Real LI

A "barbecue blowout" at Billy Joel's new house in Sagaponack included a game of beer pong between Howard Stern and Ivanka Trump, reports the Daily News. Joel's wife, Katie Lee, apparently showed Trump "how to guzzle through a funnel." Bridgehampton resident Christie Brinkley, Joel's ex-wife, also was there with their daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, Lorne Michaels, Rachael Ray, Chevy Chase, Alex Baldwin, Ron Perelman, Roger Walters and Penny Marshall, according to the newspaper. Read more about Joel's house -- and see photos of other properties he owns on Long Island -- here.

Model Stephanie Seymour "finds peace in the summer months at her beachy, casual home in Sagaponack" she decorated herself, according to Hamptons magazine. Seymour spends most of her time on the beach. "Billy Joel lives two doors down from me and he's right next to the public beach, and nobody ever bothers him," she says. When she's not sunning, she shops in Sagaponack, Southampton and East Hampton, as well as Bridgehampton Commons. She also likes to go to Bridgehampton polo, which is where she's pictured here. That makes sense: Her husband, Peter Brant, plays polo in Bridgehampton and even owns his own team.

Getty Images photo

Billy Joel's homes aren't just for buying, selling and living in: WAXQ (Q104.3 FM) programming director Bob Buchmann broadcast his final show Tuesday from Joel's house in Sag Harbor. Read on, or get more info on all of Billy Joel's Long Island properties here.

Ex-spouses Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel spent part of the July 4 weekend, along with daughter Alexa and a group of family and friends, eating barbecue and “blowing off some steam” at Joel’s harborfront home in Sag Harbor, according to People.com.

Joel purchased the home in 2001 for nearly $8 million according to published reports.
The once-married couple have quite a collection of Long Island houses in their seperate portfolios, including Brinkley’s Bridgehampton estate, Tower Hill, currently on the market for $30 million, and Joel’s Centre Island estate, Middlesea, listed for sale at $32.5 million.

Joel also owns two adjacent homes in Sagaponack for which he paid a total of about $30 million. Brinkley listed another Water Mill cabin for sale last year for $7.9 million before changing her mind and pulling the property off the market.

Another home has changed hands on Centre Island, this time a 1914 waterfront compound with four-plus acres, a carriage house and a three-car garage with an apartment. The home has four bedrooms, 4 ½ baths and three fireplaces.

The estate had been listed for $5.8 million and sold in less than three weeks for $5.6 million.

Listing agent Carol Cotton of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty declined to comment on the sale.

There’s been a flurry of real estate activity on Centre Island in recent months. Notable deals include an $8.5 million dollar sale (the buyer is said to be radio host Sean Hannity) and a $12.5 million sale to Londoner Colin Buffin.

Billy Joel’s Middlesea is still for sale for $32.5 million, although the rocker recently switched his listing to Dolly Lenz of Prudential Douglas Elliman.

It’s no secret that there are quite a few famous Long Islanders with digs in the Hamptons, including Jerry Seinfeld, Alec Baldwin and Billy Joel. It’s also no secret that summertime attracts other celebs and newsmakers ... oh, say, Richard Gere, Renee Zellweger and that skinny blond socialite with the tiny dog. Though some never seem to mind a headline, most prefer to chill in peace on some of the earth’s finest beaches.

As for the agents and brokers who represent them: They do their best to respect their client’s privacy. Read all about it at 27east.com. Top brokers also share their take on why they think A-listers flock to the East End and how it affects real estate values.

People are still talking about Billy Joel's recent Mother's Day weekend appearance in downtown Huntington. On May 10, he drove his Harley into town and stopped at Cassis. He sat outside the French bistro on Wall Street and had a drink with a friend. Later that weekend, he took his mother, Rosalind Nyman Joel -- who, according to public records, lives in Huntington in a house her son purchased for $248,000 in 1984 -- for a Mother's Day dinner at the more traditional Abel Conklins on New Street. Joel owns a house in Centre Island, which is now on the market for $32.5 million, as well as homes in Sagaponack and Sag Harbor.

Getty Images photo

Katie Lee Joel tells the Herald-Dispatch in West Virginia, where she's from, that her new book "The Comfort Table" features photography taken at her and rocker-husband Billy Joel's new house in Sagaponack.

