The Hunt
A ‘New Lease on Life’ Leads to a New House in the Hamptons
Following a cancer scare, a doctor aimed to expand her Manhattan practice into Long Island. First, she needed a home base. Here’s what her $4 million budget got her.
Randa Jaafar was running on a treadmill in her Manhattan apartment one day last April when she collapsed.
Up to that point, Dr. Jaafar, 42, a Cornell-trained anesthesiologist, had felt fit and healthy. She was splitting time between her two homes, in East Hampton, N.Y., and Manhattan, where she had a private practice in pain management. But within hours, she was being prepped for surgery. There was a mass on her heart, her doctors told her, and it was malignant.
“I always knew life was short, but I realized it’s even shorter than I thought,” Dr. Jaafar said. “It started to make me really think about what really matters in my life, and what doesn’t.”
Among the things that started to matter less was her pain-management practice in Midtown Manhattan (she has a second in Lower Manhattan). Another was her house in East Hampton, which was often in need of repairs. She decided to sell it and got $2.8 million. Just after she did, a doctor’s second opinion came in: The mass that had been removed from her chest was benign. She was cancer free.
“I had a new lease on life,” Dr. Jaafar said.
[Did you recently buy a home? We want to hear from you. Email: thehunt@nytimes.com]
She closed her Midtown office and opened a medical spa, FILD Studio, in SoHo, specializing in Botox and skin care. And she began to dream about a second location in the Hamptons, where she hadn’t seen as many medical spas popping up, despite all the potential clients.
“The Hamptons isn’t saturated like the city,” she said. “And I think it elevates the brand to be out east.”
But first, she needed a new Long Island home as a base. She began her search late last year, hoping to spend less than $4 million. Dr. Jaafar loves to entertain friends and her extended family from Michigan, so she wanted a place with at least four bedrooms.
She enlisted the help of Peter Cook and Alba Jancou, real estate agents with Saunders & Associates. “Randa has a lot of friends, and her close friends don’t have homes out here,” Ms. Jancou said. “Her family is in Michigan, and she is very close with her niece and nephews. She wanted room to host everybody.”
Dr. Jaafar hoped to find a house that had a pool and didn’t need repairs. And while she wasn’t ready to give up her Manhattan apartment yet, she wanted “a year-round house,” she said. So she targeted Hamptons neighborhoods that buzzed with life in all seasons, not just summer.
Her agents flagged several houses priced over her budget of $4 million, but she knew she could rent out whatever she bought for extra income when she stayed in the city.
Among the homes she considered:
No. 1
New Build With Private Beach
From the street, this five-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom home on 0.26 acres in Sag Harbor was unassuming. But inside, the high ceilings, white-marble finishes and millwork were striking. Dr. Jaafar knew the glass-walled pool house, basement sauna and access to a private beach would impress guests. At $4.85 million (taxes were undetermined because the house was brand new, but were likely to be about $25,000), it was well out of her budget, and the uninspiring exterior made her wonder if it was worth spending that much.
No. 2
House on a Cul-de-Sac
This five-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bathroom 2010 house was on 1.06 acres on a cul-de-sac in Bridgehampton. It was grand, with a terrace outside the main bedroom, a sunroom, a gunite pool and a formal dining room with paneled walls. Dr. Jaafar loved that it was stately yet turnkey, and she knew her relatives would enjoy the grounds when they visited, but the property felt like a lot to manage. It was priced at $3.995 million, with about $11,000 in annual taxes.
No. 3
Two Acres With Saltwater Pool
This six-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bathroom home on 1.9 acres in Sag Harbor offered ample space for entertaining. Built in 2016, the sprawling house had an open floor plan and a wall of windows looking out at the huge backyard, which had a saltwater pool, an outdoor kitchen and a cedar pavilion with fans and recessed lights. The $4.5 million price tag, with about $19,000 in annual taxes, was more than she wanted to spend, and she wasn’t convinced she needed quite so much space.
Find out what happened next by answering these two questions:
Which Would You Choose?
New Build With Private Beach
House on a Cul-de-Sac
Two Acres With Saltwater Pool
Which Did She Buy?
New Build With Private Beach
House on a Cul-de-Sac
Two Acres With Saltwater Pool