It’s official — A company tied to former Yahoo! and Warner Bros. Chairman Terry Semel sold his large oceanfront estate in East Hampton in an off-market deal for a whopping $115 million — in a record-breaking deal.

In Hamptons history, combined parcels have sold for more, but this deal is the most expensive single residential parcel ever to sell in the Hamptons.

Billionaire Len Blavatnik, a Ukrainian-born movie investor, owner of Warner Music Group and a philanthropist, is the buyer, according to a source. The name of the limited liability company, “Brise Lontaine,” is listed as the buyer.

Considered by some to be a Russian oligarch, he has British-American dual citizenship and a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth. He boasts residences in Kensington Palace Gardens in London and a $77.5 million co-op on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. He already owns a smaller house on Further Lane, as well as an oceanfront compound on Dune Road in Bridgehampton. Forbes lists him as the 59th richest person in the world with a net worth of $29.6 billion.

According to deed transfers that came through publicly on Friday morning, the transaction for 408 Further Lane, not far from Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett, was finalized on July 31. It’s unclear which brokerages were involved in the deal.

The sale, which is likely to remain the biggest of 2025, is the first deal over $100 million in nearly two years, the last being the Mylestone estate on Meadow Lane in Southampton, which traded for $112.5 million in October of 2023, though it’s in the company of a flurry of activity at the high-end of the market.

When Semel bought the property through his company, Windsor Digital Studio, he was chairman and CEO of Yahoo! Incorporated, a position he held from 2001 to 2007. Before that, he was the chairman and co-chief executive officer at Warner Bros. for 24 years. The powerhouse executive, now 82, has been battling Alzheimer’s disease for several years, according to a 2019 article in The Los Angeles Times.

Back in late 2005, he bought the 8.5-acre property, stretching on the southern side of the coveted Further Lane up to the dune-protected beach, for $43 million from Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire CEO and founder of Blackstone. World-famous art dealer Larry Gagosian is a neighbor.

Schwarzman had owned the property since 1992, buying what was then 15 acres for a mere $4 million. A few years before he sold it, he deeded 6.1 acres to the Nature Conservancy, which carved out the 8.5-acre property that Semel bought.

In 2006, The New York Post reported that Semel had paid $1 million more than Schwarzman’s original asking price, which worked out to be roughly $5.058 million per acre.

Based on the current sale price, the price per acre is now up to $13.53 million.

At the time, the property included “a rustic five-bedroom cottage,” according to Brown Harris Stevens marketing materials, as well as some of the last structures designed by noted architect Charles Gwathmey before he died in 2009.

The listing information touted the parcel could accommodate a 20,000-square-foot residence with room for a pool, a tennis court and a pool house, and The Post reported that it still left space for “golf, garages, ponds, orchards and horses.”

Semel’s Legal Battle

However, trouble soon followed.

Semel became embroiled in a years-long dispute with the Town of East Hampton and his neighbors, particularly after the addition of a kitchen on the Gwathmey guest house.

He had planned to build a 10,000-square-foot house on the property in addition to the pre-existing, non-conforming cottage closer to the dune. But, he landed in front of the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals after the foundation had been laid and eventually his building permit was yanked.

“I was hoping to come here for a peaceful summer,” Semel told the board during a hearing, as reported by The Huffington Post in 2010. He accused his “land-grabbing” neighbors, brothers Jonathan and Peter Sobel, of “launching World War III” against him, and promising to defeat them. “I don’t care how much time it takes, or how much money,” he vowed.

The Sobels claimed Semel razed a slew of cedar trees and added an illegal fence and privet hedge.

How the land disputes were resolved is unclear, but Semel was able to build an approximately 10,000-square-foot contemporary residence and pool along the dunes.

The property tax bill for 2025 was $71,608.

Ever since Semel’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, a legal battle has ensued between the children from his first marriage and his second wife.

Record-Breaker

The sale of 408 Further Lane deal breaks the record for the biggest sale for a single residential property in the Hamptons.

It was previously held by Jule Pond, a 42-acre waterfront estate also in Water Mill, boasting unobstructed views of the Atlantic Ocean and Mecox Bay, which snatched the title when it sold for $105 million in October 2021.

Looking at the priciest transaction in history, hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein famously paid the most ever for an estate when he shelled out $147 million for three separate, yet contiguous parcels on Further Lane in 2014. The biggest of the properties at 62 Further Lane traded at just $97 million.

Four trades composing one of the largest waterfront compounds that exist on the South Fork sold for a combined $118.5 million. The Water Mill transaction remains the second-highest trade in Hamptons history.

The Semel-Blavatnik deal then comes in third when looking at overall trades — whether single or combined parcels.

Meanwhile, this Further Lane sale is among the most expensive estates to sell in East Hampton in recent years. A Windmill Lane compound, comprised of two properties, which traded for $91.5 million in an off-market deal back in January of 2023.

2025’s Biggest Deals

While the sale of 408 Further Lane is in a league of its own, there has been a slew of high-end sales during the last two quarters of the year.

Coming in second is a combined deal for two parcels nearby at 370 and 372 Further Lane, which traded for a total of $70 million in February (the bigger of the two parcels sold for $56 million).

In September, The WSJ reported the sale of 105 Lily Pond Lane in East Hampton at $66.8 million. Deed transfers available Friday show the sale for the address closed at $46.75 million on Sept. 22, while 111 Lily Pond, a vacant property behind the oceanfront piece, sold for $20 million, to a similarly named limited liability company with the same attorney.

The well-known builder Joe Farrell sold a brand new home at 165 Surfside Drive in Bridgehampton last week for $58 million. Former lead owner of the Boston Celtics, Wyc Grousbeck is the reported buyer.

Billionaire Shutterstock founder Jonathan Oringer sold his oceanfront home on Mid-Ocean Drive in Bridgehampton for $57 million off-market deal recently.