Real-Estate Gambler

Singer Kenny Rogers has listed his 27,000-square-foot mansion in the Buckhead area of Atlanta for $10 million. The six-bedroom home on 5.2 acres, offered furnished and built in the style of a French castle, had been repossessed by a bank when Mr. Rogers heard about it a few years ago. The bank started out asking $12 million in the late 1990s, and over five years had gradually lowered the price to $4 million before Mr. Rogers snapped it up for $2.75 million in 2002.

"It had a lot of problems and no one would touch it," says Mr. Rogers, who started a high-end commercial and residential interior-design business, Kenji, with a partner two years ago. Several million dollars later, the house became a kind of showcase for Kenji's work. Each bedroom was designed with a theme (Asian, Safari), the outdoor pool has a Grecian motif and the entry hall has 40-foot ceilings and a Moroccan-styled seating area.

Not long after the home was finally ready to live in, Mr. Rogers and his wife, Wanda, had twin boys, Justin and Jordan, who are now a year old. The sprawling house became impractical for the family. "There are too many ways for them to get hurt," he says. So the couple decided to sell it. Mr. Rogers has some experience buying and selling real estate of this size -- he sold late oilman Marvin Davis a 25,000-square-foot house called "The Knoll" in Beverly Hills for more than $20 million in 1984, a record price at the time -- and says that he is not in any hurry. Joe Sofet of Prime Business Investments (PBI) in Atlanta has the listing.

Hampton High

Manhattan attorney Alan Schnurman paid $25 million for an unlisted 41-acre plot of farmland in Sagaponack, N.Y. Local brokers say it is among the highest prices ever paid for a nonoceanfront Hamptons property.

Mr. Schnurman bought the property, about a block from the ocean, from the estate of Clara Barsczeski, who owned it for over 60 years. Mr. Schnurman, a 60-year-old personal-injury lawyer, says he plans to resell the property whole or in parcels. It sits just north of one of the largest single-family residences in the country, the 100,000-square-foot home owned by Ira Rennert, founder of New York holding company Renco Group. Neil Bersin of Prudential Douglas Elliman handled the sale.

Meanwhile, Mr. Schnurman is listing another property he owns in Bridgehampton for $37.5 million. He purchased that 25-acre property nine months ago for $15 million, he says. Property values in the five towns in eastern Long Island that comprise the Hamptons have soared in recent years, with the average home price rising 27% in the first quarter from a year earlier to a record $993,269, according to Suffolk Research Service Inc.

Pretty Penny

The Nyack, N.Y., mansion formerly owned by actress Helen Hayes and later by comedian/talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell sold last week. The home's asking price was $5.85 million but the buyer, New York art dealer Graham Arader, negotiated a price of $5.5 million plus a $50,000 credit toward art from his store. The seller, Ed Kopko, who purchased the 1.5-acre home in 2000 for $2.25 million, can use the credit toward any purchase at Mr. Arader's Manhattan gallery. Mr. Arader says he was "so impressed with the home's restoration" that he added the credit during negotiations.

Built in the 1850s, the house overlooks the Hudson River about 25 miles north of New York City. It has six bedrooms, five bathrooms and nine fireplaces. A four-car garage and heated pool also are on the property. Hamid Moghadam, of Ellis Sotheby's International Realty in Nyack, had the listing.

Ms. Hayes, winner of two Academy Awards, gave the 8,000-square-foot Victorian-style house its name, "Pretty Penny." She lived there for more than 50 years, until her death in 1993. Ms. O'Donnell purchased the property in 1996, installing new electrical and plumbing systems.

Mr. Arader owns several historic residences, including one of the few remaining Beaux Arts townhouses on Madison Avenue in Manhattan and Ballygomingo, a 1758 home in King of Prussia, Pa.

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