Georgica Pond Modern With Storied Past Trades for $22 Million

A minimalist home sitting along the shoreline of Georgica Pond, which was famously at the heart of a feud between Martha Stewart and her neighbor, sold last month for $22 million — trading hands between a buyer and seller protected by limited liability companies.

The four-bedroom, 7,000-square-foot home at 84 Georgica Close Road in East Hampton, listed by Beate Moore and Frank Newbold of Sotheby’s International Realty, has an interesting history. It dates back to 1962, when Gordon Bunshaft, an influential New York architect, built a 26-foot-by-100-foot pavilion for himself and his wife, Nina, that would become known as the Travertine House, according to the Robb Report. It was designed to showcase a museum-level collection of artwork.

He died in 1990, followed by his wife four years later, who willed the property to the Museum of Modern Art, the Robb Report said. But the institution couldn’t afford its upkeep, and so it sold for just over $3 million to Stewart, who got into a fight with her next-door neighbor, developer Harry Macklowe, over a row of shrubs she claimed he planted on her property.

A legal battle ensued; Stewart allegedly pinned one of Macklowe’s gardeners to a gate with her car — no charges were filed, the Robb Report said — and she eventually abandoned the renovation, handing the house over to her daughter, Alexis, who sold the house in 2005 to textile designer Donald Maharam and his wife, Bonnie.

He razed the original structure, which was reportedly in shambles, and on the same footprint built what stands today: a crisp, bright-white contemporary with 12-foot-high ceilings, walls of windows, bluestone floors, sweeping views of the water and a separate waterside studio cottage.

“Everyone gasped when they saw the wide sweeping water views down the full length of Georgica Pond to the ocean beach,” Newbold said.