Rich Cribs: $7.5M Templeton estate hosted aristocrats, artists and more
The Old Westbury estate Templeton is back on the market for $7.495 million after a nine-month hiatus. The price has been cut from $8.9 million, down from $20 million when it first came on the market in 2008. Credit: Handout
If the walls at legendary Old Westbury estate Templeton could talk, the tales they could tell would be .?.?. well, magical.
The fabled home drew luminaries from all over the world -- English royalty (the Duke and Duchess of Windsor), presidents (John F. Kennedy), designers (Halston, Oscar de la Renta, Yves Saint Laurent), artists (Andy Warhol) and writers (Truman Capote) -- who gathered to bask in the golden glow of its owners, C.Z. Guest, the famed socialite, equestrian and garden columnist, and her husband, Winston, an heir to the Phipps fortune, polo champ and cousin of Winston Churchill.
The home’s back on the market for $7.495 million after a nine-month hiatus. The price has been cut from $8.9 million, down from $20 million when it first came on the market in 2008.
The 15.5-acre property, listed with Sandy Binder of Shawn Elliott Luxury Homes & Estates, includes the 29-room, Georgian-style brick mansion built in 1924, a pool, a tennis court, three greenhouses, cottages, a 17-stall barn and paddocks.
There are gardens galore, including an abundant rose garden now in bloom, along with an enormous kitchen garden (it’s almost an acre) that produces tomatoes, squash, melons, carrots, eggplants, scallions, herbs and lettuce.
These days, Cornelia Guest, who grew up at Templeton and now owns the property, runs the house much like her parents did.
Guest, a socialite once dubbed Debutante of the Decade, often plays hostess to the likes of luxury fashion designers Mark Badgley and James Mischka. Al Pacino popped in for Christmas dinner last December.
“Living here is glorious, but this is a house for a family and I travel a great deal for my businesses,” Guest says. She runs an eponymous cruelty-free handbag company and also has a catering business. “I really think it’s time to move on. I hope someone who loves it, gets it.”
