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New York Post
Hamptons mansion selling for $38 million has one big catch: You can’t live in it
By Jennifer Gould,
2024-03-03
Oops, he did it again.
Harry Macklowe, one of New York City’s most brazen developers, has listed his Hamptons home facing exclusive Georgica Pond — with neighbors like Steven Spielberg — for $38 million.
There’s just one catch. It’s uninhabitable.
Developer Harry Macklowe has listed his uninhabitable home for $38 million. Doug Kuntz
That’s because the mansion lacks a certificate of occupancy, and the new owners won’t be legally allowed to move in.
The off-the-books renovations on his Hamptons home echo his 1985 move to hire a mob-run company to blow up four buildings on West 44th Street in the middle of the night without city permits, hours before the city started to enforce a ban on razing single room occupancy buildings.
The demolition put people’s lives in danger, officials said at the time.
“It’s insane. He ripped out decks and did whatever he wanted. He illegally cleared land and built without permits — just like he did on West 44th Street,” an inside source said.
The construction of the Hamptons house reminds many of Macklowe’s unlawful demolition of buildings on W 44th street in New York. Doug Kuntz
“The house is also highly leveraged to the hilt,” the source added. “There is no justification for asking $38 million. The house comes with legal complications and it’s not even on the pond. “
The insider estimated: “It’s worth no more than $12 to $15 million.”
The East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals declined to retroactively approve Macklowe’s illegal acts, and so Macklowe sued them. The case is ongoing.
For now, East Hampton Village building inspector Thomas Preiato confirmed to The Post that Macklowe “can sell the house, but no one can occupy it.”
The house can be sold, but because there is no certificate for occupancy, no one can move in. Doug Kuntz
“He had a certificate of occupancy for the home back in 2017. But it is no longer valid because of all the fines he hasn’t paid,” Preiato said.
The inspector added: “He put the wetlands in danger. We have a wetlands code for a reason. It’s concerning.”
In 2019, The Post reported that officials said Macklowe had built on the property illegally, and not paid fines that came after the fact.
Macklowe declined to comment when reached by The Post at the time.
He also declined to comment on the home going up for sale.
His previous spokesperson said he no longer has a full-time flack: “He hires them on a per project basis.”
Top broker Paul Brennan, of Douglas Elliman, who shares the Macklowe listing with Elliman’s Martha Gundersen, declined to comment.
The four bedroom home comes with a pool and sits on 2.7 acres at 64 West End Ave. in East Hampton.
It is surrounded by preserved land, the listing notes.
Macklowe paid $10.35 million for the home in 2017, then proceeded to clear land and build too close to wetlands — all without permits, village authorities say.
The land was cleared and the house was built without any permits. Steven Hirsch
At the time, he lived there with Patricia Landeau, now his wife, while he was in the midst of an ugly divorce from Linda Macklowe, who still lives across the pond — so close that the exes can see each other from their homes.
While that proximity to an ex might make some people uncomfortable, Macklowe isn’t one of those people.
He also plastered a 42-foot photo of himself with Landeau on the supertall building 432 Park Avenue, which he had helped develop — but where he never closed on a unit.
(He recently eluded foreclosure on his units there, at least temporarily, by having an entity he controls declare bankruptcy.)
The Post previously reported in 2019 that Macklowe admitted to the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals that he didn’t have the permits he needed for construction and to clear the wetlands, but he did it anyway.
Macklowe’s then-lawyer, Richard Whalen, told the zoning board, “The great majority of the improvements that we’re coming to you for approval for have already been done. They were built without the benefit of a building permit, or variances or a wetland permit from this board.”
The house violates zoning codes as it was built too close to the wetlands. Doug Kuntz
The work was done within 150 feet of wetlands in violation of the code, according to a the East Hampton Star.
“More than 21 charges have been filed several times since 2019, and there is a stop work order issued from Feb. 11, 2019, but they were done at that point. They had gotten what they wanted,” Preiato said.
“It’s tough. It’s been going on for a while. Someone is feeling some kind of entitlement, like they aren’t subject to the codes, but when you are impacting bodies of water, it’s more serious than a patio too close to the line.”
Macklowe was also in a dispute with former neighbor Martha Stewart back in the ’90s over plantings on her property.
— Additional reporting by Doug Kuntz
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People claiming that the house is only worth less than half of what he’s asking are crazy. You can always go down on the price it really can’t go up. And maybe to somebody it is worth 38 million, just because it’s not worth that to you or I. The same way with Trump properties somebody would pay a lot because Trump owned it and lived in it. It’s worth as much as somebody will pay.
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