Grey Gardens Is for Sale

The house was made famous in a 1975 documentary and 2009 movie
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 10, 2017 2:34 PM CST
You Could Buy Grey Gardens for $20M
Grey Gardens, the Hamptons home once owned by eccentric relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is for sale.   (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

A home in East Hampton made famous in a 1975 documentary—and again in an Emmy-winning 2009 HBO movie starring Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, and yet again in a Broadway musical—is for sale for the first time since 1979. That's right, Grey Gardens could be yours for the asking price of $19,995,000, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to Newsday, the three-story home built in 1897 sits on 1.7 acres and has seven bedrooms, 6.5 bathrooms, a swimming pool, a tennis court, and ocean views; it's only 100 yards from the beach. Grey Gardens is being sold by journalist Sally Quinn, who bought it for $220,000 along with her husband Ben Bradlee, the late Washington Post executive editor.

The house was made famous by "Little Edie" Beale—Jackie O's cousin—who lived there with her mother "Big Edie." The pair lived "in a state of squalor" as the house fell down around them. A real estate agent says the house has become "American folklore." After purchasing Grey Gardens from Beale, Bradlee and Quinn spent about $600,000 repairing it, Atlas Obscura reports. It became their summer house where they would host parties with famous guests, such as Norman Lear and Lauren Bacall. Quinn says it was a "magical place" but "wasn't the same" without Bradlee, who died in 2014. Quinn and Bradlee had to promise Beale they wouldn't tear the house down, but Quinn is making no such requirement during the current sale. (More Grey Gardens stories.)

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