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Andy Warhol in Montauk

Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey eventually purchased a place in Montauk (the village at the farthest tip of Long Island) for $235,000, each paying fifty percent.

Bob Colacello:

"It turned out to be an impressive, if understated, compound of five white clapboard houses built in the thirties sitting at the end of a long and winding private road on about twenty acres of unspoiled land directly facing the open sea. It was known locally as The Church Estate, after the original owners, an Idaho family who only used it a couple of weeks each September, when the bass fishing was best." (BC124)

Andy Warhol's neighbors included Dick Cavett and his actress wife, Carrie Nye who lived in a Stanford White house about half a mile to the west and Peter Beard who had just purchased a small stone cottage about half a mile to the east.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis's sister, Lee Radziwell rented the largest of the five houses on Andy Warhol's property in Montauk during the first summer he bought it. Lee was there to supervise the "rescue" of Grey Gardens where her eccentric Easthampton cousins, the Beales, lived. Jackie visited Lee several times that summer.

Bob Colacello interviewed the Beales for Interview magazine, but Lee Radziwell thought it best not to have it printed.

Lee Radziwell and Peter Beard had an affair while she was renting Warhol's property.

It was Lee Radziwell's idea for the Maysles Brothers (who had filmed the Rolling Stones Altamont concert for the documentary Gimme Shelter) to film her cousins which became the documentary, Grey Gardens (BC125)

Halston also rented out Warhol's house in Montauk in 1978. (BC346)

Paul Morrissey became sole owner of the property when Warhol died. In 2001 he put the Montauk compound up for sale for $50 million. The most expensive property sold previously in Montauk was Richard Avedon's house which went for just under $10 million in ca.2000.

The $50 million price tag is considered high for the area, especially since when Warhol first purchased the property it consisted of 21 acres, now whittled down to 5.6 acres. There is a large main house, four guest houses and several other outbuildings. The buildings have never been renovated and there is no tennis court, no gym and no swimming pool. "I've had the good sense not to improve it" said Paul Morrissey, after putting it up for sale.

The property was purchased in 2006, reportedly to J.Crew CEO Mickey Drexler.

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