Tag: Hamptons

The Mystery of Thomas H. Lee – Clinton-Epstein Conspiracy Theories Continue

Matthew Steeples examines whether the recent suicide by gunshot of “the envy of Wall Street” billionaire Thomas H. Lee was in any way linked to a clear association with Bill Clinton and a possible one with Jeffrey Epstein

Thomas H. Lee did not appear in the 95-page infamous ‘Little Black Book’ associated with Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell. Now, however, after his apparent ‘suicide’ this billionaire financier has not only described as “considerate, generous and unpretentious” and a “constant presence” in her life by Hillary Clinton, but also as having “links” to Jeffrey Epstein.

Sparking rumours of yet another example of the ‘Clinton Body Count’ – the much disputed conspiracy theory that as many as fifty people with close links to the Clintons have died in nefarious circumstances – Stephen M. Lepore for the DailyMail.com shared a photograph of Lee at a New York shindig with another billionaire named Robert Kraft and a couple named Glenn and Eva Dubin. Swedish Ms Andersson-Dubin dated Jeffrey Epstein prior to his 2008 conviction and continued to “socialise with [him] after his time in jail,” Bloomberg reported in 2019.

The 78-year-old Harvard graduate and founder of Lee Equity Partners and Thomas H. Lee Partners was best known himself for having bought the soft drinks brand Snapple Beverages in 1992 for £112 million ($135 million, €127 million or درهم496 million) and sold it for a 334% profit to Quaker Oats for £1.4 billion ($1.7 billion, €1.6 billion or درهم6.2 billion) in 1994.

Known also for being an “avid art collector,” father of five Lee also served as a trustee of Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Brandeis University, Cardozo Law School at Yeshiva University, Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, Harvard University, the Intrepid Museum Foundation, NYU Medical Center, and Rockefeller University.

In a statement currently opening the homepage of their website, Lee Equity Partners shared:

“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our Founder and Chairman, Thomas H. Lee. He was a great partner and wonderful friend whose vision will continue to influence us for many years to come.”

“Tom’s determination, commitment and strategic vision will continue to inspire all of us at Lee Equity Partners. He was a leader, a friend, a partner, and our mentor. We know he will be proud as the firm continues on, with strength. We will work every day to meet the high standards he has set for us and the entire industry. On behalf of our employees, management teams and investment partners, we mourn his loss and extend our deepest sympathies to his family.”

Clearly illustrating that something might be amiss in the financial community, a member of the Wall Street Oasis forum last week remarked of Lee’s death:

“Self-inflicted gunshot wound. Wonder if he knows something about the future…”

Another added: “Perhaps another private equity guy with Epstein connections about to get exposed.”

Going further on Monday, Fortune shared an article with the headline: “Thomas H. Lee’s sudden death shocks partners at his $3 billion private investment firm – with a $1 billion fundraise in the balance.”

For the publication, Dawn Lim and Amanda Gordon added:

“Since then, Lee Equity’s executives have been forced to confront a difficult moment. In at least one conversation, they discussed the importance of reassuring clients that there’s no connection between his death and Lee Equity’s financial health or fund performance.”

“Lee’s death has ushered in a new level of public attention for a shop that manages £2.5 billion ($3 billion, €2.8 billion or درهم11 billion) and doesn’t have a formal media-relations team. It also comes at a critical juncture for the 40-person firm, which is raising a £833 million ($X billion, €942 million or درهم3/7 billion) fund just as investors have become increasingly reluctant to part with their cash amid volatile markets. The firm has raised the vast majority of that fund, other people said.”

“The suicide also presents a test for key partners Mark Gormley, Benjamin Hochberg, Yoo Jin Kim and Joseph Rotberg. They’re among eight executives who climbed the ranks to take bigger leadership roles and steered the firm into financial services and health care.”

“Some investors have taken comfort in the fact that succession is largely complete, people said. They pushed for the firm to spread its wealth more evenly among partners and had sway in the years after the financial crisis, when buyout firms struggled to raise new money. Lee’s cut of the profits was less than 10% for the firm’s last fund.”

“In recent days, several institutions extended condolences and provided expressions of support to the firm. Investors such as Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. committed money to the new fund. The firm’s backers have said they hope Lee’s death doesn’t rattle new investors.”

Returning to the story of the mystery surrounding the supposed ‘suicide’ also by gun shot of Bill Clinton aide turned Jeffrey Epstein associate and wannabe “international deal-maker” Mark Middleton, speaking exclusively to The Steeple Times this morning, Shaun Attwood provided comment to follow up by our two articles this week by Kirby Sommers and Matthew Steeples. The author of Who Killed Epstein? Prince Andrew or Bill Clinton? shared:

“Yet another ‘suicide’ in a long line of suicides #ClintonBodyCount. No surprises here when it comes to the Machiavellian behaviour of the Clinton crime family who’ve left a trail of corpses behind them from Arkansas when Bill was governor to the White House. It is a trail that continues to this day with Jeffrey Epstein and Jean-Luc Brunel.”

Separately, in developing news about the possible move of the “simple shooting party” bestie of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell that is Prince Andrew to Frogmore Cottage and possibly taking over Prince Harry and the former Meghan Markle’s home, Matthew Steeples and Shaun Attwood will be live at 7pm GMT on YouTube tonight to discuss this in the fourth episode of Meghan Markle Expose. Follow the link below to tune in.

Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party. Follow Matthew Steeples on Twitter at @M_Steeples.

Follow Shaun Attwood on Twitter at @shaunattwood and purchase his book ‘Who Killed Epstein? Prince Andrew or Bill Clinton?’ by clicking here.

Pictured Top – Former U.S. President Bill Clinton enjoying a jolly on the golf course with Thomas H. Lee and enjoying a bit of a bash at the White House with the sex trafficking fiends Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Was the suicide of billionaire friend of Bill Clinton and financier Thomas H. Lee in any way connected to matters about financiers linked to Jeffrey Epstein? #ThomasHLee #ThomasLee #BillClinton #HillaryClinton #ClintonBodyCount #JeffreyEpstein #GhislaineMaxwell #EvaAnderson
— Matthew Steeples (@M_Steeples) March 3, 2023

This morning on Twitter, Matthew Steeples asked: “Was the suicide of billionaire friend of Bill Clinton and financier Thomas H. Lee in any way connected to matters about financiers linked to Jeffrey Epstein?” He accompanied the feature with the hashtags #ThomasHLee #ThomasLee #BillClinton #HillaryClinton #ClintonBodyCount #JeffreyEpstein #GhislaineMaxwell #EvaAnderson. As of 11:30am on Friday 3^rd March, 50% of respondents favoured the option: “YES; Eva Andersson etc.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5RMKkC3pkE&list=PLPT_cCpNMvT50d_7cJ55ciKoZEY8q_YPt&index=7
To watch ‘Meghan Markle Expose – Part 4’ click this YouTube link. The 1 hour 15 minute episode first airs at 7pm GMT on Friday 3^rd March 2023. Issues covered primarily focus on the ‘FORGXIT’ saga of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex from Frogmore Cottage, but there is also discussion of Prince Andrew and his grifting wife, Sarah, Duchess of York – a woman who has still never confirmed if she repaid the loans she so disgracefully took from the since croaked paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Lee’s body was found in a bathroom at his office at 767 Fifth Avenue, New York at around 11am on 23rd February. The 78-year-old was pronounced dead shortly after. A “family friend and spokesperson” named Michael Sitrick later shared: “While the world knew him as one of the pioneers in the private equity business and a successful businessman, we knew him as a devoted husband, father, grandfather, sibling, friend and philanthropist who always put others’ needs before his own.” Just prior to the time of his passing, ‘Forbes’ estimated his worth at £1.7 billion ($2 billion, €1.9 billion or درهم7.3 billion).

