Spend the holidays in the infamous 28-room Grey Gardens estate
Though now this 28-room mansion looks like your typical East Hampton property, it was once a decrepit, crumbling, cat-infested, overgrown horror that came to be known as the Grey Gardens Estate, based on the title of the 1975 documentary that immortalized the isolated and impoverished lives of its residents Edith wing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (the aunt and cousin to Jackie O). Back in September 2015, 6sqft shared that the now-restored 1.7-acre estate was up for rent asking $175,000 a year (except for August, when the owners presumably holiday). The Post also reports that there’s shorter-term options for the upcoming holidays–$7,500 for Thanksgiving week and $12,500 the week of Christmas.
The home was built in 1897 and acquired by Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her husband Phelan in 1924. After they divorced in 1946, he allotted her $300 a month to stay in the house with their daughter “little Edie,” but by 1972 the Suffolk County Health Commission ordered an eviction notice due to its conditions (it was ultimately dropped due to help from Jacqueline Kennedy and her sister Lee Radziwell). The documentary was later turned into a 2006 Broadway musical and 2009 television movie starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange.
In 1979, Little Edie sold the home to the late Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of The Washington Post who helped expose the Pentagon Papers, and author and journalist Sally Quinn for $200,000 provided they didn’t tear it down. Despite the horrid conditions (Bradlee claimed there were 52 dead cats inside, and at one point when Quinn touched a key on the living room piano, the entire floor collapsed), the couple spent years restoring the entire home to its former glory, including the surrounding gardens.
Today, it boasts seven bedrooms, a tennis court, and a heated pool.
[Listing: 3 West End Road, East Hampton by Gary DePersia at The Corcoran Group]
[Via NYP]
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