Madonna and A-Rod Look for Hamptons Home

By Dan Rattiner

Posted 01/22/09

The New York Post broke a story recently that put a smile on my face. The Hamptons has been saved from economic disaster. Madonna and Alex Rodriguez are coming to the East End.

According to the Post, this shiny new couple, eager to put their past lives behind them, have decided to come to the best place on the planet to put down roots and start over. They are looking for an apartment on the Upper East Side, and to complement it, a home in the Hamptons.

Rodriguez, of course, the consummate Yankee, already has a place in Manhattan. It is in the Trump Park Avenue and it's about 4,600 square feet. It's up for sale for $10 million.

Madonna, who has just gone through her own divorce, has for many years lived in a mansion in England. Although she has a place in Manhattan on Central Park West, she has places in many parts of the world that might best be called pads. They are places to stay. Not homes.

Madonna is not putting her West Side pad on the market. But she and A-Rod are looking for something in the $30 to $60 million range, between 60th and 80th Street and Fifth and Park. If you know of something, I guess, you ought to let them know.

As for the Hamptons, both Madonna and A-Rod have been out here looking. But where they might wind up nobody knows.

How this saves the Hamptons from economic disaster is kind of complex. It's a whole lot more than just appearances. But it is about appearances.

Since the recession hit, everyone I've talked to has been fearful that the rich will simply pull out of the Hamptons because with money tight, the Hamptons will be seen as one luxury they can do without.

Indeed, this winter, real estate sales are down, retail is down, the restaurant business is down. These are normal things that happen in an economic slowdown - and things will go along this way for a while and then begin again to turn up.

A depression, on the other hand, is something that lasts for many, many years. And in the last one we had in the 1930s, the rich did pull up stakes, the summer homes got abandoned and most everyone lost everything. The Hamptons fell back on what it does best in hard times - fish and farm. There wasn't a whole lot else. And charming as that might sound today, there was nothing charming about it then. It was just what people did to put food on the table through a very hard time.

All through October and November, I felt there might be a repeat of that, and the country might pull down the Hamptons with it. Indeed, I felt that the worst might have already happened, and that, like a trap door, it was only a matter of time before we all fell through it.

At the time, the Presidential campaign was on and the things being done on Wall Street and in Washington were phrased in such a way as to suggest exactly that.

There was talk of a "stimulus," which brought to my mind a shot of some sort that doctors might stick into a comatose patient to try to revive him.

There was talk of a "bailout." Bailouts are what you have to do when something has gone completely bust, the water is gushing in and you're sinking fast.

One economist spoke to me about a plan, which he described as similar to the paddles they have at a hospital when they wheel in a dead person on a gurney, stick the paddles on the person's chest, shout "CLEAR," and then wham the body back to life.

What went through my mind was, well, it's back to farming and fishing.

But then, a few weeks ago, something happened that made me change my thinking. I began to see this downturn as just that, something we will get through with some damage, but nothing permanent.

When I noticed this change in my thinking, I wondered what caused it. The facts on the table hadn't changed. Citicorp had gone to the brink. As I speak, the Big Three are still at the brink. So what was it?

Well, Obama was coming in and holding press conferences in anticipation of his inauguration and his rhetoric was different.

We were no longer dead on arrival. New proposals were coming onstream to "shepherd the recovery." Now, President Obama has put on the table a new financial program that's being created as part of his "new economic recovery plan."

It put me in mind of something he said almost two years ago. Referring to the Iraq War, he said he thought our President had driven the bus off the road. "We have to get it back on the road, but first we have to get it out of the mud."

So now the patient is not dying and ready for long shot hail marys. It's just off the road and we've got to get teams of people behind it to push it up and out.

Granted that this is just another way of looking at things, and it's all about perception rather than reality. But you know, if you just go out and buy something, it'll help in some way. Thanks Obama.

What's this got to do with the Hamptons, Madonna and A-Rod? Well, it's a very public reminder of just what exactly the Hamptons is. We are the yang to Manhattan's ying. We are countryside, beaches, old colonial villages and farms and fishing boats. And it's right here, just a short ride or Jitney away from New York City - the greatest show on earth.

There are few big cities in the world that have a place of such beauty and sophistication as the Hamptons (and the North Fork) just a short distance away. And from that perspective, the Hamptons is the trophy of living in New York City.

So, no, the rich and famous, who are herd animals, are not going to just slowly drift away. If anything, there are going to be more of them - one begats another begats another - and here was proof of that, as now two of the most talented people in their respective fields of work are hankering to be among us.

Madge and A-Rod are the light at the end of our tunnel. We're rounding the turn. The bus is out of the mud. Hop in and get ready to roll again, because down the way there's a whole lot more people waiting to board the bus.