The now deceased billionaire (second left) partying with the billionaire businessman CEO of the Kraft Group Bob Kraft, the billionaire hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin and his “allegedly racy” wife Dr Eva Andersson-Dubin. Back in April 2022, ‘The Steeple Times’ featured the story of neighbours of the “decidedly dubious Dubins” slashing the price of their Upper East Side apartment from £25.1 million to £21.2 million. Of this news, a New York realtor told us: “1040 Fifth Avenue certainly has a perky past, but whilst Jackie Kennedy and Generoso Pope Jr. were unlikely bedfellows when they both lived there at the same time, the stench of the Epstein-Maxwell connections of Glenn, Eva and Celina Dubin is actually very off-putting to buyers. Who on earth would want to live next to them? It’s no wonder no one is biting-at-the-bit to snap up the apartment currently on offer and I can only suggest the sellers perhaps put off marketing until these two social misfits move off elsewhere.”

In February 2021, ‘The Steeple Times’ shared an exclusive story courtesy of information supplied by the crusading author of ‘Ghislaine Maxwell: An Unauthorized Biography’ Kirby Sommers concerning Glenn and Eva Dubin. In it, we featured pictures of the vile paedophile Jeffrey Epstein with one of the couple’s daughters on his lap on his notorious sex trafficking private jet. We titled the article: ‘PLANE PERVERTED.’

The house Mr Lee – who went by the self-assigned nickname ‘Tomcat’ as he believed he had “nine different lives” – shared with his second wife Ann Tenenbaum in East Hampton, New York. Of it, the ‘New York Post’ observed: “‘He was regarded as having one of the most admired houses in the Hamptons – Bill and Hillary Clinton were frequent guests, they would regularly stay there,’ the source told ‘The Post.’ The Clintons famously holed up at Lee’s East Hampton pad after the bruising 2008 Democratic primary. ‘He was a regular at Maidstone golf club,’ also, the source noted.”

Both Hillary Clinton and her husband attended the New York funeral service for Brooklyn born Thomas Haskell Lee (27th March 1944 – 23rd February 2023) on Monday 1st March 2023 at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Remarking, Hillary Clinton commented: “Tom was a constant presence. “We’ve shared births and weddings and anniversaries, state dinners at the White House, lively parties from New York City to Martha’s Vineyard to the Hamptons during good times and tough ones. We’re here expressing our gratitude for years as friends, as colleagues and certainly as family members for his long, successful life.” Mr Lee leaves five children – Jesse, Zach, Nathan, Robbie and Rosalie as well as Ann Tenenbaum, the second wife he married in 1996.

Ghislaine Maxwell with Jeffrey Epstein and President Bill Clinton at the White House on 29th September 1993. Allegations that Clinton and Maxwell had sexual liaisons that became a full-blown affair have abounded, but remain unconfirmed by either party Equally, Epstein and Clinton travelled together on multiple occasions and clearly shared a mutual liking for young girls also. The former POTUS was most certainly advised about the derelict and deviant actions of the nefarious former taxi driver turned financier, yet conveniently chose to ignore such and to instead accept the dirty devil’s dollar.

March 3, 2023
Bungling Berk Boris To Bed Down At Brightwell Manor – A £4 Million “Forever Home” For Mr & Mrs Boris Johnson

Bungling berk Boris Johnson is supposedly upsizing and has allegedly bought the £4 million Brightwell Manor in Oxfordshire; the lavish lush that is the former Carrie Symonds will need a big budget if she is to clad the colossal 10,508 square foot crib in £840 per roll Lulu Lytle wallpaper

In November 2019, Country Life’s longstanding property correspondent described a “rare part-moated manor house set in almost five acres of gardens and grounds at the heart of the picturesque Oxfordshire village of Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, on the eastern edge of the Vale of the White Horse” named Brightwell Manor as a “forever home.”

Featured in The Times in an article by Liz Rowlinson in November last year after it “had three viewings so far from Americans,” the part-Tudor, part-Georgian house and its annexe and guest cottage provides a total of 10,508 square foot of accommodation over three floors. It has a total of 9 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms and if The Guardian is to be believed, it has just been sold to the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his considerably younger than himself wife.

Brightwell Manor has been owned by the same family since 1971, so, if indeed the Johnsons are the purchasers, the former Carrie Symonds will need to spend a hell of a lot of money on Lulu Lytle wallpaper to bring it “upto scratch.” This is a place that needs a lot of work and no doubt, ‘Carrie On Regardless’ already has plans bring in also ‘Lady Doors-To-Manual’ Carole Bamford’s JCB diggers to help install a swimming pool in the 4.88-acre grounds.

Suitably for the Brexiteer buffoon Johnson – who got paid an £88,000 advance in 2015 for a book on Shakespeare that he’s never bothered to actually write – in their marketing blurb, the selling agents predictably claimed: “Of its many owners perhaps the most notable was the Reverend Doctor W. R. Inge, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral and Knight Commander of the Victorian Order. He was a prolific author and used the family room as his study for writing.” Maybe now, this is a room that will become the place where the “pyramid of piffle” that will be Johnson’s memoirs might finally get written.

Described as a “village of picture postcard prettiness” and as “in estate agents’ jargon, this is a sought after village, but it is much more than a pretty face” on the local community website, Brightwell-cum-Sotwell – which flooded in 2014 and has a CAMRA award-winning pub named the Red Lion where Johnson will no doubt get smashed with his wife and the likes of Henry Newman and Josh Grimstone – has a population of around 1,500 people. It lies between the towns of Didcot and Wallingford, is 55 miles west of London is and close to Didcot Parkway train station – which has trains running to Paddington in just 37 minutes.

Offered for sale in November 2019 at a somewhat punchy price of £5 million by Hamptons International, the “magnificent Grade II listed Georgian village house” stands on the likely site of the long since vanished Brightwell Castle. It was relaunched to the market subsequently for a sum £1 million lower by Andrew Russell of agents The Country House Department in October 2022.

At that time, of it, Russell told Mansion Global:

“[This is a] properly edge-of-village house, so that you can be involved in the village community, or you can keep to yourself, depending on what you’d prefer.”

“The property used to be moated all the way around, with about two-thirds of this moat remaining today. [It was the tallest house in the area at the time of its building and it was] not good form to build a house that was taller than the local church. To rectify this, the family who built it also added a red brick tower onto the local church, St Agatha’s, which reaches just higher than the façade.”

“I believe Brightwell Manor once owned all the land around, and it was a big apple farming estate, so some of those trees may be very old.”

Johnson also currently owns a Grade II listed property in Oxfordshire, The Old Farm House at North Weston, near Thame. He bought it with his then wife Marina Wheeler for £640,000 in 2003 and most memorably came out in an ‘Xchanging’ branded hoodie to serve journalists tea in August 2018 during the scandal about him comparing Muslim women to letterboxes.

Featuring what Country Life’s Carla Passino called “true blue tiles,” Johnson – who got to keep the £1.25 million crib as part of his February 2020 divorce settlement – placed the 2,659 square foot property for rent for a sum of £4,250 per month through Strutt & Parker in April 2021. It is not known whether he intends to keep The Old Farm House or whether he’ll still be able to continue to bed down at the Knightsbridge residence of Lord and Lady Bamford that he has most recently been calling “home.”

Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.

During his time married to Marina Wheeler, Boris Johnson lived much more modestly. Clearly, his ambitious and avaricious current wife Carrie would never contemplate living in a somewhat shabby former farmhouse.

During their time in Downing Street, the Johnsons lived-it-up during lockdowns with their mates. Aside from boozing and bopping to ABBA with Henry Newman and Josh Grimstone, this grasping pair grabbed at least £30,000 of organic loot from their mate Lady Bamford’s Daylesford Organic. It was delivered by bike and van and no doubt, once in residence at their new mansion, they’ll be getting a hell of a lot more dropped off from the Gloucestershire emporiums of Daylesford.

The Very Reverend William Inge KCVO FBA lived in the house for 30 years. He was born in Yorkshire, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times and was also a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery from 1921 until 1951. A “strong proponent of the spiritual type of religion,” Inge was nicknamed “The Gloomy Dean” because of his pessimistic views and of social welfare he claimed: “It penalized the successful while subsidising the weak and the feckless.” Boris Johnson will no doubt take inspirtation from this in his writing in what was once his study.

