Sale Of Former Bouvier Estate Lasata Closes In East Hampton

“Sold!”

That could be what the Bouviers in their graves a few miles away are exclaiming about the just-announced purchase of Lasata, which for decades had been the family’s estate in East Hampton—and was where Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, who was born in July 1929 at Southampton Hospital, spent her summers. The last reported listing price for Lasata, via Douglas Elliman Real Estate, was $29,995,000, though the final price at the Thursday, January 18, closing was not disclosed. The name of the estate is derived from the American Indian word for “Place of Peace.”

The buyer—not disclosed at press time—will now find peace at a residence designed by Arthur Jackson that in recent years underwent a full renovation. Early in 2016 the then-owner of Lasata, Reed Krakoff, put it on the market with a hefty $54 million price tag, but that ask included both the 7-acre parcel that just sold and a split-off 4-acre parcel at 40 Middle Lane that was sold earlier this month in a separate transaction for $11,250,000.

Until her adult years, Jackie Bouvier and her sister, Lee (Radziwill), spent summers at the family’s East Hampton estate. Their father was John Vernou Bouvier III, known to most as “Black Jack,” a dashing figure with a fondness for gambling and alcohol as well as his two daughters. The house is a 9-iron from the Maidstone Golf Club and Atlantic Ocean. It was built in 1917 and purchased eight years later by Jackie’s grandfather, “Major” Bouvier. After Jackie’s parents married in East Hampton in 1928 they stayed at the Lasata family compound, and even after they divorced in the 1940, Jackie and her sister continued to visit their grandparents there. The property just sold includes the original 8-bedroom house plus a 2-bedroom guest house, and a swimming pool with a pool house.

Flash from the small-world front: Lasata was to serve as a setting in a documentary about the Bouvier sisters made by the brothers David and Albert Maysles, and reportedly some footage was shot at the estate. But the filmmakers turned their attention to other members of the family, Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, and their separate estate in East Hampton. The result was the award-winning documentary “Grey Gardens.” That estate was sold just last month.

Through the decades Lasata remained in private ownership and was bought by Krakoff, former creative director of Coach, and his wife, Delphine, for $25 million in 2007. The couple got going on extensive renovations and then spent summers and weekends there. It became an annual event to throw a Bastille Day party at Lasata in honor of Mrs. Krakoff, who was born in France. The estate became expendable in 2015 when the couple purchased a 50-acre estate in Connecticut and began spending more time there than in East Hampton.

Going back to that first paragraph: The Bouviers are still residents of East Hampton, in a way. As proof, visit the family plot at the Most Holy Trinity Cemetery on Cedar Street.