He got taxed out of town.
Legendary advertising guru Jerry Della Femina is the latest Hamptons fat cat to unload his East End spread at the precipice of the dreaded fiscal cliff, The Post has learned.
The flamboyant Madison Avenue guru has sold his 8,500-square-foot estate — the host of many legendary Hamptons bashes — for $25 million, and blames his flight squarely on President Obama’s fiscal policies.
“I want the proceeds of this sale to go to my kids and my grandkids,” said the man behind iconic ad campaigns for Meow Mix and Absolut Vodka. “I don’t want my money going to Obama, and that’s what’s going to happen in the New Year. That’s why I sold right now, that’s why I wanted to get this done.”
The listing broker for the East Hampton oceanfront property, Corcoran’s Susan Breitenbach, declined to comment on the megabucks deal.
Sources said that the buyers are a New York based family.
Della Femina’s buzzer-beating sale is just one of many big-ticket closings sweeping the Hamptons as affluent homeowners seek to move their blue-chip digs before taking a capital-gains beating in the coming year.
A fall off the fiscal cliff could trigger a 40 percent rise in taxes on short-term investments and a 5 percent spike in taxes on long-term capital gains.
Della Femina said that brokers are in the midst of a frenzied sell-off as the fiscal cliff approaches.
“I’m basically the loser in Obama’s class warfare,” he fumed. “That’s what this boils down to. If Romney was elected, we would have had our parties in East Hampton this year.”
Della Femina, who maintains ownership of the East End weekly newspaper The Independent, quickly turned his prized property into a Hamptons social epicenter after buying it in 1987.
From sparkling benefits to his famed July 4th fireworks-viewing party, the home was a fixture on the East End summer-party circuit.
“Of course, there is some sadness about selling,” Della Femina acknowledged. “This was the center of my family; there are so many good memories there.”
“The thing is, we had everyone at that house. From celebrities and stars to the local butcher. We had a loft of fun.”
Despite dropping the price from $40 million in 2010 to the final sale price, the adman said he managed to turn a tidy profit on the East Hampton gem.
He purchased the home 35 years ago for a mere $3 million, and estimated that he invested roughly $6 million in bringing it to its current glory. “I still did pretty well,” Della Femina chuckled.
With homes in Manhattan and Florida, Della Femina said that his East End days are far from over, and that he plans on maintaining his presence on the social circuit.
“I’m not done yet,” he said. “Maybe when the next president comes into office.”