"We did the photo shoots at my house in New York City and the house out on Long Island," she tells the newspaper. "I wanted the balance of country and city girl, and I had my mom and grandma and great-aunt come up, and all three of them have recipes in the book. We had the best time, and I will always have those remembrances of having them up here doing the photo shoot. We had our hair and makeup done, and after that we all went out for dinner since everyone was gussied up."

Read more about the Joel house -- and see photos -- here.

Getty Images photo

Dolly Lenz has seen many houses in her career as Prudential Douglas Elliman's top broker. So when she says that rocker Billy Joel's Centre Island estate is the "truly most amazing, breathtaking house and property I have even seen," that says a lot. Lenz, who is listing Joel's property for $32.5 million, adds that it "beats every Hamptons mansion, beats every Malibu and Bel Air mansion." She goes on in the e-mail: "I was speechless from the setting alone ... The house itself took my breath away." See more photos of the house here.

Powerhouse broker Dolly Lenz of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate now has the listing for Billy Joel's "Middlesea" estate in Centre Island. The 14,000-square-foot house is listed for $32.5 million. Lenz describes the property on her site as a "magnificent Tudor-style waterfront manor ... sited on over 14 acres of rolling lawns and naturalized landscaping." The estate "boasts 1,550 feet of direct waterfront that affords mesmerizing water views from every vantage point." Apparently "Oprah" designer Nate Berkus not only did up Joel and wife, Katie Lee's place in the West Village, as we discovered this week on the show. According to the Prudential listing, Berkus designed the living room here, too.

The property includes a gym, indoor and outdoor pools, a gourmet kitchen, a tennis court, a bowling alley, a guest cottage, a music room, a smoking bar and a wine cellar. There are threef buildings, with a total of 24 rooms, including eight full baths and five half-baths. There are 13 fireplaces.

Annual taxes are $208,463.

Joel last had the house listed with Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty for $32.5 million. The listing lapsed last year, although word was that he still wanted to sell it.

See more photos of the property here.

Rocker Billy Joel put his Centre Island estate on the market because the village gave him grief over repairing the dock at the 14-acre waterfront spread, writes legendary publisher Dan Rattiner in his memoir to be released next month.

“I thought I could put one of my boats there and speedboat to Manhattan in twenty minutes when I needed to go,” Joel tells Rattiner, “…in the end, they wouldn’t let me do it…so I just gave up on it…the house is for sale.” Joel’s estate has been on the market since 2006. The current asking price is $32.5 million for the home where he and wife, Katie Lee, married in 2004.

Rattiner’s book, "In the Hamptons: My Fifty Years with Farmers, Fisherman, Artists, Billionaires, and Celebrities" (Harmony Books; $24.95), is full of reminiscences of Hamptons icons, including artists Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, authors John Steinbeck and Spalding Gray, and his longtime friend Joel, who also owns a home in Sag Harbor and two in Sagaponack.

Over dinner at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor, Rattiner writes, Joel explained what brought him out to the Hamptons in the first place, and what keeps him there. “I’m a Long Island boy, born and raised,” Joel says, “but I’m from the working man’s Long Island, Levittown. Massapequa. The working men and women live out east. And I want to be among them.”

Husband Billy Joel called his West Village apartment with wife, Katie Lee Joel, "glamorous" on today's "Oprah." But what about their newly purchased compound in Sagaponack? Read all about that place -- and the Joels' other Long Island real estate holdings -- here.

According to the judge who decided the nearly $50 million settlement in Paul McCartney’s divorce from Heather Mills, the ex-Beatle, shown here leaving court today, is worth about $800 million. Presumably that amount includes some of his real estate holdings, which includes a family compound in Amagansett where Sir Paul has been vacationing every August for years.

No wonder McCartney has many friends on the East End. He's known to frequent rocker John Bon Jovi's house in the Georgica area of East Hampton. For Labor Day last year, McCartney and Bon Jovi performed in an impromptu jam with Sagaponack resident Billy Joel, Sag Harbor resident Roger Waters and North Haven resident Jimmy Buffett.

Last summer, Mills reportedly rented a nearby home on Georgica Pond in East Hampton so that she could be close to daughter Beatrice while the child spent time with her father. That home is owned by writers Nora Ephron and Nick Pileggi, and just a stone’s throw from property owned by fimlmaker Steven Spielberg.

For more on the McCartneys' history in the Hamptons, see here.

Getty Images photo

An oceanfront 5,000-square-foot modern-style house designed by Philip Johnson in Sagaponack just sold for $22 million. Built in 1976, the two-story cedar-exterior house features eight bedrooms, six baths, a heated pool and a tennis court.

