OWNERS: Rick and Kathy Hilton
LOCATION: Southampton, NY
PRICE: $450,000 (MD-LD)
SIZE: 10,000 square feet, 10 bedrooms, 10.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Summer's a comin, children, and if you haven't already it's time to line up your Memorial Day to Labor Day rental in the Hamptons. Those with deep pockets might consider letting a cedar shingled mansion on a multi-acre estate in the Water Mill area of Southampton (NY) that's listed for the summer season at a bulgy rate of $425,000* and owned by Rick and Kathy Hilton.**
Mister Hilton, along with being an heir to the international Hilton Hotels & Resorts fortune, co-owns the powerhouse Platinum Triangle real estate brokerage Hilton & Hyland in Beverly Hills. He's also an occasional high-end property developer who is (partly) responsible for the relatively discreet (and somewhat discrete), guard-gated Brentwood County Estates enclave in Brentwood where professional pigskin passer Tom Brady and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen custom built an—ahem—eco-minded mansion that they publicly listed earlier this year for $50 million and Your Mama hears are rumored and reported all set to sell for around $40 million to hip-hop mega-mogul Dr. Dre.
Missus Hilton, among other semi-professional endeavors, owned a tchotchke shop on the Sunset Strip before she hawked home accessories on QVC and, later, high-end skin care products on HSN. In the mid-Aughts she hosted a blessedly short-lived reality program (I Want To Be a Hilton) and she currently designs—or "designs" depending on your point of view—a line of mid-priced party gowns and cocktail frocks sold at hundreds of higher end department stores and boutiques around the world.
Property records show Mister and Missus Hilton acquired the 2.7 acre, fully-landscaped estate in the guard-gated Fordune enclave in 1999 for $2,385,000. The property was once part of a vast, 235 acre estate called—you got it—Fordune that once belonged to automotive scion Henry Ford II. After it was acquired in the mid-1970s by an Italian businessman for just $1.8 million the property was subdivided into about 40 estate-sized parcels with deeded ocean access.
This is not the first time Your Mama has (dissed and) discussed the Hilton family's gambrel roofed mansion in the Hamptons. In 2007 we piggybacked on an a fairly unflattering article in Vanity Fair that revealed they'd leased the property during the 2006 summer season for around $350,000 to some otherwise unidentified rich people who found the place to be a bit shabby. Indeed, one unnamed source cattily told Vanity Fair the house was "moldy and filthy." (And some of y'all think Your Mama can be nasty?) In 2009 the Hilton's Hamptons estate came back up for lease at $400,000 for the summer season and while we have no idea if the house was moldy and or filthy, listing photos showed the large home had sad and rather frumpy, chintz-centric day-core.
Current listing details, however, show the approximately 10,000 square foot residence*** has had an extensive make-over and decorative redo. While the new day-core isn't going to win any style awards or get the place photographed for one of the better shelter publications, it certainly doesn't look dowdy and stale like it did in the 2009 listing photographs.
There are, as per current listing details, a total of 10 bedroom, 10.5 bathrooms and three fireplaces including a two en suite guest/family bedrooms and a den/office on the upper floor along. There are two master suites, according to our research, one on the main floor and another on the upper floor that's complete with fireplace, partially vaulted ceiling with exposed rafters, and direct access to a private terrace. Like the kitchen the bedroom-sized master bathroom was done up in all-white and has a glass-enclosed shower stall and a separate, free-standing soaking tub. Previous rental listings for the property show there's a two bedroom and two bathroom guest wing accessible by separate staircase as well as a couple of bedrooms and at least one bathroom in the (finished) basement area that are probably best suited to live-in domestic staff and/or less-favored house guests and children.
Listing photographs show nearly white hardwood floors run throughout most (if not all) of the main floor living spaces that include a grand, center hall entrance with curved staircase and a roomy "formal" living room with fireplace. There's also a smaller study, a library with built-in book shelves, and a formal dining room large enough to host a pair of 8-seat tables. The center island eat in kitchen appears to have been fairly recently re-did in an all-white palette and is now fitted and kitted with simple white cabinetry, top-grade stainless steel appliances, snow white counter tops of unknown but presumably high quality material, and a chevron pattern marble tile back splash.
The gated, high-hedged and full-landscaped grounds include a semi-circular drive that arches up to a porte-cochère at the front of the house and bends around to a sizable motor court at the side of the house where there's garaging for three cars and a hedge-ringed half-court basketball court. At the opposite end of the house a massive covered porch has 270-degree views of the estate's gardens and along the rear of the residence red brick terraces give way to a football field sized back yard with lagoon style swimming pool. The children will note that the slightly elevated spa was placed on a small island in the pool and, unless one jumps the moat, is accessible via a storybook (and kind of campy) arched wooden bridge.
Just FYI: Your Mama's research shows the Hiltons' house in the Hamptons is hardly the most expensive summer rental available in the Southampton or even within the Fordune enclave. There are a handful of Southampton estates listed at upwards of $900,000 for the summer season and, just down the street from the Hiltons, a slightly smaller but similarly outfitted faux-quoined Euro-style villa is listed at $650,000 for the full Memorial Day to Labor Day summer season.
For a lot of years, the Los Angeles-based Hiltons kept a sizable (rental) suite at the vaunted Waldorf Astoria Towers on Park Avenue in New York City where at least some of their four children spent some of their formative years. We don't know when they gave up their place at The Waldorf but we do know that late last year (2013) Mister and Missus Hilton shelled out $2,522,000 for a high floor one bedroom and two bathroom pied-à-terre at The Pierre, an equally vaunted and preposterously expensive five star hotel and residence tower that lords over the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 61st Street.
Back on the West Coast, the empty nesting parents of four own a one-ish acre-estate with a nearly 15,000+ square foot mansion in the heart of the super-prime lower East Gate area of Bel Air. Property records show the Hilton's Bel Air spread was acquired in July 2004 for $9,220,000 and that they purchased the property from Mary Carol Rudin, the widow of Milton "Mickey" Rudin, a powerful Hollywood attorney who in his professional salad days represented a slew of A-listers including Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe.
*Online listings show the Hilton's Fordune estate can also be monthly—$100,000 for June, $150,000 for July and $175,000 for August—and is also available for a full year at $475,000.
**Rick and Kathy Hilton are, of course, the proud parents of tabloid staples Paris, Nicki and Barron as well as college-aged Conrad. Missus Hilton's younger sisters, former child actors Kim and Kyle Richards, have achieved honest-to-goodness reality television notoriety on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
***While digital marketing materials state that house is about 10,000 square feet, the Suffolk County Tax Man puts it at 6,994 square feet. (We suspect the 7,000 square foot figure does not take into account the finished basement space but we really can't say for sure.)
listing photos: Hilton & Hyland