WITH Martha Stewart’s prospects for future earnings diminishing almost daily, she’s more motivated than ever to unload much of her real estate portfolio.
Before the ImClone scandal broke, Stewart owned as many as 10 properties intended for her personal use.
Since then, she’s sold her Perry Street duplex for slightly more than the $6 million she paid for it. The price of her second East Hampton home has been lowered.
And now the focus is on her sprawling estate in the Bedford area that could be next on the chopping block.
The future domestic detainee bought the 137-acre farm in 2000 for $14.5 million and, almost immediately, raised the ire of the neighbors by turning the bucolic estate into a mammoth construction site.
Back when Martha was used to getting her way, she showed up with a large container of homemade cookies to a town meeting (“no doubt baked by a staff member,” opined one trustee) in an attempt to sway the village planning board’s opposition to her planned improvements.
The board voted in favor of Martha by a nail-biting (or is that chocolate-chip-biting?) 3-2 vote.
Now, our well-placed sources say construction has come to a halt. The construction manager on the estate recently left the half-finished site for good. And there’s no replacement in sight.
“Many of the outbuildings were close to completion, including a large stone barn,” says one of our local spies. “But the main house hasn’t even been touched.”
Area brokers say that it’s unlikely that Martha will even recoup the $25 million to $30 million she and MS Real Estate Management company – which is reportedly subsidized by Stewart’s parent company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia – have already invested.
“She could probably get something in the lower $20 million range,” says one broker familiar with the property, “but I don’t know who’d want it in its present state.
“Maybe Ralph Lauren [whose property abuts Martha’s] would take it. He was always sorry that he didn’t buy it in the first place.”
Stewart’s other properties includes her extensive “Turkey Hill” home base in Westport, Conn.; the former Edsel Ford estate in Seal Harbor, Maine; a Fifth Avenue pied-à-terre; and her East Hampton pads.
Uma makes a killing
UMA THURMAN, the soon-to-be ex-Mrs. Ethan Hawke, has just sold her Gramercy Park co-op apartment.
Sources say the unidentified buyer, who was looking at another apartment in the exclusive building on the private park, simply walked up to her apartment, knocked on the door and made an offer of just over $5 million.
The statuesque “Kill Bill” star, who’s now seriously dating hotelier Andre Balasz, agreed and now the apartment is going to contract.
Thurman and Hawke bought the four-bedroom, 3 1/2-bath duplex in 2000 for a reported $2 million – a pretty good deal back when the real estate market was more heated than it is today.
Another neighbor in the building, sticky-fingered fellow thespian Winona Ryder, got her place for even more of a steal a few years earlier.
Houdini’s return
THE legendary Hollywood estate of Harry Houdini has reappeared on the market for the mysteriously low price of $4.95 million.
The approximately five-acre property in Laurel Canyon, where the late magician reportedly lived in the late teens and early 1920s, is said to be a mere shell of the once-glamorous property. (Its original 40-room – circa 1911 – mansion and guesthouse burned down to the park-like grounds in the 1950s.)
Since then, the Los Angeles Times reports the place has had numerous owners, including an antiques dealer from Georgia who believed the number seven was lucky, and listed the place for $1,777,777.77 in 1998.
The current owner has approved plans for an 11,000-square-foot mansion. And he’s already restored a rock quarry and a stream on the grounds.
Also on the property are stone fountains, caves, a restored two-bedroom cottage and another building used as an office.
Iman’s new neighbor
THE mystery buyer of theater scion Eric Nederlander’s apartment on Lafayette Street has been identified as Ali Pratt.
According to sources, Ms. Pratt – a Democratic political fundraiser and a daughter-in-law of the fabulously wealthy Richard Pratt of Australia – has signed a contract to take the two-bedroom, 2 ½ bathroom condo.
The final price, we hear, is less than the asking price of $4.9 million.
Ms. Pratt’s new neighbors in the 21-unit building will include hotelier Ian Schrager. There’s also David Bowie and his wife, Iman – with whom the beautiful brunette will share balcony space.
Listing broker Dolly Lenz of Douglas Elliman could not be reached for comment.
Email: bkeil@nypost.com