The taxes are $32,823 a year.

The original asking price was $25 million. The 3.75-acre property was later lowered to $22 million. Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate handled the exclusive listing. It closed Feb. 29.

The owner is William Spier, who was the director and chairman of the board at Empire Resources Inc., a distributor of semi-finished aluminum products. The buyer was not immediately known.

Billy Joel and his wife, Katie Lee, bought two homes in Sagaponack last year. Read all about them here.

Actor Roy Scheider, who died Sunday, spoke to Newsday last year about his decision to sell his Sagaponack home to Billy Joel. Here is the interview with Ellen Yan, which appeared June 5, 2007:

BY ELLEN YAN
yan@newsday.com

Actor Roy Scheider's home went for more than a song; it went to songman Billy Joel.

"Jaws" icon Scheider is expected to close today on the Sagaponack house he built between the ocean and some farms in 1994, said sources close to the deal.

"I'm so happy that Billy Joel is buying it, because it's the perfect house for him," said Scheider, 74. "He can put his piano on the second floor, overlook the beach and the farmland and write beautiful music for all of us. Maybe he'll write an ocean's album."

Agents involved are mum on the sale price for the five-bedroom, five-bath, four-fireplace home with porches and decks galore.

But the 1-acre property was last listed at $18.75 million. Scheider said the price was "close."

Joel's agents confirmed the deal, but declined to comment further.

The singer, 58, has his own real estate for sale. His Centre Island waterside property has five bedrooms, but at $32.5 million, it's stacked with amenities - a tennis court, a music room, a wine cellar and a four-car garage. He also owns a waterfront house in nearby Sag Harbor.

But in a little bit of down-to-earth reality, both stars have felt the pinch of the softer real estate market.

They've had to do what the small guys have done - price chopping. Joel originally asked for $37.5 million last September, when he put his home on the market. Scheider originally asked for $20 million in April 2006 and went down by $1.25million last March.

Scheider and his family are waiting for a new home to be built, not far from their temporary quarters at Sag Harbor's The American Hotel, an 1846 landmark that could belong in a Currier and Ives lithograph. Scheider bought the house when it was half-built and got the chance to put in his own architectural marks.

This time, Scheider's four-bedroom house will be landlocked. That means no more piling sandbags outside the house, like he did in 2005 just before a nor'easter. The house was safe, but the storm bit away more beach. "People who live there have to restore the beach occasionally," Scheider said. "He knows that," he said, referring to Joel.

Scheider said his new home, expected to be livable in August, is "modest." He's like a lot of other Long Islanders who have outgrown their longtime homes.

"It really was fine for its time, but the kids are grown up now," he said. "They're going away and we're downsizing, and I'm doing more work in Europe than I am here."

Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty agents can take potential buyers through Billy Joel's Centre Island home, a source within the firm tells RealLI. The agents were notified this week by e-mail that "they got permission to show it again." Joel let the listing on the $32.5 million house lapse last year, although word was that he still wanted to sell it. Last year he also bought two oceanfront homes in Sagaponack.

Those of you wondering about yesterday's post on Billy Joel's "house boy" in Lloyd Harbor will be pleased to know that his name is Daniel Howell, a 1987 graduate of Oyster Bay High School who used to deliver Newsday. He now works as a systems integration engineer at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. BigRedKitty, his blog, is about World of Warcraft. He lives in Orlando, Fla.

After seeing the RealLI post about his essay, he blogged again. Read what he has to say this time about the Joel house.

If you've ever pondered that question, be sure to check out the Big Red Kitty blog for a story by someone who says he used to be Billy Joel's 'house boy' when the rocker lived in this house in Lloyd Harbor with then-wife Christie Brinkley. (Joel bought the house in 1981 with his first wife, Elizabeth, for $65,000; he sold the property in 1986 in $1,525 million.) Apparently, the guy, then a teen, was sent to work for Joel by his grandmother, who was friends with Joel's mother. There are some very good moments, especially the one involving a wet towel. Read the posting here.

Newsday file photo, 2005 / David L. Pokress

Why does Billy Joel need two new homes? Maybe it's because he and wife, Katie Lee Joel, plan to expand the family. She recently told E!Online: “I’m always thinking about cute names. I always say that babies are the new Birkin. They’re the hottest accessory right now. Everybody has to have one.” The Joels bought two houses in Sagaponack last year and still own an estate in Centre Island that they want to sell.

