Villa Maria Reportedly Sold

If you know anyone with $72 million to spare, he or she could be the new owner of the Villa Maria estate on the water in Water Mill. Women’s Wear Daily is reporting that a “mystery buyer” plucked the property from the estate of Nine West co-founder Vince Camuto, who passed away in 2015.

Villa Maria, at the western edge of “downtown” Water Mill, was built in 1887 as a private residence, and expanded and renovated in 1919. Its original owners, family members and partners of Lombard, Ayres & Company, were the ones who purchased the Corwith Windmill for $750 and brought it from North Haven to their 1-acre front lawn, which is now the village green. Subsequent owners of the estate were the urologist Dr. Edward Keyes and the industrialist Edward Morse, who poured some of his World War I profits into the renovation and rechristened it Grey Gables (not to be confused with Grey Gardens in East Hampton). Morse may have exhausted his profits in the effort because in 1929 the property was auctioned off to the New York businessman Courtland Palmer, who gave it to the stage actress Ann Murdagh. Two years later, she sold it for $250,000 to the Sisters of the Order of St. Dominic. It was Villa Maria High School until 1953, when it became a retirement home for Catholic nuns. In 1992, it became the Siena Spirituality Center.

While it is unlikely this added to or detracted from the appeal of the waterfront property, we’re going to share with you that General Ruxton is buried on the Villa Maria grounds. He was actually a four-legged warrior—the favorite horse of Theodore Roosevelt lived out the rest of his life in Water Mill after the former president’s death in 1919.

Mr. Camuto and his wife, Louise, bought the 15-acre estate in 2005 for $35 million and embarked on a five-year renovation project. In 2008, they put it back on the market with a headline-grabbing $100 million asking price. The price was reduced to $85 million by the time Mr. Camuto died in January 2015. It was most recently listed with Bespoke for $72 million.

The new owner now possesses a four-story, 20,000-square-foot residence with 11 bedrooms and 12.5 bathrooms, and there is 1,100 feet of frontage on Mecox Bay. The grounds feature a guest cottage, tennis court, heated in-ground pool, and two pool pavilions … and, as mentioned, the bones of General Ruxton.

The final sales price of the Villa Maria compound has not been disclosed, but recently recorded real estate transfers show that Villa Maria LLC sold 57 Halsey Lane—an undeveloped parcel that is less than half of the compound’s acreage—to 57 Halsey Lane Associates LLC for $10 million.