Barely a mile from the hedge-fund mansions that now define the Hamptons lies a very different world: the endangered Sagaponack preserve of such literary lions as E. L. Doctorow, Robert Caro, and Jason Epstein. Chronicling the rise of “the Sagg Main Set” in the 1960s and 1970s, when Truman Capote, James Jones, George Plimpton, and Kurt Vonnegut came out to play, and Bobby Van’s was the place to drown a bad review, Michael Shnayerson focuses on two of the fraternity’s surviving grandees—James Salter and Peter Matthiessen—whose decades-long friendship remains as remarkable as their books.
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John White’s family has been working its 57-acre oceanfront farm in Sagaponack since 1695, the last holdouts against a tide of Wall Streeter mansions. But in an effort to save his children's inheritance—by selling 10 of those acres to a Houston oil mogul—White may have lost it all
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As summer begins, what better way to measure Wall Street’s health than a real-estate tour of the Hamptons? For every mansion on the sales or rental market, there’s a story—sometimes involving Bernie Madoff—and brokers are shell-shocked. The author surveys the deals, no-deals, lawsuits, divorces, and teardowns that characterize this strange, dark season.
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While much of America worries about foreclosure, John Paulson, who made $3.7 billion shorting subprime mortgages, has plunked down $41.3 million for a Southampton estate. Another just went (to Tiger Woods?) for $60 million. And Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman is building a vast compound in Water Mill. But, amid whispers about which Wall Street casualties will lose their summer spreads, the market for properties below $10 million is grim. Michael Shnayerson checks the real-estate temperature of the country’s most celebrated summer retreat to see if its mere mega-millionaires are about to take a cold dip.
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