John Golden, the high-end Hamptons real-estate broker who left Sotheby’s in 2002, is back on the summer scene, landing at Prudential Douglas Elliman’s East Hampton office after a three-year sabbatical in the far reaches of Maine. Golden, who had a hand in the multi-million-dollar mansion transactions of Lee Radziwill, Carl Icahn, and Jack Grubman (among others) during his twenty-year tenure at Sotheby’s, left the firm after hedge-funder Ron Baron claimed Golden sold him a waterfront home near Two Mile Hollow, an East Hampton gay beach, but neglected to inform him of the beach’s … frolicsomeness. It was rumored Golden would join the competing firm of Brown Harris Stevens upon his return, as Golden and BHS president Peter Turnio are pals, but “we both concluded it’d be better to stay friends rather than be arch-competitors under the same roof,” says Golden. Clear from the outset, though, was that Golden wouldn’t be affiliated with his old home at Sotheby’s. “Why would I want to compete with the old crew who was trying to fill my shoes?” he says.

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Emma Rosenblum
• Table of Contents: Apr 23, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!