This home in the heart of East Hampton — once owned by the late and legendary photographer Elliott Erwitt — is now on the market for $3.5 million.
Located at 17 N. Main St., the property aptly includes a 900-square-foot photographer’s-slash-artist’s studio. Erwitt bought the one-level, mid-century residence in 1981 and embarked on a major expansion in 1989 with East Hampton architect Robert McKinny Barnes.
Erwitt died late last year at age 95 — leaving a legacy of photos that, in part, tell the story of the second half of the 20th century. Erwitt’s work, for publications like Life, ranged from quirky to the political and profound, and can be found in museums around the world.
A onetime president of Magnum Photos — the iconic photographic collective launched by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David Seymour in 1947 — Erwitt was known for photos that ranged from dogs, photographed from their perspective, to stars like Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart.
That’s all in addition to images of revolutionaries like Che Guevara and politicians including then-Vice President Richard Nixon poking Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev in the chest. There was even Winston Churchill and Jackie Kennedy, veiled, holding a folded American flag at the burial of her assassinated late husband, President John F. Kennedy.
The 3,500-square-foot home comes with four bedrooms, four baths, two fireplaces and floor-to-ceiling windows — all on close to half an acre. Inside, there’s a great room with cathedral ceilings for dining and entertaining, along with a formal living room with French doors that open to a south-facing bluestone patio and a pool. The kitchen and dining room both overlook the pool, which is by the artist’s studio.
Many of Erwitt’s famed photos are still in the house and studio like “California Kiss,” which was taken in Santa Monica in 1955 and now hangs over the bar. There’s also an East Hampton photo, from 1998, called “Sammy at the Beach.”
The home is right in town — but hidden. To keep it that way, and with his signature sense of humor, Erwitt once installed two uncommon figures on the property.
“[There] are two Japanese police mannequins to frighten drivers so they would slow down, thinking they were real people. Elliott always had quirky things like this in and around his house,” said his son-in-law Rick Smolan, likewise a noted photographer who is married to Elliott’s daughter, Jennifer Erwitt.
Jennifer tells Gimme Shelter that the family started going to the East End in 1962 — in Amagansett, before East Hampton. Selling the home, she said, will be “bittersweet.” But, she added, “There are six siblings, and nobody can really take it over. We will all miss it. We grew up there.”
The home, Jennifer said, was a center for a lot of celebrations, especially for her father’s birthday, every July 26. “He never went out. There were always really interesting people around. It was a nice place to hang out and to have a glass of wine or Campari, and not go out to the restaurants and fancy places. That was not his vibe at all.”
The listing broker is Jennifer Wilson of Saunders & Associates.
