Among Southampton’s most fabled estates, Four Fountains—formerly home to CBS founder William Paley—is on the market for the first time in 25 years. Occupying more than 9,000 square feet, the 10-bedroom residence on Halsey Neck Lane has two guest wings and comes with a caretaker’s cottage, a greenhouse, a pool house, and a private pond, all on 6.7 acres.The property dates from 1929, when arts patrons Lucien and Ethel Tyng commissioned Peabody, Wilson & Brown to design a theater and arts space across the street from their summer cottage. In 1942, a widowed Mr. Tyng sold the property to the firm’s Archibald Brown and his wife, decorator Eleanor McMillen Brown, who converted the structure into a residence for themselves, keeping intact the theater’s soaring ceilings and its 40-by-40-foot footprint (now the grand living room). Paley moved in just four months after his wife, Babe, passed away in 1978, and hired Sister Parish to furnish it.The current owners, former Morgan Stanley managing director Bruce Bockmann and his wife, Maria, picked up the estate from Paley’s heirs in 1992 (Paley died in 1990) for approximately $4.5 million and are now looking to turn a nice profit, asking $35 million. “This home is for someone with an understanding of architecture who can appreciate the history of the structure,” says listing agent Tim Davis of the Corcoran Group. “It’s an extraordinary property.”
