It has been called the “quintessential Hamptons beach house.” With a picturesque dark shingled exterior, dazzling oceanfront location and postcard-worthy vistas, images of the residence indeed call to mind the most idyllic of East Coast coastal living. So it is no wonder the place found its way to the silver screen in several South Fork-set productions including director Michel Gondry’s beloved 2004 science fiction-slanted romance “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”
Located at 40 Association Rd. in the town of Wainscott’s exclusive – and exclusively private – Georgica Association, the charming three-story residence is known as “Kilkare,” a made-up term our very own Laura Euler described as “a Victorian whimsy, an Irish-sounding word meaning to ‘kill care”’ in a 2019 article for the Behind the Hedges website. (Please remember this is a private home. Do not disturb the residents or the property in any way.)
The estate was originally built in 1877 as a summer home for wealthy New York attorney Walter Edwards and his wife, Camilla, who, as George W. Pierson noted in “Memorandum on the History of the Georgica Association, 1880-1948,” “Called in a dock builder from Brooklyn, gave him a few dimensions and the injunction that the house must be extremely strong — then blithely set off for Europe.” As one does.
Situated on a rolling bluff overlooking the sand a mere 50 feet from the Atlantic, the pad boasts an incredible 332 feet of ocean frontage as well as an ample seven bedrooms and eight baths.
Additional measurement details are somewhat disparate with some sources listing the home’s square footage as 6,493 and others as 5,000. The acreage is also in dispute with several sites claiming the pad sits on a 3.42-acre plot and others noting it as a no-less-impressive 2.81-acre parcel. Whatever the case, there is no denying the home is spacious, as is the land surrounding it.
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Image Credit: Compass Listed for sale in August 2017 for an incredible $55 million, the pad finally sold at a much-reduced $24.3 million last January. Repped by Compass’ Petrie Team as well as Frank Newbold and Beate Moore of Sotheby’s International Realty, the transaction marked only the second time the residence has changed hands in its 140-plus year history! (The property’s former guest house, which has been completely redone and expanded and now boasts more square footage than Kilkare, was also recently up for grabs, hitting the market last February for $37 million, but it didn’t sell and was ultimately delisted in November.)
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Image Credit: Compass Walter passed away in 1895 and Camilla followed in 1936, but the Edwards family continued to hold onto the property until 1975 when they sold it to another wealthy New York lawyer named Michael Kennedy. At the time, the historic abode had fallen victim to some wear and tear, so Michael and his wife, Eleanora, set about restoring it, while making sure to keep all renovations true to the original architecture and aesthetic. The result of their efforts is a stately array of fine updated amenities peppered with such unique bygone features as a staircase with “widened treads to accommodate women wearing Victorian gowns,” as noted in the East Hampton Star.
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Image Credit: Compass Michael, who famously represented Ivana Trump in her contentious 1991 divorce from The Donald, was a mover and shaker in New York’s legal and social scene. Many of the couple’s celebrity friends including Candice Bergen, Billy Joel and Kurt Vonnegut were often known to stop by Kilkare, according to the Heading Out website. During happier times, the Trumps even frequently vacationed in a cottage – or “small saltbox” as described by the East Hampton Star – on the premises.
It was not until Michael passed away in 2016 that Eleanora decided to part with the property. It’s not hard to see why the couple held onto the place for the four decades prior. A setting that magical would be difficult to let go of!
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Image Credit: Compass With white-washed brick walls, ceilings featuring uniquely patterned wood piping and a whopping 85 windows, almost all of which provide dramatic views of the bucolic surrounding landscape, the residence looks like something out of a coastal design magazine or a Nancy Meyers movie!
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Image Credit: Compass Breezy living spaces include a formal dining room, a nautical-inspired office with built-ins and a kitchen with formidable wood cabinets, a fireplace, a pressed tin ceiling and a professional range and double oven.
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Image Credit: Compass There’s also a stunning breakfast nook that seems like the perfect embodiment of the bay-windowed spot overlooking the Southhampton beach where Carly Whitten (Cameron Diaz) imagined drinking her morning coffee every day in the 2014 comedy “The Other Woman.” As she said in the film, “This is where I would want to exist” and I can’t think of a better sentiment to describe the nook and Kilkare house in general.
Other arresting details include pine flooring, elaborate wood framing and a total of nine fireplaces, which all appear to be wood-burning.
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Image Credit: Compass The exterior of the home is encased by two massive wraparound porches overlooking the 60-foot heated pool, Zen meditation garden, wildflower meadow and surrounding beachfront.
While the property was on the market, fears were expressed that it may wind up a tear-down. Hopefully, that will not be the case. Losing it would be a blow not only to the Hamptons community but the movie industry as well.
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Image Credit: Focus Features -
Image Credit: Bespoke Real Estate In “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” Kilkare portrays the supposed Montauk-area “house in which we don’t live” that Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) break into.
Interestingly, the movie’s working script only describes the residence as “a darkened house” and, as originally written, it’s one of two that Joel and Clementine attempt to gain entry to. Location manager Gayle Vangrofsky certainly took that non-descriptor and fused life into it, gifting audiences with what turned out to be the most memorable site in the film, despite the fact that it is only shown briefly before being destroyed, a special effect accomplished via CGI.
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Image Credit: Focus Features -
Image Credit: Curbed Hamptons The real interior of the abode, including its unique wood-paneled butler’s pantry, appears in the film as well.
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Image Credit: Arista Kilkare also serves as the central location for Exposé’s 1987 “Seasons Change” music video.
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Image Credit: Arista -
Image Credit: Compass As the video shows, virtually none of the property’s interior has been altered over the past three decades! The home looks just as it did when filming took place, right down to the antler decoration posted above the fireplace!
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Image Credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Kilkare also masks as the Nantucket beach house where Mr. and Mrs. X (Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney, respectively) and their nanny, Annie Braddock (Scarlett Johansson), spend a disastrous summer vacation in the 2007 drama “The Nanny Diaries.” Though Mr. X describes the place as a “Goddamn shit shack,” what is shown onscreen is all evidence to the contrary!