Investor buys Long Island mansion for record $147m

An investor has forked out $147m (€106m) to become the owner of the most expensive property in the US.

Hedge fund manager of Jana Partners, Barry Rosenstein, has purchased the exclusive 18-acre beachfront property on Further Lane in East Hampton.

The property was sold privately to help the owner avoid paying commission to a broker.

Homes in New York’s Hamptons are mostly the beach retreat for financiers and celebrities.

Featuring formal gardens and a pond, the home previously belonged to Christopher H Browne, managing director of the Tweedy, Browne Company investment firm, and his boyfriend, the architect Andrew Gordon.

Browne died of a heart attack at the age of 62 in December 2009, leaving almost his entire estate to Gordon, his partner of 10 years. Gordon lived there until his death last autumn.

Rosenstein will have comedian Jerry Seinfeld, art dealer Larry Gagosian, and hedge-fund manager Jim Chanos as neighbours.

Entertainment mogul David Geffen was said to be one of the house hunters who looked at the property before he signed a contract to buy Courtney Sale Ross’s estate on Georgica Pond for $50m.

The $147m sale of Browne and Gordon’s home breaks the record set just two weeks ago when the 50-acre Copper Beech Farm in Greenwich, Connecticut, sold for $120m.

The deal also tops the $103m Ron Baron paid in 2007 for an undeveloped 40-acre parcel, also on Further Lane, where the billionaire is building a 28,000-sqft mansion.

Home sales in the Hamptons surged in the first quarter as stock market gains and fatter Wall Street bonuses fuelled demand for luxury properties.

Sales soared 52% from a year earlier to 528 transactions, according to a report by appraiser Miller Samuel and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The median price rose 19% to $880,000.

Thirty-seven homes sold for $5m or more, up from eight at the start of 2013.

Real estate in the Hamptons — an area of more than a dozen towns and villages about 100 miles (160km) east of New York City — is benefiting from rising second-home demand and increased wealth in Manhattan.

Wall Street’s bonus pool rose 15% to $26.7bn in 2013, the most since the 2008 financial crisis, according to New York’s state comptroller.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 30% last year for the biggest gain since 1997.

While demand from the super-rich began to rebound in 2012, with investors from countries such as China and Russia scooping up the most expensive US homes, the lower end of the luxury market has surged in the past year, according to Bonnie Stone Sellers, chief executive officer of Christie’s International. Purchases have picked up as the economy improved and banks increased lending to higher-income borrowers, she said.