Former ad exec asks staggering $175M for Hamptons estate

In February, billionaire Ken Griffin purchased Calvin Klein’s seven-acre Southampton home for $84 million — the year’s most expensive deal in the Hamptons.

Now, the mansion next door has been put on the market for an eye-popping $175 million.

The home at 700 Meadow Lane, which belongs to former advertising executive Marcia Riklis, sits on eight acres of land and features 500 feet of ocean frontage, according to a listing with Bespoke. It has 11 bedrooms, 12 full bathrooms and a heated pool, and at 15,500 square feet, appears to be larger than its neighbor.

Still, critics question whether the $175 million price tag is realistic.

“The price is so out of the stratosphere that it’s damaging to the owner and the marketplace,” said a broker in the Hamptons who asked to remain anonymous. “It sends a false pretense of what is possible.”

Riklis, a philanthropist, did not respond to a request for comment. But listing agent Cody Vichinsky, who co-founded Bespoke with his brother Zach in 2014, said the home has a raft of features that can’t be found elsewhere.

“Like all things in a market that doesn’t necessarily use quantifiable metrics, a sense of value is really what someone is willing to pay based on the scarcity,” he said.

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The Vichinsky brothers, who only list properties above $10 million, have marketed headline-grabbing prices before.

In 2018, they listed a 20,000-square-foot Jule Pond estate in Water Mill for $175 million. The property is still on the market, with the price dropped to $145 million.

That same year, the brothers brokered the sale of late shoe mogul Vince Camuto’s Water Mill estate, known as the Villa Maria, for $49 million — a sharp drop from the $72 million asking price, but still $49 million.

The former home of Calvin Klein (left) was purchased by Ken Griffin in February for $84M. Next to it is the mansion belonging to Marcia Riklis, now listed for $175M. (Source: Google Earth.)

If Riklis gets close to her asking price, the deal would be roughly double what Calvin Klein fetched for his home, the biggest sale of 2020.

“In the eyes of people who are buying real estate at this level, Ken Griffin got a good deal,” Cody Vichinsky said of that sale.

The second-priciest sale last year was a 3.4-acre estate at 15 West Dune Lane that went for $67 million, a TRD analysis found.

Across the wider Hamptons luxury market, the average sales price in the Hamptons in the third quarter last year was $7.7 million, up from $5.2 million in the same period the year prior, according to data from Douglas Elliman.

If Riklis’ home doesn’t sell, there could be other options. In 2015, she listed the home as a summer rental for $2.5 million, a record ask at the time.

Riklis’ father, the late Meshulam Riklis, was an Israeli-raised businessman who was best known for marrying Pia Zadora and managing her career, according to the New York Post.