Reclusive billionaire who owns $425M Hamptons estate may have to face trial in lead-poisoning case [View all]

By Josh Kosman
Published Dec. 9, 2024, 6:00 a.m. ET

eclusive billionaire Ira Rennert, owner of the largest estate in the Hamptons, could soon face the spotlight over alleged lead poisoning at a Peruvian mine – a lawsuit he has tried to get tossed for nearly two decades.

The 90-year-old founder of industrial conglomerate Renco is best known in New York circles for the massive, oceanfront property on the East End he purchased in the 1990s.

The compound at 281 Daniels Lane in Sagaponack – dubbed the “House that Ate the Hamptons” in the title of a book by legendary Page Six founder James Brady – has grown to include a 110,000-square-foot main house with 29 bedrooms and 39 bathrooms, as well as a 100-car garage.



Ira Rennert smiling wearing a winter jacket.

Ira Rennert is likely headed to trial in the first half of 2025.
Steven Hirsch

In 2010, the New York-born industrialist allegedly ran afoul of Southampton zoning officials after trying to add a 40th bathroom outdoors, according to Curbed Hamptons.

Rennert’s estate — most recently assessed at $425 million — features three swimming pools, two tennis courts, a 164-seat theater, a basketball court, a bowling alley and even a synagogue on its 63 acres, which abuts the Atlantic Ocean.

More:
https://nypost.com/2024/12/09/business/ira-rennert-who-owns-425m-hamptons-estate-ordered-to-stand-trial-in-lead-poisoning-case/

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Old article, focusing on dirtbag Rennert's "house":

July 9, 2012
The House That Ate the Hamptons



Ira Rennert's Fair FieldWikimedia Commons

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This weekend, Mitt Romney made a very profitable swing through the Hamptons. On the agenda: A trio of fundraisers, including a $50,000-a-head party at David Koch’s $18 million estate and a shindig at financier Ronald Perelman’s 57-acre estate, home to “the most outstanding private conifer collection in the United States.” But those spreads have nothing on billionaire Ira Rennert’s estate in Sagaponack (which, sadly for Romney, did not host a fundraiser).

Thought to be America’s largest inhabited residence, Fair Field cost $100 million to build and is worth at least $200 million. The 110,000-square-foot complex has 29 bedrooms, 39 bathrooms, three pools, two libraries, a bowling alley, a playground, a full theater, its own power plant, and a garage for 100 cars. The main building is 66,000 square feet, 28 times bigger than the average new house. It’s the third-largest private home in America. (No. 1 is the 174,000- square-foot Biltmore Estate.) The mansion even inspired a novel, The House That Ate the Hamptons. Kurt Vonnegut called it “the greatest book ever written.” In a rare public appearance, Rennert described his mega-mansion as “old age and loneliness insurance.”

A local architect who approved the project praised its “restrained classic design.” Or, as one local put it to MoJo‘s Josh Harkinson, “It’s a fucking monster!” Fair Field is now at the heart of a new controversy between Rennert and his slightly less affluent neighbors, who have accused him of “practicing class warfare” with his noisy private helicopters. Seriously. Check it out.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/house-ate-hamptons-ira-rennert/