Benchmark Pawns Off East Hampton Prada Spot for $10M

Retail sales in the Hamptons are few and far between, but when they do happen, they tend to be a doozy.

Benchmark Real Estate Group recently closed the sale of 2 Newtown Lane in East Hampton to an undisclosed buyer for $10.25 million, Behind the Hedges reported. The sale breaks down to $2,563 per square foot.

The two-story, 4,000-square-foot building has been the home to a Prada store for a couple of years. Benchmark leased the property to Prada shortly after purchasing the property in January 2022 for $6.1 million.

Tahari Realty’s Jordan Sutton and Mark Golberg arranged the deal; Sutton said the property on the well-trafficked corner “generated interest relatively quickly.”

The property was built nearly a century ago, but renovated in 2012. There are roughly 2,000 square feet on each floor of the building.

The building is across the street from 1 Main Street, which is home to the most prominent Hamptons retail sale in recent memory.

LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault in 2023 paid $22 million for the property. The Taharis — who relaunched their brokerage arm, timing it to the Newtown Lane sale — were the sellers of 1 Main Street. Jordan Sutton, then with Cushman & Wakefield, also assisted in that deal.

It’s unclear if the change in ownership at 2 Newtown Lane will affect Prada’s future in East Hampton, but the luxury retailer has been making real estate moves all its own recently. The company last year bought a retail condo in Midtown Manhattan at 730 Fifth Avenue, the Crown Building, for $12.6 million from Brookfield Properties.

That came four months after Prada inked deals to buy its flagship store at 724 Fifth Avenue and neighboring 720 Fifth Avenue for a total of $835 million from Jeff Sutton’s Wharton Properties, though the retail condo may have been part of those original transactions.

— Holden Walter-Warner