The Names & Numbers – Brightwell Manor, off Brightwell Street, Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 0RT, United Kingdom

February 2023 – Listed as “sold subject to contract” on Rightmove with the purchaser being Boris Johnson at a price of circa £4 million ($4.8 million, €4.5 million or درهم17.7 million), The Guardian reports.

November 2022 – Featured in The Times and touted as being an example as to “why Americans are buying up Britain’s country estates.”

October 2022 – Relaunched to the market by The Country House Department at a price of £4 million ($4.8 million, €4.5 million or درهم17.7 million).

November 2019 – Offered for sale for £5 million ($6 million million, €5.6 million or درهم22.1 million) through Hamptons International and featured in Country Life.

1971 – Sold for a sum unknown by William Inge’s sons to a family who continued to own it until its recent sale.

Of them, Penny Churchill observed: “They hadn’t been long installed in their new home when, one day, they saw walking up the drive the distinctive figure of a former Government Minister, who – figuratively if not literally – whipped out his cheque book and invited them to name their price.”

“However, having only just found the right house for them and their five children, they had little hesitation in declining their visitor’s generous offer. Now, 50 years on, a similar approach would perhaps be more favourably received.”

1954 – William Inge died at the house aged 93. He is buried in the graveyard St Agatha’s, the adjoining church to the property.

1950s – Extended by The Very Reverend William Inge KCVO FBA (1860 – 1954), its then owner. Of him, Penny Churchill observed: “[Inge was] an eminent theologian and writer, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature on three occasions. He served as Dean of St Paul’s from 1911 until 1934, when he retired to live at Brightwell Manor, dying there 30 years later.”

9^th April 1952 – Listed Grade II by Heritage England.

1933 – Offered for sale for £2,000 or the equivalent of £11,300 today ($13,600, €12,700 or درهم50,000 today)

1910s and 1920s – Penny Churchill stated: “Brightwell Manor remained part of a thriving estate until the outbreak of the First World War, after which it was sold a number of times as casualties mounted. A report in Country Life on March 27, 1920, announced the sale of Brightwell with six acres of land, describing it as ‘an historical and commodious Georgian Residence of very attractive appearance, having extensive views over the famous Berkshire Downs. The pasture land here is of considerable value, letting readily at £4 an acre.’”

1600s – The earliest Tudor part of the house is constructed as a “modest farmhouse modest farmhouse on the surrounding farming estate, being gradually gentrified until, towards the end of the 18th century, the symmetrical Georgian front was added. A red-brick coach house, latterly converted to a two-bedroom cottage, was added in the 1840s,” Penny Churchill suggested.

Pictures of ‘Bungling Boris’s’ new country crib…

This ain’t Chequers, but it ain’t too shabby either.

The drawing room, in its current condition, resembles something like that of the home of Polly Urquhart in the 1980s BBC bonkbusting classic ‘Howards’ Way.’ No doubt, Lulu Lytle will be drafted in to deck this room out in a somewhat more gaudy shade of gold.

The dining room has tones of Liberal Democrat to it that the Johnsons will no doubt want to erase.

This is presumably the room where ‘The Gloomy Dean’ wrote many of his works. Will it be the place where ‘Bosie The Clown’ is actually inspired to finally finish any of his?

Perhaps the calamity formerly known as Carrie Symonds will take to the piano in this sitting room and bash out some of ABBA’s tunes when visited by the pugnacious pair she allegedly nicknamed “the gays” that are Henry Newman and Josh Grimstone.

Another sitting room clearly has sofas that are more of the colour of Sir Keir Starmer currently. It also features a fireplace with a tiny painting above it that would be more at home in Phillip Schofield’s broom cupboard.

The kitchen is decidedly basic and still present is a 1930s AGA stove; that presumably won’t be that off-putting to the Johnsons given that this pair of grifters can rely on Lady Bamford to supply them with freebies and ready-made organic meals from Daylesford whenever they want.

This staircase hallway has been wallpapered with a print that will remind the former Prime Minister of that that adorns the Pugin-esque Palace of Westminster.

If Mrs Johnson wants to inspire her husband to finally put pen to paper, she could cram these shelves with relevant literature.

A bedroom for Boris? This wood-panelled sleeping chamber will likely become the ‘Baby Dada’ of children unknown’s place where he and his wife rest their wicked heads.

Another of the many bedrooms features a sofa that was clearly bought at Ikea. Lulu Lytle will have that straight in the skip.

The house adjoins St Agatha’s church. Will the former Prime Minister become a regular there and will he attend with a view to seek redemption for his many, many, many crimes whilst in office?

The gardens are flat and vast and are noted for the apple trees planted generations ago. ‘Carrie On Regardless’ might be able to develop a sideline in making cider using them or perhaps she’ll start making apple pies.

The moat of Brightwell Manor could prove useful if Boris Johnson is forced to face visits from the anti-Brexiteer Steve Bray or climate change campaigners such as Greta Thunberg.

Aside from the main residence, the building comes with an annexe and cottage also. Perfect for when good old Dominic Cummings wants to come round for a weekend outing; it’d save him the drive to Durham, after all.

The house, seen from the side, is all front and no trousers. The Georgian element that gives it grandeur is actually not the prime part of the property; a bit like Boris Johnson himself, in fact.

Viewed from a drone, the nigh on 5-acre ‘estate’ backs onto open countryside and has a vast area of gravel to the front; perfect for visits from the convoys of limousines of oligarchs like Lord Lebedev.

Set back from the village but near enough to the pub for ‘BoJo’ to escape his wine chucking wife when required, Brightwell Manor has the privacy from the press a former premier will require yet gives him the ability to walk down the drive to ‘pull a John Gummer’ with a BSE burger at the garden gate if ever that might be required.

Tennis anyone? The former Prime Minister can perhaps woe his next love or lover on the property’s court.

A floor plan of the new home of the most loathsome leader of the Conservative Party.

Seen on GoogleMaps… This will no doubt soon get blurred for the sake of privacy.

Heritage England’s map will no doubt be vamoosed also.

February 18, 2023
Horror In The Hamptons… 2020 Coronavirus Crisis Ransackings v 2022 Cost-Of-Living Crisis Riots in This Ritzy Resort

Whilst the Hamptons was the scene of “bidding wars” and “supermarket spats” over £275 bottles of Chablis during the 2020 coronavirus crisis, it’s become the scene of socialites being arrested in “wife beaters” for assaulting “glampin’ workers” in the 2022 cost-of-living-crisis

There’s always been something about the Hamptons that attracts big spenders and badly-behaved berks.

Here is a set of tony townships rife with money, mystery, mayhem and murder and further proof of the madness of this privileged place came this week when Libbie Mugrabi – a soppy “socialite” resident best known for bizarrely once comparing herself to the late Diana, Princess of Wales – opened up to accuse her workers of “glampin’ in the Hamptons” when she got arrested for allegedly violently attacking them.

Setting the scene, during the summer of 2020 coronavirus lockdowns, “überwealthy” residents of this southern fork of Long Island hired nightclub bouncers to “prevent others from using their roads.” To “protect [their] health,” they “compounded” – “buying [up] two and even three seven-and eight-figure homes on the same street, grabbing up surrounding acres for family members” – in order to avoid others.

At the time, Vanity Fair’s Stephanie Krikorian mused of “bidding wars” and “tears,” whilst, to the New York Post’s Jennifer Gould, founder of “upscale supermarket chain” Citraella Joe Guerra lamented: “I had one customer spend $8,000. You know when you see someone with a full shopping cart? Now they have five… [They buy] pretty much everything they can… Instead of asking for one or two steaks on a tray, a customer will buy the whole tray. Then they’ll move on to shrimp, and buy all the shrimp, and then they’ll buy all the salmon steaks. Instead of asking for a slice of lasagna, they’ll buy all of it. Then they’ll buy all of our root vegetables… Business is insane.”

