HAMPTON RENTAL ‘REEKED’
$13M suit vs. designer
A Manhattan woman shelled out big bucks to rent fashion designer Elie Tahari’s beachfront Hamptons paradise — and allegedly got a stinky, moldy, broken-down mess instead.
The three-bedroom, three-bath Sagaponack estate, which comes with its own private staircase to the ocean and a great room with 10-foottall glass doors that roll up to allow the sea breeze in, rents for $750,000 from July through Labor Day.
Tahari, whose clients include Angelina Jolie, Blake Lively and Beyoncé, had put the house up for sale for $45 million, before cutting the price to a measly $39 million in 2019, according to reports.
Bridget Maguire agreed to take the 4,500-square-foot home without having visited first, relying only on glossy images of the space, which show a gleaming kitchen, expansive master bath, pristine pool and basketball court, said her lawyer, Adam Leitman Bailey.
But she arrived to find a Hamptons hell that was “infested with flies, mosquitoes and various vermin” and “reeked” of mold, urine and feces, with a pool “green with algae,” according to a $13 million Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit Maguire filed against Tahari’s ET Crestview Leasing LLC.
On top of the stench and bugs, the air conditioning was “completely nonfunctional,” none of the bathrooms worked, the garage door was broken and some doors in the house wouldn’t open, Maguire claims in court papers.
Even though Maguire forked over $415,000 of the costs upfront, Tahari allegedly refused to help make the disgusting conditions right, according to Bailey.
“They wouldn’t fix it. They wouldn’t come help . . . They gave her nothing,” he said. “The way the Hamptons properties usually are, they’re turnkey, you come in and everything is great.”
She was forced to hire her own contractors and spend $150,000 to make the place livable, said the attorney, who added that Tahari’s leasing company broke tenant laws by demanding so much money upfront.
“She paid a lot of money for contractors to come fix everything, turn everything on, get everything working,” Bailey said.
Of the $13 million Maguire is seeking, $10 million would be considered “punitive,” according to legal papers.
Tahari, who claims to have popularized the tube top, immigrated to America from Israel in the 1970s, landing in New York City with $100 in his pocket before working his way up to become a fashion-industry mainstay. He and his reps did not return messages seeking comment.