North Haven's Tyndal Point to close Tuesday

A deal on a 55-acre, waterfront Hamptons estate known as Tyndal Point is expected to close Tuesday for real estate investor Jeffrey Greene, who became a billionaire in Wall Street trades that bet on subprime mortgages defaulting.

The closing was supposed to be done today, but the seller said there was a problem with the wire transfer of funds.

Greene, who summers in the Hamptons on his 145-foot yacht, wants stable footing for his family, a son who’s almost 2 and his wife, expecting another. He declined to say how much he is paying for the North Haven property, citing a confidentiality agreement, but it’s way under the $80 million tag that got headlines when seller Robert Rust first listed it in 2007.

Both live in Florida, Greene in Palm Beach and Rust in Miami, and they met more than two months ago at Greene’s home.

“I saw this property and I knew right away,” said Greene, 56, who last year lost the Democratic primary for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat. “It’s the perfect kind of property.”

Perhaps it’s fate. He’s biked around the property several times on his way to the Shelter Island ferry, ever since the first day of his first Hamptons visit in the early ’90s. From boating around the area, he’s admired the homes on the waterfronts.

In his mind, Greene is already making memories on his vacation-home-to-be, boating with his children in the lagoon and taking nature walks on the forested property.

“It’s funny because I always admired those homes, the serenity of the area and the beauty of the area, from the sea and from the land side,” Greene said. “But when I heard about it, I took a look at it and fell in love with it.

“I’m looking forward to protecting it. I want it to look like it does now. If we build a home, we want to look like it’s been there a hundred years, cedar shingle style, and keep this property pristine.”

Over the years, Rust, now 82, has lowered the price from $80 million, a number he had said he pulled “out of the air” to test the waters. It is currently listed for $44.99 million.

Rust, a former federal prosecutor who helped find dynamite in the motel room of a man who had threatened president-elect John F. Kennedy, inherited the place from an aunt.

But the former Cutchogue and Baldwin resident grew sick of trying to get subdivision approval from the village of North Haven. On top of that, he said, he was paying six figures in property taxes.

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