When not “ransacking grocery stores in epic shopping sprees,” these very wealthy folk were to be found at what they themselves termed “quarantine mansions” and many of them did exactly the opposite to what was deemed sensible.

These irresponsible brats threw “Covidiot super-spreader parties” and even worse, in one instance – which has become one of The Steeple Times’ most popular ever stories – a self-declared “power broker” and “well-regarded [estate] agent” named Jonathan Davis got into a serious spat. His crime? This “privileged, preppy prat” and Nest Seekers employed realtor became a “pesky squatter” in a Sag Harbor “dream home” that he supposedly utterly trashed. Here was not a property agent helping a landlord, but instead one seemingly robbing them and wrecking their residence instead.

Confronted by Inside Edition’s cameras in June 2020, Mr Davis raged: “I’ve got no comments except: GET ORF THE GROUNDS!” whilst the landlady to whom he owed thousands, Paula Rosado, responded: “It’s horrific. It really is just horrific… This has been a complete nightmare for us, for our family emotionally and financially…. [His German Shepherd dogs] tear apart [everything] and urinate all over rugs and couches [sic].”

Of him, one fellow agent, Zachary Belil, later commented to The Steeple Times: “The kid is a little freak. He tried suing Compass for no reason” whilst social butterfly Lynn Wyatt added: “I dealt with him once. He has no manners and is an arrogant little f**k. Zachary Belil is a realtor I’ve heard good things about and though I have never dealt with him, I back him up – Jonnie Boy is a FREAK.”

Whilst Jonathan Davis is astoundingly still employed by Nest Seekers at their Bridgehampton office, Libbie Mugrabi has taken up his mantle and featured late last week in a New York Post article by Michael Kaplan as an “arrested socialite” after the Southampton Police Department had “charged [her] with menacing, criminal mischief and criminal possession of a weapon” last Tuesday.

Ms Mugrabi – the ex-wife of “billionaire art collector” David Mugrabi and a woman known for having described her marriage as a “gilded cage” during “New York’s nastiest divorce” in 2020 – Kaplan reported, got cuffed after attacking an “unnamed housekeeper” on 31^st July “with a mop handle and a knife, and broke her cellphone” at her 10,000 square foot house in Water Mill.

Ordered now to appear in court on 6^th December, Mugrabi showed no sign of remorse and raged to the paper:

“They should have been doing work on my house, but not living in my house. The night I came home, a lady was in my guest room – she was supposed to have been let go. I went to use the bathroom, saw her, and I got scared to death.”

“She started throwing stuff at me. She threw a cellphone and the bottom of a stringy mop at me. She was screaming like a crazy person and threw a bible at me.”

Turning to the “attack allegation leveled against her,” she conceded: “I’m not aggressive physically. I’m aggressive with my voice.”

Her mother, Jane Scher, who claims to have met the staff in question on another occasion, added: “These people had taken over Libbie’s house… They were in the pool and the hot tub and wouldn’t even give me a cup of coffee. I thought they had a better life than I do… Libbie told them to feed me. They gave me some kind of soup with ginger. It tasted OK. I was starving.”

Of the conduct of the police who arrested her, Mugrabi raged:

“[They] were aggressive for no reason. They attacked me and handcuffed me. I said they were twisting my wrist. They said: ‘It’s OK.’ I asked to read me my rights. They said: ‘We don’t read rights for this.’ … I don’t know what I did in Southampton except pay my taxes.”

Her friend, fashion consultant Marko Matysik, who was present during the 22^nd November arrest and “watching from the terrace at the time,” whined:

“Next thing I knew, Libbie was in handcuffs. She was wearing a wife-beater and hot pants. I grabbed as many of her handbags and hand luggage as I could [in case she needed anything inside them] and got into the chauffeured Suburban and followed the police car…. They were very happy to have her in the jailhouse.”

Concluding, Libbie Mugrabi ignored the cost-of-living crisis that so many around the world are currently enduring. Instead, she moaned that after the “commotion” of the arrest she’d been forced to “postpone” a trip to Miami and had instead spent “some town in her Upper East Side townhouse.” The somewhat shamed but clearly not ashamed socialite finally bleated: “I had Thanksgiving in New York. I definitely would not have had it in the Hamptons. Right now, I’m scared to go there.” Now, get those damned violins a-playing.

Editor’s Note – Unlike as is the case in many publications, this article was NOT sponsored or supported by a third-party.

Pictured Top – The ritzy residential resort of the Hamptons attracts billionaires with bulging bank balances because of its idyllic charm (top), but it also appeals to brash Botoxed braggarts like Libbie Mugrabi (bottom right) and her mother Jane Scher (bottom left).

Libbie Mugrabi (pictured with her billionaire ex-husband) showed her clear belief that she’s always the victim when she told ‘Page Six’ in June 2021: “I had the same thing as [the late Diana, Princess of Wales] – I got married young. She was told what to do and wear. And so was I. You’re under control and under a rein. It doesn’t matter what’s fair or what you deserve… After divorce, you can breathe, free of the gilded cage. I married someone who thought he was better than me.” She got her ‘plastic-not-fantastic look’ in spite of having had a father who was a plastic surgeon and a mother who was a nurse.

After her divorce, ‘Lovely Libbie’ briefly hooked up with Brock Pierce (pictured with her left and right in his acting days) – a former child actor who had appeared in Disney’s ‘The Mighty Ducks’ and who ran as an independent candidate in the 2020 United States of America presidential election. That didn’t last. “I didn’t know anyone at my wedding” at one point further admitted mother-of-two turned “trucker hat-seller” Ms Mugrabi before she arrogantly added in another of many self-grandiose interviews: “My artist friends compare me to Peggy Gugenheim… She was fast and furious and drove in her own lane and no one could keep up with her.” Of subsequent relationships, she’s first to admit they’ve been equally disastrous. “I got robbed by so many people since I got divorced. I’ve been robbed like 10 times… I’m open and I’m free, and I’ve had some really creepy people around me. Now I’m being much more careful. I’ve never been 41 before with money and all this stuff. It’s like a rebirth. You have to relearn everything,” she added. There’s maybe hope for this ridiculous woman yet.

During their multi-million divorce in December 2018, things got very “nasty” between Mr and Mrs Mugrabi. Of the pair, unnamed ‘sources’ close to the couple tellingly remarked: “I didn’t know people like us did this… [Libbie and David] met in Aspen and six months later they got engaged… In those days, she was the sweetest, so nice… [David’s family] tried to take her in… They were living the highest life you can imagine: A lot of staff. A lot of nannies, a lot of cleaning people and chefs. Two homes, a lot of drivers and the [Mugrabi] family airplane… Libbie is a big fashionista. [David] didn’t like paying for that.” Of her having employed a personal secretary, “family friends” were supposedly “flabbergasted” and observed: “What? ‘Little Libbie’ who doesn’t even know her way around Bergdorf’s? I think [David] created a monster.” He most definitely did.

In an undated video about her “brand” (whatever that might actually be), Libbie Mugrabi bragged: “The brand is since the pandemic and life change [sic]. It’s just happy, kind and cool, funny, spread love brand [sic]. For girls, for dogs, for women, for men, but it’s geared all towards growth; female empowerment but it can be used by blokes too.” She then banged on about ‘Tatler’ magazine having called her a “glamorous divorcee” – which she termed “nice, erm, kind” – and added: “I came up with the French version: ‘Divorcée glam’” – but failed to mention her alleged penchant for attacking her staff with mop handles and knives and breaking their mobile phones.

Jonathan Davis of realty firm Nest Seekers developed notoriety during the 2020 coronavirus lockdowns not for helping his clients in the Hamptons get places to live. Instead, this rotten realtor became known as a “pesky squatter” who allowed his dogs to urinate and destroy a house he supposedly owed many thousands of dollars in rent on.

Former editor of ‘The Sun’ David Yelland delighted in the story of the arrested socialite yesterday. On Twitter, the veteran newsman observed: “Here’s a splendid out of season Hamptons socialite story to cheer us all up… Libbie Mugrabi claims she is victim of housekeeper and Hamptons cops.” He clearly wasn’t out to show this birdbrained Botox advertisement any sympathy.

