They were living it up in a $37,500-a-month Trump Tower penthouse rental and spotted making out in front of a $22 million townhouse they talked about buying in August 2007.
Then Italian real estate scam artist Raffaello Follieri was busted for his Vati-cons and forced to trade his fancy pinstripes for prison stripes. And now his former girlfriend Anne Hathaway — whose journals were seized by the FBI during the Follieri investigation — is back to being an ordinary renter in an up-and-coming area.
We’ve learned she’s living in the Avalon Bowery rental complex, where one-bedrooms start around $4,000 per month and two-bedrooms around $5,500.
Hathaway has been spotted on a bench outside designer Loris Diran’s new Bowery boutique, adding glam to an area with regular Samantha Ronson sightings. The once gritty Bowery is now pretty shiny. John Varvatos is in the old CBGB space, Govind Armstrong’s Table 8 restaurant opened this week at the new Cooper Square Hotel, and Daniel Boulud is unveiling an eatery later this month.
Housewife gets real
“Real Housewife” (er, ex-wife) Kelly Killoren Bensimon has had a real problem unloading her beach house.
The four-bedroom East Hampton home — 2,800 square feet on a modest 1.2 acres — first went on the market two years ago for $14.5 million. It was most recently listed at $10.9 million, but there were still no takers. Now it’s been taken off the market.
“Her plans have changed,” says broker Roseanne Lebwith of Devlin McNiff.
But Killoren Bensimon would still very much like to rent the place for the summer. The home at 125 Further Lane includes 4½ baths, three fireplaces and an infinity pool. Killoren Bensimon wants $250,000 for the season, or renters can take August for $175,000 or July for $125,000. Guests who stayed there last summer say the house is in good shape for renters because it includes two guest suites on the main floor and is tastefully done, unlike her reality show, in a contemporary style.
Rose to the occasion
Isabel Rose, a TriBeCa mom and author with family money, has purchased Stone Meadow Farm in East Hampton for $12.5 million. The 18,000-square-foot, 10-bedroom home on 8 acres was listed for $20 million last year, but the price is still the highest ever paid for a residential property north of the highway in East Hampton.
The property was a work in progress for many years. Building began in 2000, with a second building spurt in 2004 as plans for the project matured. The main house now includes a 3,500-square-foot level with a spa and media room. There are also two cottages for guests or staff, stone courtyards, a pool, a tennis court and horse stables.
Rose, who’s also been a singer/songwriter and actress, is part of one of New York’s biggest real estate families. The family firm, Rose Associates, manages more than 30,000 apartments and owns trophy properties like the Chelsea Landmark building.
Listing agent Gary DePersia of the Corcoran Group had no comment about the deal.
Git ‘er done
The 15.4-acre Southampton estate of the late Howard Gittis is back on the market for $45 million, down from its $59 million asking price in December 2007.
The property can be divided into four separate lots. There is the seven-bedroom, 8½-bath main house, a Georgian mansion built in the 1920s and a carriage house that can be expanded. The buyer will also have the legal right to build two more homes, as well as pools and tennis courts.
Tim Davis of the Corcoran Group, who originally sold most of the property to Gittis for $8 million in 1993, now has the listing again. A few years after the $8 million deal, Gittis bought a second piece of property with a carriage house for around $1 million. That’s now part of the estate.
Gittis, the consigliere to billionaire pal Ronald Perelman, also had homes in Palm Beach and at 760 Park Ave. A balding, portly lawyer who died alone in his Manhattan bed two years ago at age 73, Gittis was a twice-divorced ladies’ man who allegedly had a penchant for short, busty bottle-blonde mistresses.