Billy Joel is on top of the charts again.
The musician’s compound on Centre Island, known as MiddleSea, just sold for $28.75 million, which is a new record for the highest ever residential deal on Long Island outside of the Hamptons.
“After years on the market and multiple unsuccessful attempts by others, this legendary 26-acre waterfront estate—once home to Billy Joel—has finally found its next chapter,” Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Laffey International Realty announced on Instagram on Monday, March 2.
The 20,000-square foot property features a private beach, luxury amenities and panoramic water views.
As well as six bedrooms and 11 bathrooms, it also includes amenities most people can only dream about, including a grand ballroom, a temperature-controlled wine cellar, spa facilities, a private bowling alley.
Outside there the home is surrounded by 1,500 feet of sandy shoreline as well as a tennis court, a pool, a private dock and an eight-car garage. The property also boasts a helipad, to cut the hour-and-a-half commute from Manhattan to just 15 minutes.
The “Piano Man” singer, 76, bought the property, which is near Oyster Bay, not far from his hometown of Hicksville, back in 2002 for $22.5 million, and then snapped up neighboring adjacent buildable waterfront lots and the gatehouse, giving him a total of 21 acres.
He then began renovating the plot and tried to put the entire estate up for sale in 2023 for $49.9m.
But ultimately a sale of that scale proved difficult and so the property was split into three parts again and re-marketed last spring with more success.
“This transaction is more than a milestone, it’s a defining moment for Long Island real estate,” Emmett Laffey, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Laffey International Realty told the New York Post. “Ultimately it came down to three buyers in a bidding war, and as it goes, there can only be one who now calls MiddleSea home.”
According to a People, the original gatehouse sold last year for $7 million, so the property has now accumulated $35.75 million for Joel.
But despite the sale of the property known locally as “the house on the hill,” Joel has no plans to leave the area completely.
According to USA Today the “New York State of Mind” hitmaker told the crowd at his New Year’s Eve performance at the UBS Area in 2023: “Just because I’m selling that house, doesn’t mean I’m leaving Long Island.”