The House From ‘Grey Gardens’ Is for Sale

The derelict Long Island mansion featured in the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens has received a much-needed facelift—and you can buy it for $20 million, TheWrap reports.

For the uninitiated, Grey Gardens features Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale, a.k.a. “Big Edie,” and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale, called “Little Edie.” The two women were related to American royalty: Big Edie was the aunt of U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Little Edie was her first cousin.

Both mother and daughter were raised in privilege, but their later lives were filled with financial hardship: Big Edie’s divorce from her attorney husband left her poor, and her father left her little money in his will. Big Edie received only a small monthly income, child support, and a 28-room mansion in East Hampton called Grey Gardens.

Big Edie lived in Grey Gardens for decades; Little Edie eventually joined her, and served as her caretaker. The two became recluses, and when Health Department inspectors paid a visit to their mansion in 1971 they found it filled with trash, insects, and wild animals, with most of the rooms closed off.

After the press caught wind of the story, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis paid for the home to be professionally cleaned. Around the same time, documentary filmmakers David and Albert Maysles became interested in filming the eccentric mother-daughter duo, allowing them to tell their own story. The Maysles' documentary was later adapted into a 2006 stage musical, and into a 2009 feature film starring Drew Barrymore.

Big Edie died in 1977, and Edith Bouvier Beale eventually sold Grey Gardens to Washington Post journalist Sally Quinn and her husband Ben Bradlee, then the paper’s executive editor. They restored the seven-bedroom house to its original glory—and now it’s back on the market, for the first time in decades.

Today, Grey Gardens looks just like any other luxurious home in the Hamptons—but its legacy makes it unique. “Known as Grey Gardens this stunning estate is full of history and one of the few remaining original shingle homes South of the Highway,” an online listing posted by real estate firm The Corcoran Group says. “Situated near Lily Pond Lane and Georgica Beach, this one of a kind compound is approximately two acres and is a stone throw to the ocean.”

Check out some photos of Grey Gardens’s new look below:

Photos courtesy of The Corcoran Group.