There are unique houses, and then there is the house known as “Kilkare” — a nearly 140-year-old, shingle-style landmark that sits just 50 feet from the Atlantic Ocean in the private, exclusive Georgia Association area of Wainscott. The place is a legend in the Hamptons for its long history, its having been featured in the films Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Nanny Diaries, and its incredibly prominent placement on the beach. It is also for sale, having gotten a $10 million price cut to the current asking figure of $45 million. A home like no other in the Hamptons will not come cheap.
As East Hampton historian Gina Piastuck explains in her history of the place, Kilkare was commissioned in 1880 by the New York lawyer Walter Edwards and his wife, Camilla. The couple wanted a summer house that was 40 feet square, but had few other specs in mind. “So the family called in a dock builder from Brooklyn, gave him a few dimensions and the injunction that the house must be extremely strong — then blithely set off for Europe,” writes George W. Pierson in “Memorandum on the History of the Georgica Association, 1880-1948.” Walter Edwards died in 1895, but Camilla came every summer until she passed in 1936, Piastuck reports. She left the home to her children, who kept it until 1975. That’s when things got really interesting.
The home’s second owners were Eleanora and Michael J. Kennedy, the latter an attorney famous for representing mob figures like John Gotti and ’60s radicals like Huey Newton and Timothy Leary. The Kennedy family threw massive, themed summer parties, where guests included author Kurt Vonnegut, musician Billy Joel, and actress Candace Bergen, among others. Donald Trump and his first wife, Ivana, summered in a little cottage on the Kilkare property for seven years before Kennedy represented Ivana in the couple’s divorce, according to The New York Times. (The cottage where the Trumps stayed has since been demolished.) Michael J. Kennedy passed away, however, in 2016, and his widow is now offering the home for sale.
Kilkare’s next owner will be only the third in its long history, and will getting perhaps the quintessential Hamptons beach house. The place has three levels, seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms, and a swimming pool; it sits on 3.42 acres. It’s far closer to the Atlantic than any new house could likely be built. There are two porches and 85 windows to take advantage of those sea breezes, and a wall to protect the home from the ocean. (When a hurricane hit the area in 1938, Kilkare sustained minimal damage, in contrast with other surrounding structures.) The home’s interiors feature open views to the water and heavy wood beams. The atmosphere is beautiful — but probably not a good fit if you’re a fan of modern minimalism. “It’s more Gothic cathedral than 1877 beach house,” Sotheby’s broker Frank Newbold told the Times — just one more way in which Kilkare is truly in a league of its own.
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