A $12 million Sagaponack house owned by a cash-strapped real-estate developer is the first property in the ultra-exclusive Hamptons enclave to face foreclosure, sources said yesterday.
Benjamin Ringel owes $7.8 million to the Bank of Smithtown, which foreclosed last month on the 15,000-square-foot mansion on three acres of prime real estate in the tony oceanfront community.
“This is the first foreclosure that I’m aware of in Sagaponack,” Village Clerk Rosemarie Winchell told The Post.
Ringel, 41, began building the seven-bedroom, 8 1/2-bath dream house with a pool and tennis court on three lush acres at 219 Sagg Main St. in 2007, and it was finished in 2009.
The custom-built home is in the same blue-chip village — with a population of less than 600 — that TV funnyman Jimmy Falllon and Goldman Sachs honcho Lloyd Blankfein call home.
The estate — slated for auction in late September after an Aug. 27 date was postponed — is also near Beyoncé’s and Jay Z’s $400,000-a-month August rental in neighboring Water Mill.
Dubbed “America’s Most Expensive Small Town” by Bloomberg Businessweek for three years running, the village — part of the Town of Southampton — boasts median real-estate sales of $4.4 million.
And sources said the fancy digs are expected to go for far more than the $7.8 million Ringel and his wife Yael, 38, owe the bank.
It could fetch as much as $12 million despite lingering woes in the housing market elsewhere in the country.
Ringel, a Democratic Party moneyman who once made questionable contributions to ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner’s mayoral campaign, didn’t return a call for comment.
But his lawyer, Rob Calica, said the financial problem stems from a fight with the bank that Ringel hopes to sort out without losing the property.
“We expect this to be resolved,” he said.