Howard Gittis Double Whammy: Southampton

SELLER: Howard Gittis
LOCATION: Ox Pasture Road, Southampton, NY
PRICE: $59,000,000
SIZE: 15.4 acres, 15,000 square feet (approx.), 7 bedrooms, 8.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Settle down children. Go and lay down on your cushioned chesterfield, catch your breath and then take a few anxiety pills to settle your frazzled nerves. Your Mama knows that after viewing the soo-blime Palm Beach manse of recently deceased bizness man Howard Gittis, the children were expecting something faint worthy from his Southampton summer residence. But alas...

What we find instead is a very gracious, very large and very old school Southampton estate in a posh location with luxe but rather lackluster interiors and a spine tingling asking price of $59,000,000, a number only an metals magnate, strip mining industrialist or hedge fun honcho can appreciate or afford. Remember kids, this is a summer house in the Hamptons that is likely to be used only a few months of the year and 59 million smackers is a lot of damn money for a summer house.

Your Mama is non plussed by the interiors, but we will admit that the entrance hall is spectacular if a little more elegant than we would desire in a Hampton beach getaway, and overall, the house is a stunning piece of traditional architecture...it just needs a nice gay decorator to get up in there are spruce up the furniture up. Partick the dated and depressing dining room.

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Mister Gittis scooped up the gorgeous and nicely proportioned Georgian style brick manor house on Ox Pasture Road for $8,000,000 back in January of 1994. He soon purchased the adjacent house on a 2 acre parcel for another $1,000,000 which was recently renovated and used as staff quarters. Now babies, let's discuss this for a moment. Your Mama would never, ever dream of having full time staff living in our house. Live in staff are just too damn nosy and Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are way too private.

All you rich people with staff living up in your big houses are just fooling yourself if you think the they don't hear everything, see everything, and try on your good jewelry when you're not home. Your butlers, housekeepers and dusting gurls know far more about you and your family than you would ever want to admit. And they talk to each other. Don't think they don't, because they do. They vent to each other about your tantrums and they tell their friends about your eating disorders and they gossip far and wide about your husband's penchant for Chinese tranny hookers with blond hair. However, if we were to have full time staff, a second house on the property would definitely be the way to go. Think about it. If you've got the room and the zoning, it's the right thing to do. Mister Gittis had the right idea and a million clams is not so much for a supremely rich tycoon to pay for a little bit of privacy.

Anyhoo, listing information for the property shows the house measures a behemoth 15,000 square feet (approx.), with 7 bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms and sits on an 15.4 acres. Property records reflect slightly different numbers, but Your Mama is not going to split hairs on this one...it's a huge damn house on an unusually large piece of land for this neck of the hoity toity Hamptons.

The estate, called Westerly, sits just a short chauffeur driven ride from the sugar sand beach at the bottom of Halsey Neck Lane. However this is clearly not the sort of house one would dare track in sand after a sunny and windswept day at the beach. At least not without incurring the silent wrath and deep resentment of the stern housekeeper Ingaborg, who spent the better part of her morning supervising and scolding poor Hildegarde and Gladis as they hand picked sand out of the custom sized sisal in the living room.

The extensively manicured grounds feature long views across acres of meticulously clipped lawns surrounded by mature trees, formal gardens, cutting gardens, quiet corners, a tennis court, what appears to be two swimming pools (one for the staff perhaps?), and several gated entrances with long gravel driveways leading to several garages and motor courts.

Everyone knows that real estate prices in the Hamptons follow their own insane logic, but even still, unloading a $59,000,000 estate that's not on the ocean won't likely be a quick sell. But then again, stranger things have happened, Wall Street bonuses are at a record high this year and there are plenty of people looking to park tens of millions of dollars into a market that remains untouched by rising oil prices, sagging stock prices and a lending industry looking more and more like it's headed for a free fall.

Whatever happens, Mister Gittis' Westerly will net his estate several if not many times his initial $9,000,000 investment. Good luck to his real estate agents. Be sure to let Your Mama know when this place sells and for how much!