David Walentas, the real-estate developer credited with building much of Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood, has sold a Hamptons mansion for $32.2 million following an extensive renovation. The deal closed last week, Mr. Walentas said. The Southampton home was listed for $35 million in April 2021. [Source: Mansion Global]
The buyers are Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and CEO of messaging company Slack, and Jen Rubio, co-founder and CEO of Away, a luggage manufacturer and retailer, he said. Mr. Butterfield declined to comment and Ms. Rubio couldn’t immediately be reached. The couple also purchased an Aspen mansion in 2021 for $25 million.
Set on about 3 acres, the roughly 17,000-square-foot house dates back to the early 1900s, records show. It was designed by Grosvenor Atterbury, who was the architect of homes for John D. Rockefeller Jr., and of the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, according to marketing materials.
The developer and his late wife, Jane Walentas, paid $11.6 million for the gabled brick residence on Coopers Neck Lane in 2019, records show. “It had really gone to seed. It was in terrible shape,” said Mr. Walentas. “They were lucky I didn’t demolish it.”
Mr. Walentas said he spent about two years, and roughly $10 million, to renovate the interior of the 11-bedroom home, dropping the floor more than a foot to make higher ceilings. “It’s really a new house inside the old brick shell,” he said. He also built a four-car garage, solarium and pool house.
Mr. Walentas, who owns several other Hamptons properties, said he always intended to sell the Southampton home when it was complete. Most recently, Bespoke Real Estate was marketing the property, along with Christopher Burnside of Brown Harris Stevens. Harald Grant of Sotheby’s International Realty represented the buyer.
Mr. Walentas founded Brooklyn-based Two Trees Management in the 1960s and has developed $4 billion worth of residential, commercial and industrial real estate, according to the company’s website. He led the way in converting Dumbo from an industrial area to the retail and residential destination it is today.
Mr. Walentas said the proceeds from the sale of the house will go to the University of Virginia, his alma mater, as part of his pledge to donate $100 million to the university. In the first quarter, the number of luxury sales in the Hamptons dropped 23.1% year-over-year thanks to limited inventory, according to real-estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel. The median sale price was $7.7 million, up 32.4% year-over-year but down 4.2% from the prior quarter. [Source: Mansion Global]