One of the “gilded cages” in the Hamptons that a woman who believes herself like the late Diana, Princess of Wales calls home and the scene where Libbie Mugrabi allegedly assaulted one of her staff with a mop handle and knife in July this year.

In a similar show of out-of-touch behaviour, in March 2020, another self-appointed Hamptons “philanthropist and socialite,” Jean Shafiroff, told the ‘New York Post’ that she was normally “accustomed to dining out on a nightly basis” whilst at her home in the ritzy enclave. The paper continued: “In the face of the coronavirus, she has taken the unfamiliar step of cooking for her husband, daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend. And it’s not been cheap. ‘I’m spending $300 to $1,000 a day on food and supplies,’ she said. The money goes toward chicken and salmon steaks, some of which she freezes, as well as for cleaning supplies and food for her dogs. ‘I even bought the drugstore out of all its dental floss. I wanted to make sure I had enough, along with extra toothbrushes, soap, toothpaste and body lotions,’ she said. ‘If I have to be quarantined, I better look nice.’ Shafiroff also is buying canned goods like the rest of America, but only out of an abundance of caution. ‘I can donate them later,’ she said of the items like Progresso chicken noodle soup and Del Monte peas and carrots – brands ‘I had never heard of before.’ How the other half live; previously, in September 2017, Mrs Shafiroff wailed to ‘Page Six’ about how she’d been attacked by bees at the Hampton Classic horse show. In spite of not actually being stung, the attention seeker told the paper: “I tried to stand still and let them fly off but they wouldn’t get off my face. I was terrified. They must have liked my perfume (which was Nanban).” ‘Page Six’ concluded: “Bystanders tried to help the swarmed socialite by swinging at the bees who eventually buzzed off.”

“Gym-bodied and catalogue-model-handsome” Thomas Gilbert Jr. personifies “the Hamptons gone bad.” In 2013, this Princeton graduate and son of hedge fund manager Thomas Gilbert Sr., founder of Wainscott Capital became the primes suspect of throwing a Molotov cocktail into his former roommate Peter Smith’s 300-year-old Sagaponack family home and burning it to the ground; in January 2015, he sent his mother out to get a sandwich and then shot his dad dead with a .40-caliber Glock pistol. Imprisoned to life with an earliest release date of April 2044, prisoner 19A3615 is now said to be dating Lila Chase, the niece of the actor Chevy Chase. An extra also in the 2013 short film ‘And After All,’ Gilbert Jr. was described as “delusional,” is said to have “avoided New York’s JFK airport at all costs” as he viewed it to be “severely contaminated and faked suicide during his trial by claiming he’d swallowed a battery. On being taken for an X-ray, he was found to be holding a battery over his stomach. It’s lucky that this lunatic and the definitely delusional Libbie Mugrabi didn’t meet; the pair might have gotten on like a house-on-fire.

What’ll little miss ‘Divorcée Glam’ do next? Apologise? Unlikely… This motormouthed menace will more likely be found ranting and raving to yet another media title than mopping up her own mess. This Marie-Antoinette like woman might be an aspiring “extravagance knows no bounds” Barbara Amiel type figure, but she’s clearly not got the brains, brawn or beauty to pull off even that look. Next!

November 29, 2022
Missing Mate Ghislaine…

As her chirping crooner chum Christopher Mason parties in prison-orange pants with her other mates, ‘Grubby Ghislaine’ Maxwell languishes in a paper jump suit; look at who and what she’s missing out on in the Hamptons… For her, it’s Krug-less via a bit of “Orange Is The New Black”

Christopher Mason used to like to chirp for Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein about seriously sordid sexual antics, he liked to sing songs for their decidedly deviant associate Donald Trump and last Saturday, he put in appearance at a party where many of the incarcerated one’s (former) friends were present. Ironically (or intentionally) for this super special occasion minus their mucky madam appendage, the author and crooner Mason wore ‘prison-orange’ pants and sported orange loafers.

British-American transplant Mason, for once without one of his trademark and decidedly dodgy bow ties, perhaps channeled the “Orange Is The New Black pokey look” to remind fellow guests of the plight of their one-time chum, Ghislaine – after all she was stuck in a cell she’s claiming is sewage, rat and cockroach infested whilst they were all out in the Hamptons necking Krug and bingeing on caviar.

Though social butterflies and famous faces have hurriedly distanced themselves from the ‘Bouncing Czech’s’ poison spawn, many associates and friends of Miss Maxwell (or Mrs Scott Borgerson, as she ought to really be known) were present at a gathering at the ‘Grosvenor Atterbury Estate’ at 199 Coopers Necks Lane in Southampton, New York on 12^th June 2021.

Owned currently by a “Manhattan real estate developer (DUMBO in Brooklyn) David Walentas,” according to the New York Social Diary’s David Patrick Columbia, the 6pm to 8pm bash at the ritzy residence was “designed” and hosted by a “major organizer [sic] of smart, chic, grand (and fun) parties” named Bronson van Wyck. Whether ‘Grubby Ghislaine’ was a conversational subject is unreported, but it’s pretty likely she was high on the agenda.

Of the event for 100 “prominent” and “not-so-underprivileged” people, Mr Columbia instead peacocked:

“The roadway along Coopers Neck was jammed with enthusiastic residents looking forward to a good time.”

“And a good time was had by all. And then there was the huge excitement of everybody seeing everybody – many for the first time in months. It was a real reunion celebration. Even Brooke Shields who has been recovering from a terrible accident and surgeries, made it to the party, looking like the top of the morning and showing no sign of what she’d been through.”

Individuals who’ve been snapped with Ghislaine Maxwell previously, aside from ‘Orange Pants’ Mason, at the “huge hit” evening numbered Tory Burch, Candace Bushnell, Tiffany Dubin and Martha Stewart. Whether Christopher Mason burst into song – as he’d done previously back in 1993 – about Jeffrey Epstein’s egg-shaped penis thankfully remains unknown.

Pictured top: Christopher Mason in his prison visiting appropriate orange pants and loafers at the party (centre) and with his mucky mucker Ghislaine Maxwell previously (left); Ghislaine Maxwell on another occasion with another of last Saturday’s party guests, ‘Sex and the City’ author Candace Bushnell.

Ex-jailbird Martha Stewart at the fat bash on Saturday with Peggy Siegal (left); Martha Stewart with Ghislaine Maxwell previously (right).

Christopher Mason in decidedly conservative black tie in 2007 with Ghislaine Maxwell and Allegra Hicks, Amy Fine Collins and Freddy Leiba.

Two former ‘photo-friends’ Ghislaine Maxwell didn’t get to hang out with at the ritzy party in Southampton on Saturday 12th June 2021 snapped with her previously, fashion designer Tory Burch (left) and Sotheby’s New York fashion vice president Tiffany Dubin (right).

The scene of the 100-person bash organised by “Rolls-Royce of party planners” Bronson van Wyck lacking only Ghislaine Maxwell on 12th June 2021… 199 Coopers Neck Lane, Southampton, New York, NY 11968, USA is currently on sale for £25 million ($35 million, €29 million or درهم129 million) through Brown Harris Stevens. It features 14,619 square foot of accommodation, includes 11 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms and stands on a plot of 3 acres.

Christopher Mason on Ghislaine Maxwell

Her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein:

“He was her boyfriend, but she was his Gal Friday.”

Of what the mucky madam did for Epstein:

“She leapt to the occasion when there was anything he needed she could provide. She hugely expanded Jeffrey’s social universe.”

Of when she talked about Epstein:

“[There was always] a flash of excitement in her eyes.”

“She seemed utterly fascinated and thrilled with the life that he offered her and it seemed she would go to any length to satisfy his whims.”

