Billy Joel selling Sagaponack 'ultimate beach house'
The oceanfront home owned by musician Billy Joel is for sale now priced at $19.95 million.
Billy Joel is saying goodbye to Sagaponack.
The oceanfront home where he lives part time has just been listed for $23.5 million. It's the second time the rocker has tried to sell the 5,550-square-foot house. He took it off the market last January. Its asking price was $16.75 million, down from $22.5 million when Joel first tried to sell it in 2009.
A pool is being constructed on the 1.07-acre lot and other upgrades are under way, says Biana Stepanian of The Corcoran Group, who is marketing the property once again.
Joel likes the property "because it's sort of like the ultimate beach house," Stepanian says. Selling is "just a preference," she says.
"He has ventures he does," she says. "He's always been a good real estate guy."
Joel also owns properties in Centre Island, Sag Harbor and Huntington Bay. There's no particular reasons he is selling, she adds. "It's not something he had to do."
The house once belonged to late actor Roy Scheider. Joel bought it in 2007 for ex-wife, Katie Lee, before they split. Lee, a cookbook author, did a renovation with celebrity TV designer Nate Berkus. It included a chef's kitchen with "a large pantry and state-of-the-art appliances," according to the listing. Parts of the house are now being redecorated, says Stepanian, although the kitchen remains intact.
There are views of the ocean from all parts of the four-bedroom, six-bathroom house, as well as vistas of farmland reserves. A separate studio with a loft is now a gym, but "it could be a lot of things," says Stepanian. There is also a two-car garage.
The house sustained no damage from superstorm Sandy, although some of the dune shrubbery had to be replaced, she says.
Joel decided to put the house back on the market now because "people are looking earlier than when the season usually starts," Stepanian says. Construction in the area has leveled off -- including next door at a property Joel used to own, some say for privacy's sake. "Back a few years ago, things were just beginning to percolate," she says. "Now it's like, What else are you going to do?"
