A Sag Harbor property located a little north of “East of Eden” has popped up for sale with a pricetag worth a few billion pearls. To be more precise, the coastal cottage — once owned by American literary legend John Steinbeck — is asking nearly $18 million asking price, as was first reported by the New York Times.
Steinbeck, the Nobel Prize winning author of classics such as “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Of Mice and Men,” owned the property along with his third wife Broadway stage manager Elaine Anderson Steinbeck from 1955 until his death in ’68. The writer was frequently seen gallivanting around the Sag Harbor area in his black rubber boots and would sometimes grab a bite to eat at the Cove Delicatessen on Main Street before sailing away on his 22-foot cabin boat, the “Fayre Eleyne.”
Though the couple split their time between their Hamptons property and their Upper East Side apartment, it’s clear the author had a soft spot for his vacation getaway. Steinbeck would famously write about his Sag Harbor retreat in his 1962 travelogue “Travels with Charley: In Search of America” and penned his final work, “The Winter of Our Discontent,” there. When Steinbeck passed away 53 years ago, the property was left to his widow. It’s currently being sold through a trust created by Elaine before her 2003 death.
Located on a tiny peninsula about a mile from the center of town, the former Steinbeck residence has been on and off the rental market for a few years but is just now making it housing market debut. Set on 1.8-acres of prime waterfront Long Island land, the estate features a two-bedroom, two-bathroom main house.