Christopher Mason’s cringeworthily crude ‘cappella’ for Jeffery Epstein’s 40^th birthday (at the behest of Ghislaine Maxwell in January 1993)

With the benefit of hindsight, Mason’s ‘song’ is decidedly sickening and sordid and frankly should join the archives with the ‘music’ of Rolf Harris and Gary Glitter. It shockingly talks of the later convicted and thankfully now croaked paedophile’s erections and goes as follows:

Poor Jeffrey Epstein is 40, oy vey!

Life must be tough, his hair is already so gray

He sure looks older, but it’s clear from his smile

The older he gets, the more juvenile

Ghislaine is lavishing him with her affections

She claims he has 24-hour erections

Sounds like he’s busy, now ain’t that berserk

How does he find the time to get off to work

He wakes when the cock crows while everyone slumbers

He rivals Einstein when crunching those numbers

He taught at Dalton: The naughty boy blushes

To think of schoolgirls and all of their crushes

Christopher Mason subsequently wrote other poems for Jeffrey Epstein. In one he was described, according to the Daily Mail, as “’Silverado,’ as if he were a gray-haired cowboy… Urban cowboy desperado.”

Classy or creepy? We leave that to you to decide.

In 2008, Christopher Mason spoke to CBNC about the scandal that enveloped the husband of another party guest at 199 Coopers Neck Lane, Southampton last Saturday – Judy Taubman, the billionaire widow of the disgraced former Sotheby’s owner turned eventual jailbird (like Ghislaine Maxwell), A. Alfred Taubman (1924 – 2015). Mr Taubman appeared in the famous Maxwell-Epstein ‘black book,’ naturally.

On a different note, in 2014, University of Cambridge educated Christopher Mason sang about Kim Kardashian’s arse. Ms. Kardashian was unsurprisingly not listed on the ‘New York Social Diary’ as amongst those present at last Saturday’s party in either their ‘A’, ‘B’ or ‘C’ lists even. We imagine she was glad.

Also present at the gathering at the ‘Grosvenor Atterbury Estate’ gathering was financier Euan Rellie. In July 2020, he tweeted of Alan Dershowitz: “This guy @AlanDersh is protesting way too much” after the lawyer and former defender of amongst others Claus von Bülow leapt to the defence of the alleged paedophile procurer Ghislaine Maxwell in ‘The Spectator.’

June 18, 2021
A Highway Ponzi House

Montauk beach house built for Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff resurfaces for sale for double what U.S. Marshalls got for it in 2009; its asking price seems crazy given it could be washed away by erosion

Built to the designs of the architect Gene Futterman on what Forbes disparagingly termed a “wind-swept, isolated” plot “on the easternmost edge of New York State, [where] the next stop is Portugal, about 4,500 miles across the Atlantic,” a beach house originally owned by Bernie and Ruth Madoff is once again for sale.

Described once by a Hamptons broker as “a 1980s dump set in a fabulous location,” 216 Old Montauk Highway in Montauk at the tip of New York was sold in 2009 by U.S. Marshalls Services after the sentencing of the orchestrator of the largest ever Ponzi scheme in world history.

A Highway Ponzi House – As it was in 2009 when the U.S. Marshalls Services seized the Ponzi schemer’s house: 216 Old Montauk Highway, Montauk, The Hamptons, New York State, NY 11954, United States of America.

A Highway Ponzi House – The house in its current form.

A Highway Ponzi House – The house’s former owner Bernie Madoff and its current owner Steven Roth (pictured with all-round wrong ‘un Jared Kushner).

A Highway Ponzi House – Current owner Daryl Roth bears a remarkable resemblance to Ruth Madoff. You could easily mistake one for the other.

Whilst Bernie Madoff rots on a 150-year prison term and his wife exists in relative poverty, his 3,000 square foot former getaway was bought by Broadway producer Daryl Roth and her billionaire real estate investor husband Steven, a man described as a “close confidant of Donald Trump.”

The Roths hired “world renowned architect” Thierry Despont to rid all traces of the Madoffs in 2011 and the resulting creation is a 3,000 square foot home with a two-storey ‘great room,’ 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It has a free form gunite pool, cabana and 180-foot of direct frontage to the Atlantic ocean.

Offered for sale again in 2018 for the ludicrous figure of £16.5 million, realtors Out East now seek just £14.1 million, but reaction to the listing has been less than enthusiastic. Dealbreaker described the bedrooms as “still prison-sized” whilst Guest of a Guest added: “You can’t get more on the beach than this… But with beach erosion escalating all over Long Island, and Dune Road basically about to fall into the sea, you’d better be okay with the big possibility of losing all your money on this short-term investment.”

The Names & Numbers – 216 Old Montauk Highway, Montauk, The Hamptons, New York State, NY 11954, United States of America

September 2020 – For sale at a reduced price of £14.1 million ($17.9 million, €15.3 million or درهم65.7 million) through Out East.

May 2019 – Reduced in price to £15.6 million ($19.9 million, €17 million or درهم73.1 million).

April 2018 – Listed for sale for £16.5 million ($21 million, €17.9 million or درهم77.1 million) through the Corcoran Group, a sum 140% higher than the 2009 sale price.

2011 – Renovated by “Manhattan’s most in-demand architect,” Thierry Despont. Of his work, Forbes remarked: “The Frenchman whose clients include Bill Gates, Oscar de la Renta, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, ripped out everything – right down to the studs – to turn the floor plan of the 1982 house upside down. He moved the front entry from the second floor to the first by tearing out a catwalk from the driveway and replacing it with mahogany steps sloping down to the home’s first level. He moved the master bedroom to the second floor. The living room was more of a challenge. The house was built with a vaulted ceiling in the main room that in those big-shouldered, big-haired 1980s years would have been called the ‘great room.’ Despont turned the sharp angles of a cathedral ceiling into a giant curve by creating a barrel vault covered in oak planks that look a bit like a weathered boat hull. The exterior he left much as he found it – contemporary lines, but with a traditional cladding of cedar shingles.”

November 2009 – Sold for 7% above asking price at £7.4 million ($9.4 million, €8 million or درهم34.5 million) to Vorando Realty Trust founder and chairman Steve Roth and his award-winning theatre producer wife Daryl Roth.

September 2009 – Listed for sale for £6.87 million ($8.75 million, €7.47 million or درهم32.13 million), a punchy sum 192% higher than the appraisal figure.

September 2009 – U.S. Marshalls Services appraised the house at £2.4 million ($3 million, €2.6 million or درهم11 million) leading to a mocking New York Post article suggesting: “Those who see Bernard Madoff as an evil purveyor of excess might be disappointed by his beach house: It’s not that palatial. At 3,014 square feet, the home is cottage-size by superrich standards. Its faded furnishings look as old as Madoff’s epic fraud. There’s no garage. Not even a walk-in closet.”

1979 – 1.5-acre site purchased by Bernie and Ruth Madoff for circa $250,000 or the equivalent of £703,000 ($895,000, €764,000 or درهم3.3 million) today.

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Steven and Daryl Roth with their close chum President Donald Trump.

Mrs Madoff now lives in much reduced circumstances and was spotted hauling out her own trash in 2012. One of her sons committed suicide, the other died of cancer and her moronic daughter-in-law, Stephanie Madoff Mack, wrote a ridiculous book titled: ‘The End of Normal.’

Also seized – The Madoffs New York penthouse was sold to the creator of Cabbage Patch Kids and Pokémon Alfred A. Khan in 2010 for £6.3 million, but the “curse of Madoff” struck when it subsequently went up in flames. It was placed for sale again in 2013 when Khan split from his wife.

Then and Now – Bernie and Ruth Madoff built a quite hideous fireplace in their pompously described ‘Great Room’ using stones gathered on the beaches of Montauk (according to Hamptons.com); it has been kept by the current owners in a somewhat reduced state and the ceiling has been dramatically altered also.

Now – The somewhat plain kitchen of the house also serves as a dining space.

Now – One of three bedrooms in the property. The views do make up for them not being especially large, but if you were paying £14.1 million, wouldn’t you want more closet space?

Now – One of three deck spaces overlooking the Atlantic ocean.

Then and Now – The pool and cabana remain quite unaltered.

Now – The entrance to the house is not especially impressive.

