visually bold art, the listing looks like this: $85,000,000.
In other words: More zeros than Campbell’s little tomato soup cans.
OK, so a lot figures into the one-of-a-kind nature of this property. It is big. It is pristine. It is out there on the spit of Long Island where the rich and famous and infamous like to play. They don’t make 30 acres of waterfront property like that anymore. And this place has 600 feet of oceanfront and 24 acres on the bluffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean that now serve as an equestrian center.
The estate, called Eothen, which means “from the East” in Greek, is currently owned by J. Crew CEO Mickey Drexler, who may not be as big and bold as Warhol, though Drexler does have a flair for turning retail clothing companies into Wall Street-traded juggernauts. Drexler purchased the spread back in 2007 for $27 million, and turned loose designers and contractors to refurbish the multi-structure compound that was originally a fishing camp back in the 1930s by the Church family, which makes Arm & Hammer Baking Soda.
The property’s other great value is its role as the 1970s hangout for some of the art and entertainment scene’s biggest names and talents. As the ringleader of the New York art scene, Warhol hauled everyone from Jackie Onassis, Mick Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor and John Lennon out to his Montauk spread.
Drexler, whose J. Crew company has hit troubled waters in the retail biz over the past few quarters, is also trying to sell his $26 million beach-front home in Wainscott, as well as his condo at 140 Franklin Street in Tribeca. Originally listed for $35 million less than 2 months ago, Drexler has lopped 15 percent off the list price for the 6,000-plus square-foot condo and is now seeking $29.5 million. There may be a lesson in that ambitious pricing for the former Warhol spread.
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