This lovely house, with an interesting history, was listed during the summer by Ginger Thoerner and Debby Koster at Compass. Sold by well known interior designer Richard Keith Langham, the house closed last Friday. Brian Hagadorn of Douglas Elliman brought the buyer.
The house was originally built in 1885 on Deerfield Road, then was moved to Montauk Highway around 1901. Under threat of development, the house was moved again, roughly 200 yards, to her current location on Mill Pond Lane in 1974.
Known to preservationists as Magee House, after its first owner, John Magee, the house is an ornate Queen Anne-style house with a turret and a cross-gable roof with decorative gable ornamentation. Mr. Magee was noted in the Sag Harbor Corrector of September 21, 1901, as having sold 21 acres of Water Mill land to the LIRR Co. for $900. Presumably the sale included the house site, which is why it was moved. In 1901, the LIRR decided to build a new and better station for Water Mill, as it was an increasingly popular summer resort. The railroad decided on a spot on the Magee property, so they negotiated a deal with Mr. Magee. (We hope the canny old landowner drove a hard bargain!)
What strikes us most about the property now is the owner’s bold, confident use of unusual color. (We’re so excited to see a house decorated with actual colors instead of plain white!) The entrance features a porch kitted out in a pretty coral shade, which matches the house’s shutters.
The living room is painted in a deep purple accented with a pale green. For even more color, we love how the bird lithographs on the wall have mats in different shades.
In the sunroom and kitchen, more of the same tones continue: a pale coral in the kitchen and an aqua in the sunroom. A deep, saturated aqua recurs in the stunning pool house. Of course there’s a lovely pool in the 0.92 of acre property.
The house is 3260 square feet with four bedrooms and four baths and a view of Mill Pond. Asking price was $2.3 million, which we thought fair, and the property closed for $1.8 million. Congrats to the new owners!
For more, click here. 265 Mill Pond Lane, Water Mill