Now – A view of 216 Montauk Old Highway from the beach.

Now – An aerial shot from the ocean illustrating how close to the sea the building truly is.

Now – A general shot of the beach.

Now – The somewhat modest entrance gates to the property give no clue to its current or previous occupant’s financial statuses.

Now – An aerial shot illustrating the boundaries of the 1.5-acre plot; it’s certainly a lot more expansive than Bernie Madoff’s cell.

September 23, 2020
Moving On – July 2020 – Capone, Conran & Kennedy

Moving on homes owned by the newsworthy – including a country house apartment in a castle currently owned by Jasper Conran and the childhood homes of Al Capone and Jackie Kennedy

Soppy Savills Fail to Salivate

https://vimeo.com/227878828

Jasper Conran OBE paid just £2.75 million ($3.43 million, €3.04 million or درهم12.61 million) for New Wardour Castle in Tisbury, Wiltshire in August 2010. The catch? He didn’t get the whole James Paine and Giacomo Quarenghi designed Palladian mansion, but as the Daily Mail’s Alexis Parr reported at that time he “captured” 23,185 square foot of a repossessed building divided into a total of ten flats. ‘Apartment 1,’ as the space the designer son of Sir Terence Conran currently owns is known as, includes 8 reception rooms, 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms.

Agents Savills could have enthused gushingly about the Grade I listed building and its spectacular 60-foot central rotunda, but instead they are simply seeking £3.95 million ($4.93 million, €4.36 million or درهم18.12 million) for what they underwhelmingly market as the “largest [apartment] in Wiltshire.” Conran would have done better to have appointed someone more akin to the late Roy Brooks we’d say – at least he’d have showed some flowery enthusiasm for this capacious crib.

From Electric to Insta

‘The James Seymour Mansion,’ the £37,000 ($50,000, €45,000 or درهم184,000) Gothic revival mansion in New York State The Steeple Times featured in December 2019, has finally got itself new owners after 204 submissions from across the world to buy it.

Creatively marketed by Michael DeRosa on behalf of the local authority after a property tax foreclosure, the 10-bedroom house on a 0.9-acre plot is situated in Auburn, Cayuga County – a place best known for being the gruesome location of the world’s first legal execution using an electric chair in August 1890.

Whilst the process of the death of “vegetable peddler and known alcoholic” William Kemmler (whom murdered his common-law wife in March 1888) was regarded as a “historic bungle,” all worked out well James and Katie Joynt and their seven children. The family – whom currently manage an Amish co-op in Pennsylvania – will spend around £123,000 ($155,000, €136,000 or درهم565,000) restoring the house according to New York Upstate and are going to take the crumbling house into the 21^st century whilst documenting their journey on Instagram.

Going Gangsta

Of a New York “multi-family townhouse” at 21 Garfield Place, North Slope in June 2017, the New York Post quipped: “A Brooklyn homeowner hopes a mob of buyers will take a shot at this town house.” That property was sold for £1.94 million ($2.42 million, €2.14 million or درهم8.89 million) in early 2018 to an Emmy award winning television producer named Steven Kalifowitz and is now again for sale, this time for £2.3 million ($2.9 million, €2.6 million or درهم10.7 million).

Agents Douglas Elliman neglect to mention that the 2,980 square foot building – which is “currently configured as an owner’s duplex with two spacious one bedroom apartments above” – was a childhood home of the gangster Al Capone (1899 – 1947) in the early 1900s. 21 Garfield Place previously sold for a “little more than £800,000 ($1 million, €885,000 or درهم3.7 million)” according to The New York Times in July 2006 and now looks anything but like a bootlegger’s workplace; there’s even a child’s playroom in the basement.

Anything But A Discount Holiday

Those looking to escape to the Hamptons post-lockdown could do worse than purchase the childhood summer home of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929 – 1994) – if they’ve got £6 million ($7.5 million, €6.6 million or درهم27.5 million) going spare.

Built in 1895, Wildmoor at East Hampton extends to 4,291 square foot and has 6 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. It’s on the market through Paula S. Bulter of Sotheby’s International Realty and also noteworthy is that an art studio on the property was used for many years by the Abstract Expressionist artist Adolph Gottlieb (1903 – 1974).

Gottlieb purchased the shingled house on a 0.92-acre plot in 1960, but interested buyers should note that the current décor scheme is definitely a bit passé. As Kennedy herself once said: “It looks like it’s been furnished by discount stores.”

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July 7, 2020
Nasty NestSeekers

Entitled Hamptons brat Jonathan Davis exposed for allegedly squatting during the coronavirus lockdown; it turns out he’s a realtor with NestSeekers

Jonathan Davis is the founder of the Hamptons Brewing Company and the son of a self-declared “power broker” realtor named Tim Davis. Aside from also being a property agent and claiming to have been “born and raised” in the summer colony that the wealthy of New York flock to, on Friday, he was exposed as something else – Mr Davis has now been outed as a pesky squatter who allegedly doesn’t pay his rent and goes around wrecking other peoples’ homes.

In March, Davis, a graduate of Lynn University “with a passion for business,” featured in an interview with Fox Business in which he bragged about how much business he was doing because of the coronavirus pandemic. In the typically brash style expected of a privileged preppy prat and speaking on behalf of his bosses at the NestSeekers brokerage, he declared:

“Rental season is starting earlier now. Instead of Memorial Day, it’s 1^st April… It’s a very proactive time… There is just more room to breathe out here and families feel safer… It’s not a bad environment to be quarantined.”

According to Inside Edition, completely modest to his core “like father, like son, greatness never dies” Davis – whom according to his broker profile has sold properties priced as high as £9.3 million ($11.5 million, €10.3 million or درهم42.2 million) and pompously lauds himself as a “well-regarded agent” selling “a lifestyle, not just a dream home” according to posts on his Twitter handle – has himself taken advantage of the pandemic at the expense of someone who rented him a house.

The “prominent real estate agent” and “alleged squatter,” the syndicated news-magazine reports, rented a 3-bedroom property in Sag Harbor from Paula Rosado and now “refuses to move out.” Davis is alleged to owe £12,100 ($15,000, €13,500 or درهم55,100) and has supposedly allowed his two German Shepherd dogs to “tear apart” the building and urinate all over her rugs and “couches” [sic]. Windows are reported broken also and of the situation, Rosado moaned: “It’s horrific. It really is just horrific… This has been a complete nightmare for us, for our family emotionally and financially.”

When confronted by Inside Edition’s cameras, Davis refused to comment. His lawyer, meanwhile, angrily stated: “I’ve got no comments except: GET ORF THE GROUNDS!”

The Steeple Times contacted Jonathan Davis and his bosses at NestSeekers – CEO and founder Eddie Shapiro, Bridgehampton salesperson Dylan Eckardt and associate broker Peggy Zabakolas – for comment on Saturday. They all failed to respond by 11am GMT Monday and thus provided illustration of the “ethics, integrity, loyalty, education, ingenuity and courage” by which Shapiro’s firm operates by. Allow NestSeekers into your home at your peril.

Pictured top: Jonathan Davis looking annoyed alongside his ritzy Land Rover Discovery and a police officer.

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The home rented to Jonathan Davis by Paula Rosado.

The gardens of the Sag Harbor property now resemble something inhabited by Stig of the Dump. They were supposedly immaculate prior to Jonathan Davis moving in.

Property owner Paula Rosado spoke to ‘Inside Edition’ to share her frustrations.

On the Instagram page for his brewing company, Jonathan Davis declares: “A good time starts here.” As can be seen from this image, a good time is not being had by his caged dogs.

Jonathan Davis’ unnamed legal representative made quite a scene, when asked for a comment.

Mr Davis, however, surprisingly for a mouthy realtor, had little to nothing to say.

Davis does like to brag about his supposed successes on his NestSeekers broker profile though. One Hamptons local we approached commented: “I wouldn’t trust him with a garden hoe.”

