It wasn’t too long after Burton and Taylor brought Edward Albee’s tough-love fright-fest ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ silver screen blockbuster status that the playwright picked himself up a slice of Hamptons heaven. The spectacularly eccentric house of the late Albee was for sale this year, and had been priced at $20 million before it went under contract this month.

The house is fairly modest in size; the acreage, on the other hand, is extravagant. The waterfront lot reaches across nearly three acres of land near Montauk, and includes a generously-sized lawn, woodland, and 200’ of shorefront exposure.

Property size is part of the $20 million story, but the buyer is the rest of it. It seems that Ralph Lauren, the gentleman cowboy himself, owned the properties flanking Albee’s. The owner of the fashion empire more than likely paid a premium to connect his existing parcels into a roughly 10-acre estate in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in the country.

The house dates to 1964, and features glass sliders, floors in tile and flagstone, a fireplace, and raw timber accents. It’s an unpretentious home, allowing its landscape most of the attention, and has a creative but utilitarian feel. It measures 2,970 square feet, with four bedrooms and four baths throughout.

The property’s acreage fits in a pool and pool house/guest cottage, tennis court, a footpath to the beach, and plenty of breathing room.

A Lauren/Albee meeting of the minds might’ve led to the development of the ‘George’ cardigan. It would’ve been scotch-guarded, of course, and very reasonably priced…but a bit abrasive, and definitely not returnable.