Famed Four Fountains Estate In Southampton Has Rich History

William S. Paley’s most notable accomplishments were founding the Columbia Broadcasting System in the late 1920s and during the ensuing decades presiding over its international reach, especially that of its news division populated by the likes of Edward R. Murrow, Fred Friendly, and Walter Cronkite.

His frequent getaway was the 6.7-acre estate known as Four Fountains in Southampton. Some might say the glory years of CBS are gone—having been absorbed in 1999 by Sumner Redstone into his Viacom conglomerate—but Mr. Paley’s former property is still around. And is available, for $35 million.

The first life of Four Fountains was as an arts center. The arts patrons Lucien and Ethel Tyng were living in a cottage off Halsey Neck Lane when, in 1928, they decided to construct a building across the street that would be a combination theater and art gallery. The firm Peabody, Wilson & Brown was hired, and the mansion was built just in time for the Tyngs to move in after their cottage was destroyed by fire.

Ms. Tyng died in February 1933. Seven months later, Mr. Tyng married the actress Olive Wyndham and continued to enjoy Four Fountains (and the rebuilt cottage known as the Swallows) until he sold the estate to Archibald Brown of the architectural firm that had designed it. The new owner had the estate converted into a purely residential one.

Mr. Paley purchased the property from the Brown family in the 1970s, when Mr. Paley was in his 70s and with his second wife, Barbara Cushing Paley, known as “Babe.” The son of a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine, Mr. Paley began CBS as an expanding network of radio stations from 16 in 1927 to 114 a decade later. His innovations were to develop original programming for the network and to sign up national advertisers. During World War II, CBS gained a great deal of credibility and popularity through Mr. Murrow’s dramatic radio reporting from London, and after the war CBS became the standard-bearer for radio, and then television, news.

For Mr. Paley and his wife, Four Fountains was a hub for summer entertaining and, returning to its original purpose, to house an extensive art collection. Guests of the Paleys included Truman Capote and other Hamptons literary lions, as well as bold-face names of the theater, art, and broadcasting worlds.

Babe Paley died in 1978. When Mr. Paley died 12 years later, the estate was left to his four children by his two wives. The present owners purchased Four Fountains from the heirs in the early 1990s.

For $35 million today, the new owner of the French-style Four Fountains will acquire a 9,000-square-foot, two-story house with 10 bedrooms, eight baths, a 40 by 40 living room, a library, a pond view, garages, a greenhouse, and a pool and guest house. The ocean is a stone’s throw south, and Southampton Village and Coopers Beach are just to the east.

The agent representing the property is Tim Davis of the Corcoran Group.