June 1, 2020
Slashed Seven Sisters

Famous ‘Seven Sisters’ cottage in Montauk for sale for 30% less than in 2016; the ‘Gilded Age cottage’ was designed by Stanford White, an architect whose murder famously led to the ‘Trial of the Century’ from 1907 onwards

Montauk has variously been associated with part-time residents such as the playwright Edward Albee, the world’s largest Ponzi scheme operator Bernie Madoff and the artist Andy Warhol. It was a place that the Algonquian speaking Montaukett Native American tribe called home until one Arthur W. Benson (circa 1798 – 1889), the president of the Brooklyn Gas Light company, came along in 1879 and purchased 10,000 acres there for just $151,000 from the American government.

“Land baron” Benson soon after sold half his acreage to the Long Island Rail Road for $600,000 and then set about turfing out the natives and creating a “playground for the rich.” As part of his plan, he ordered the construction of seven “shingle-style” homes that came to form a 100-acre compound for use as a “private hunting and fishing retreat for him and his friends.” They became known as the ‘Seven Sisters’ and one of them is currently for sale through Sotheby’s International Realty.

Designed by Stanford White (1853 – 1906) – a “lauded architect” whom became more famous for being shot and killed by the deranged railroad heir Harry Thaw (1871 – 1947) – the property offered is said to be known as ‘Andrews House.’ It is more commonly listed, however, as 153 Deforest Road and its date of construction has been put at as early as 1879 and as late as 1888. The ‘cottage’ reportedly first belonged to Benson’s friend, a writer and one of the founders of both the bibliographic Grolier Club in Manhattan and the Society of Iconophiles, William Loring Andrews (1837 – 1920).

William Loring Andrews, architect and murder victim Stanford White and Harry Thaw in a ‘gilded’ jail cell.

The Andrews House, 153 Deforest Road, Montauk, New York, NY 11954, United States of America – a ‘Seven Sisters’ cottage that has seen its asking price reduced from £14.8 million in 2016 to £10.4 million in 2020.

Remodeled and expanded in 1992 by the well-known Hamptons architect Francis Fleetwood (1946 – 2015) and updated yet again in the 2010s, 153 Deforest Road today extends to some 3,800 square foot in total. The house stands on a plot of 2.3 acres and accommodation includes a sunken living room, dining room, library, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and a second floor veranda “with mesmerising views that always inspire.”

In 2016, when priced at £14.8 million, Mansion Global remarked: “The property comes with plans for a future expansion by [the renowned classical] architect Allan Greenberg,” but plainly such has made little difference to attracting interest. Four years later, 153 Deforest Road’s asking price has been slashed to ‘just’ £10.4 million and rather strangely its interior colour scheme is entirely in a depressing shade of grey.

The artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel, comedian and talk show host Dick Cavett are amongst others to have lived in ‘Seven Sisters’ houses. One, Tick Hall, was destroyed by a fire in 1997 and then completely rebuilt; what happens to the ‘Andrews House’ remains to be seen.

The Names & Numbers – The Andrews House, 153 Deforest Road, Montauk, New York, NY 11954

July 2019 – It is further reduced to £10.4 million ($12.995 million, €11.9 million or درهمX47.7 million) through Sotheby’s International Realty.

June 2018 – It is reduced to £12 million ($14.995 million, €13.7 million or درهم55.1 million) through Sotheby’s International Realty.

February 2018 – It is relisted for £13 million ($16.25 million, €14.9 million or درهم60 million) with Sotheby’s International Realty.

August 2016 – The house is listed for sale for £14.8 million ($18.5 million, €17 million or درهم67.9 million) with Douglas Elliman.

2012 – 153 Deforest Road is sold to a limited liability company for £5.6 million ($6.995 million, €6.4 million or درهم25.7 million).

1992 – 153 Deforest Road is renovated and remodeled by the Chilean born architect Francis Fleetwood (1946 – 2015) – a man described as a “popular East Hampton, New York–based architect [of] romantic country houses” by Architectural Digest in April 2015. Fleetwood’s well-known clients numbered Lauren Bacall, Calvin Klein and Paul McCartney and of them, he once told The New York Times: “They’d all love to be born into a grand old house that had been handed down through the generations… [And, he added, surely with a grin]… So would I.”

1976 – The ‘Seven Sisters’ – including 153 Deforest Road – and two other neighbouring properties are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Between 1879 and 1888 – 153 Deforest Road was built as a home for the writer and librarian William L. Andrews (1837 – 1920). It formed part of a group of houses known as the ‘Seven Sisters’ and was known as ‘Andrews House.’

1879 – Arthur W. Benson (circa 1798 – 1889) successfully bids $151,000 or the equivalent of £3.2 million today ($4 million, €3.7 million or درهم14.7 million today) for 11,000 acres of land around Montauk in an auction. He then cleverly sold half the land for $600,000 or the equivalent of £12.8 million today ($16 million, €14.7 million or درهم58.8 million today) to the Long Island Rail Road and kept the remainder as his “private playground.” The legitimacy of the ownership of Benson and others of Montauk remains the subject of legal actions by the Montaukett Native Americans to this date.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OofTAtdlGzw

April 14, 2020
A Messed-Up Mansion

Dilapidated Grade II* listed South Yorkshire Georgian mansion Hickleton Hall for sale for a sum 25% lower than it was marketed for in 2014 but 185% more than it was valued at in 2016

Empty country houses become liabilities and in the case of Hickleton Hall in South Yorkshire, the result of years of neglect will likely be either further decline or conversion into flats.

A neglected and boarded-up Hickleton Hall, Hickleton, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, DN5 7BB in 2016

Offered for sale in 2015 for £2 million (at that time complete with its since separated stable block), this Grade II* listed Georgian stately home was built between 1745 and 1748 of limestone ashlar for a banker named Godfrey Wentworth. It was subsequently home to the Whig politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Wood, 1^st Viscount Halifax from 1846 to 1885 and then used by the army during the Second World War.

Converted first to a girls’ school in the 1940s, Hickleton Hall became a Sue Ryder Home in the 1960s. That closed in 2012 and in the years since fate has been anything but kind to the building. Described on a dedicated website as “eye-catching” but affected by subsidence and fissures caused by coal mining, the “asbestos riddled” structure has been targeted by vandals and thieves.

The 34,000 square foot building was valued at a sum of between £525,000 and £825,000 in 2016 but is now for sale for £1.5 million through agents Fisher German. Their marketing brochure – which uses images of the mansion in better times – lists it as now coming with just 14.72 acres of land and planning permission for conversion into 20 apartments.

Hickleton Hall – The Numbers

October 2017 – For sale for £1.5 million ($2 million, €1.7 million or درهم7.3 million) through Fisher German.

February 2016 – Valued at £525,000 to £825,000 ($693,000 to $1.1 million, €589,000 to €926,000 or درهم2.5 million to درهم4 million) by Christie & Co. Remedial work to restore the hall estimated at least £1.75 million ($2.3 million, €2 million or درهم8.5 million).

April 2014 – For sale for £2 million ($2.6 million, €2.2 million or درهم9.7 million) through Hamptons.

October 24, 2017
Andrew Warren

New York socialite Andrew Warren is known primarily as the best friend of Donald Trump’s daughter, Tiffany. With 100,000 followers on Instagram and the creator of the Just Drew fashion brand, he is the son of a real estate investor and also counts fellow trustafarians Kyra Kennedy and Gaia Matisse amongst his ‘Snap Pack’ entourage.

In August 2017, after bizarrely breaking his right arm in an incident in a Fort Pond, Montauk swimming pool involving an inflatable flamingo, Warren exclaimed: “It is especially hard because I use my right hand to design and for social media.”

Previously, in 2016, he modestly remarked: “I don’t I should be judged for posting a photo like eating caviar at Claridge’s in London while it’s okay for someone to post a picture at McDonald’s… In the Hamptons, I’ll have McDonald’s. I’ll have days where I go to Six Flags. I venture to Coney Island. I’m not grossed out by anything. My mom likes to go to Ohio. We do things that people wouldn’t expect us to do.”

August 15, 2017