AP photo

That Long Island serial buyer and seller of real estate -- Billy Joel -- has made a $500,000 donation to Homes for Our Troops, a national nonprofit based in Massachusetts that builds specially adapted homes for service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with severe disabilities. The donation was made from proceeds from his "Christmas In Fallujah" song, performed by Long Islander Cass Dillon. Joel is a longtime supporter of the organization, reports top40-charts.com.

Katie Lee Joel, the food-obsessed wife of rocker Billy Joel, is writing a book "The Comfort Table," writes Cindy Adamsom in today's New York Post. "Since they live in the Hamptons, marketing will be postcard distribution via the Hamptons jitney." The Joels bought two properties in Sagaponack last year. Read more about that -- and see photos -- here.

Newsday photo / Bruce Gilbert

Money can’t buy all wishes and a broker teases:

An “under 40” Wall Street exec with millions has his eye on Billy Joel’s Centre Island estate, said broker Shawn Elliott.

The owner of Woodbury-based Shawn Elliott Luxury Homes and Estates has plans to show the client around Middlesea, reduced to $32.5 million since it went on the market $5 million higher in September 2006

But Elliott, such a teaser, won’t say who he’s bringing to the estate on confidentiality grounds. It’s just stuff like “definitely a well-known Wall Street person” from the broker.

“I won’t give you the name but if I did and you put in on Google, immediately you’d know who it is and a lot of people would know who it is,” he said. “They have a home in Florida and they have a home in Manhattan. They do not own a Hamptons house. So it’d be sort of like in exchange for having a Hamptons house, this would be closer to the city.”

Elliott said his first customer to Middlesea was a venture capitalist and boater who made an offer on the compound around November but was turned down.

That first client would have bought the 14-acre place if he could have his one big wish, the broker said.

“If I can land a helicopter here, we’ll make this happen,” Elliott recalled his client saying. “Nothing would make him happier than to be in Manhattan in 15 minutes.

“I checked it out. I called the town. No helicopter landing anywhere on Centre Island.”

It’s hard to find a Long Island home where the views can help de-stress high-powered big wigs in high-pressure businesses and where helicopter commuting is legal, so Elliott thinks his first client might be back once he weighs the options.

“When you get to this level, it’s not about the money necessarily,” the broker said. “You want what you want, and you’re willing to pay for it and you’re not willing to compromise.”

When the $80 million listing for the 55-acre North Haven property owned by Miami area resident Robert W. Rust disappeared from the Prudential Douglas Elliman Web site, it raised the question of whether this big catch had been sold.

The property made headlines last January when it went on the market for the then-highest price ever asked for a residential property in New York State. At the time, listing agent Dolly Lenz of Prudential Douglas told Newsday that a yachtsman and musician Billy Joel were among the parties interested in the property, but a year later, it remains unsold, despite advertising from Lenz' Hamptons-based colleague, broker Ray Smith.

Rust said he took it off the market after the listing expired with Prudential at the end of September, but Lenz said she's still the "exclusive agent."

Some weeks ago, Rust said, he asked his lawyer to send a letter to Prudential reminding the company that it no longer represents his property.

"The only reason I asked for some type of letter to be sent was because Ray Smith was continuing to advertise it after the period of contract ran out," said Rust, 79, a former assistant U.S. attorney decorated for helping save the life of President John F. Kennedy almost three years before he was assassinated.

When REAL LI on Wednesday asked Lenz about the status of the listing, Lenz said, “I have received no such letter … I’m the exclusive agent.” Lenz acknowleged that the property is no longer listed on the company's Web site but that she is currently “in negotiations” with a potential buyer.

Technically, it was Smith who got the letter, Rust said. The contract also states that Prudential will have several months after the listing expires to earn a commission if a client who had seen the property decides to make a deal, the owner said. Rust said he wasn't sure if that period had expired also.

Last year, Rust had expressed disappointment to Newsday that Prudential hadn't done much to get word out about his property. "They began to advertise it June, July and August, but for the first six months of the contract, they didn't do anything," he said on Wednesday.

He had been thinking of finding another agency, and now that the listing's off Prudential's Web site, Rust said "everybody" is calling him frequently to snag his business.

But the compound won't be on the market any time soon. He's been renovating the buildings there, with most of the work done on two smaller houses, set on hills with views of Shelter Island.

"The reason it's not on the market right now is I really would like to personally see the progress on the two houses," said the retiree, who usually comes up for the summer. "A complete renovation on the two houses that may have been anywhere from 60 to 100 years old . . . I've been laying out money as I go. It has to be done."

