Ralph Lauren closes on oceanfront Montauk home at $4M below ask

Roughly four months after Ralph Lauren went to contract on an oceanfront Montauk estate once owned by late playwright Edward Albee III, the famous fashion designer has closed on the deal, 27east reported. The 2.8-acre parcel at 320 Old Montauk Highway, which hit the market last summer seeking $20 million, ultimately sold for $16 million, according to the outlet. Proceeds from the sale will go to the New York-based Edward Albee Foundation, which supports writers and artists. Albee’s former property includes a 2,100-square-foot main house, a guesthouse and a pool house, along with a swimming pool and tennis court. The Real Deal noted in December that Lauren owns property on either side of the former Albee estate. The former playwright, a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winner who died in Montauk at 88 in September 2016, bought the property in the 1960s after writing “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” The listing, which was held by Paul Brennan of Douglas Elliman, noted that Albee wrote several of his plays from a second-floor study overlooking the beach. [27east]