Dan’s Papers April 27, 2012 danshamptons.com Page 27
Matt Lauer Angling to Create Horse Farm
K. Laffey
By Sharon Feiereisen Early this year, news broke that Matt Lauer and his wife, model Annette Roque, closed on a 47.5-acre piece of ocean view land near their $15 million Water Mill mansion. Lauer and Roque, who are both avid equestrians, plan on turning the spread, which reportedly set them back less than the $10.5 million listing price, into a horse farm. Lucky for Lauer, following months of negotiations, it was announced that the “Today� show host will now be making $25 million a year, plus a signing bonus, quite a raise from his current $17 million salary. So, he should have plenty of extra pretty pennies to build the state-of-the-art equestrian center of his family’s dreams The property is located on a former tree nursery, confirms Enzo Morabito. Lauer hopes to erect seven spec homes priced from $4 million to $5 million, each with their own swimming pool. The television host plans on constructing approximately 50,000 square feet of buildings, including an indoor arena and jumping rings, and the property already boasts a farmhouse. Millions of dollars from the Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund were used to preserve the sprawling prime real estate space from development. Plans for the major construction were sent
The future site of Matt Lauer’s horse farm?
out for the town’s approval about four months ago, but approval and future plans are as of yet publicly unknown. We do however know that back in 2005, Southampton paid $3.6 million to then-owner Alan M. Graham for the development rights to the approximately 30-acre Frankenbach’s Deerfield Nursery. An adjacent piece of land (about 10 acres), which was also purchased by Lauer, was washed of its development rights as part of the approval for a subdivision off Blank Lane in 1984. Despite possible construction hurdles, this
major sale and the corresponding construction plans point to the growing thought that the Hamptons’ real estate inventory is beginning to tighten up and that we may soon see a shift from a buyer’s market to a seller’s market. In fact, private equity honcho Marc Rowan, a co-founder of Apollo Global Management, just sold his 9,000-square-foot six bedrooms and 6.5 bathroom Southampton mansion for $28.5 million—the biggest sale of the year thus far. More interestingly still, while East Hampton has long been known as the major celebrity hub, Lauer isn’t the only boldface name to recently seal a deal in Water Mill. American Idol’s Jennifer Lopez is in contract in Water Mill and Dallas Mavericks basketball player Jason Kidd just closed on a $5 million home in the area as well. Now MSNBC is reporting that all over the Hamptons summer homes are starting to move again, and according to more than two dozen people they spoke with, all of whom are involved in the market, it’s starting to show up in the figures, with pending contract sales rising for five straight months across the Hamptons.
3rd Annual Healing Heart 5K Run/Walk
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