Work has also been done on a barn and garage.

Recently, workers took out at least five oil tanks made of steel, which can rust and allow oil to contaminate groundwater used for drinking, and replaced them with fiberglass tanks.

"It's the right thing to do," he said.

Last year, he had wondered if required updating on his property was scaring off buyers, despite the natural beauty, a cove deep enough for boats and the privacy.

Said Rust, "I think the properties are more sellable when everything's nice."

-- ELLEN YAN AND LAURA MANN

Beate Moore of Sotheby’s International Realty is listing a Sagaponack home for rent for Memorial Day through Labor Day 2008 for $1 million. That works out to a little over $10,000 a day for the summer season. The house is also for sale for $19.9 million.

Records show the owner of the eight-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot traditional home on Parsonage Lane is Andrew Saunders, a real estate agent for Sotheby’s in the company’s Bridgehampton office. Moore says that Saunders, a former Wall Street executive, is not representing himself in either the sale or rental of this property.

According to Moore, the home was briefly listed for sale last year for just over $20 million, and during a showing of the property, Saunders was offered $1 million to rent it out for the summer. At the time, Moore says, “The owner did not entertain the idea of a rental,” but the $1 million offer, “put the idea in his head.” Saunders, who currently lives in the home, now owns a second home in the area.

A $1 million pricetag for the season is not unheard of, but it is rare. Harald Grant of the Southampton office of Sotheby's confirmed to REAL LI this week that he had rented out a Southampton home for $1 million for the summer of 2007. Although Grant declined to give any details of the transaction, real estate sources say the property was an oceanfront mansion on Gin Lane.

A spokeswoman for the Corcoran Group says that company's highest rental for the summer of 2007 was $750,000. Of the asking price, Paul Brennan, senior vice president of Prudential Douglas Elliman says, "That's very ambitious...I have not heard of anything over a million."

While this new listing in Sagaponack does not set a record, it "might be setting a record for something that is not on the ocean," according to Janet Hummel of Town & Country Real Estate in Southold. "It’s a beautiful house," she adds.

Hummel says that the rental market for the summer season looks strong. Despite jitters about the real estate market in general, "people still want to be out in the Hamptons…we’ve had 20 rentals already in the Bridgehampton office, and three or four are pretty high end, in the $300,000 to $400,000 range."

Whoever winds up renting this home will be in good company. Rocker Billy Joel purchased two adjacent properties in Sagaponack last year. In June, Joel purchased actor Roy Scheider's home for $16.75 million for wife, Katie Lee. In November, the singer closed on the purchase of the house next door for $11.6 million.

Billy Joel's officially a neighbor of himself.

He has closed on his latest beachfront house, a 1-acre Sagaponack property located right next door to the $16.75-million, five-bedroom surprise he snagged in June for wife, Katie Lee.

One of several celebs with a constant eye out for Long Island real estate, Joel paid a little more than $11.6 million for his latest home, which has three bedrooms and two baths. He got $2.3 million knocked off his new home and in June negotiated a $2-million markdown on his first Sagaponack home, which used to belong to "Jaws" actor Roy Scheider.

Billy Joel photos

Usually, buying and selling activity is seasonal, with spring and summer strong and the end of year quieter, but the housing boom fudged those lines, with bidding wars and deals all year.
"Last couple of years, there has been no season," said Paul Brennan, regional director of the Hamptons for Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. "It's been full-court press all year 'round."

Like other investors and average house hunters, the rich may also look for bottom prices before investing.

Brennan's not sure if the Hamptons luxury market is really at the start of a slowdown or if it's a return to the seasonal cycle. "People are looking, but they are not writing checks," he said. "The looking has slowed down and the interest level has waned somewhat."

Manhattan-based appraiser Jonathan Miller said the average discount a year ago was smaller than it is now, meaning the spread between the asking and closing prices is widening.

The third quarter report for the Hamptons, due out next week, will show fewer luxury homes on the market, said Miller, executive vice president and director of research at data analysis company Radar Logic, which was commissioned by Prudential to do the report. He said that caused prices to go up by at least 33 percent on the top 10 percent of deals, but at the same time the number of deals dropped by about 30 percent.

Rick Hoffman, regional senior vice president for The Corcoran Group, which had the Joel deal, said he doesn't see a slowdown and expects year-end Wall Street bonuses to continue fueling the Hamptons real estate scene: "That's part of the reason the market has become less seasonal."

Just like ex-husband Billy Joel, who wants to sell his Centre Island estate, supermodel Christie Brinkley might have a potential buyer for her Bridgehampton property. "There has been some activity," says Susan Breitenbach, senior vice president of the Corcoran Group, who is listing Tower Hill. Brinkley is asking $30 million. "We've had a couple of good showings," says Breitenbach. Earlier this week, as Real LI reported, broker Shawn Elliott said that his venture capitalist client wants to see Joel's house a second time. Joel is asking $32.5 million.

A venture capitalist wants a second viewing of a Billy Joel's Centre Island estate after seeing the posh compound on Saturday, said broker Shawn Elliott.

"The views were ridiculous," said the owner of Shawn Elliott Luxury Homes and Estates, based in Woodbury. "He couldn't believe the views."

The singer wants his Middlesea estate to bring in $32.5 million, down from $37.5 million when he first put it on the market in September 2006.

The 14 acres cover a guest house, a beach house and the big house -- and that's why the house hunter wants a second look, probably this month.

"It's a lot to take in in one visit," Elliott said.

The broker was mum on the guy's identity but said he brings foreign investors into deals in this country.

With housing prices going down and the dollar falling in value, Europeans with euros to spare have been searching for bargains here in the same way U.S. residents go to Mexico for inexpensive vacations and properties.

The foreign angle is being touted by Elliott as he tries to convince Billy Joel's people that he can represent Middlesea and find a buyer. Recently, he and Joel's representatives had a sitdown talk, now that the property is off the listings of Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty.

"I have a lot of European contacts with the way the euro is," the businessman said. "I'm playing that card. That's what I bring to the table."

Newsday photo / David L. Pokress

Media types scrambled earlier this week when the British tabloids reported that music legend Sir Paul McCartney was spotted romancing Nancy Shevell in East Hampton.

Locals know that McCartney is no newcomer to the Hamptons. In fact, he’s been vacationing there for years, spending two weeks every August with his late wife, Linda, and their four children at their Amagansett compound.

Last month, Paul’s daughter, designer Stella McCartney told W magazine: “I've been coming (to the Hamptons) my whole life." She recalls beach parties with kegs and nights out at The Stephen Talkhouse on Main Street in Amagansett when “they’d have Muddy Waters and amazing people play.”

She told the magazine that East Hampton is still a retreat for "the American half" of her family. Her maternal grandfather was lawyer and East Hamptonite Lee Eastman. Her uncle is entertainment lawyer John Eastman, who has managed Sir Paul’s career for 40 years. When McCartney married his second wife Heather Mills in 2002, rumors swirled that the ceremony would take place at Eastman’s Lily Pond Lane mansion. Instead the now-divorcing couple married in Ireland.

Eastman’s clients have included two notable Long Islanders: musician Billy Joel, who owns homes in Sag Harbor, Centre Island and Sagaponack, and abstract artist Willem De Kooning, who worked from a studio in Springs.

McCartney, himself a visual artist, had a longtime friendship with De Kooning. He credits De Kooning with influencing his painting style. The ex-Beatle is quoted as saying, "you have to paint abstract after you've been seeing Bill de Kooning". McCartney's influences also include the scenery at Georgica Beach, the subject of a few of his works. See some of them here.

Author Steven Gaines told the Associated Press earlier this week that "the Hamptons are filled with celebrities. …This is a community that's very protective of those who live here." Apparently McCartney now stays out East after Labor Day, when things quiet down. "October is Paul's favorite month," Gaines said.

Paul McCartney: Christine Cotter/Los Angeles Times; Nancy Shevell: AP photo

Billy Joel, inside a building at his Centre Island estate, with two model boats he owns

Billy Joel may not have to wait anymore. Shawn Elliott, president of Shawn Elliott Luxury Homes and Estates, says, "I have a customer for his house."

"He loves the water," says Elliot of his client, a businessman. "He's all about the water."

Joel has been trying to sell his Centre Island estate for more than a year. The 14-acre waterfront property went on the market for $37.5 million in September 2006. He bought the house for $22.5 million in 2002. Sources have told Newsday that his main reason for wanting to leave is frustration over not being able to build a dock for his three boats. Since putting the house on the market, he has purchased two homes in Sagaponack. He also has a house in Sag Harbor.

Last month, he let his listing with Daniel Gale Sotheby's International Realty for the 14,000-square-foot mansion