Michael Bloomberg Buying $20 Million Hamptons Mansion

This week’s Village Voice cover story asks, “After two full terms and change, what do you call Bloomberg’s New York? In many ways, the mayor has been merely a caretaker.” Mayor Mike’s third term — which he made possible by changing the rules — will be over in a few years. “Soon, he’ll be just another billionaire,” writes our own Harry Siegel. And he’ll need somewhere to live! (Besides the places he already has.) So he’s recently signed a contract — “discreetly,” the New York Post reports — for a $20 million Georgian mansion in the Hamptons, sitting on 35-acres. Annual real estate taxes for the 11-bedroom palace fall around $42,110, or a little more than a yearly salary for one of the low-wage NYC jobs created under Bloomberg.

Here’s another nugget from “Citizen Bloomberg,” our cover story: “As Bloomberg memorably put it while floating his candidacy in early 2001: ‘What’s a billionaire got to do with it? I mean, would you rather elect a poor person who didn’t succeed? Look, I’m a great American dream.'”

And he has a point: Americans dream of a brick home near an exclusive golf course — the National Golf Links of America in this case — along with horse-riding trails (perfect for his daughter) and a “half-mile, tree-covered approach,” which is usually called a driveway if you’re poorer.

Bloomberg’s other crashpads are on the Upper East Side, in Vail, Colorado and in Bermuda, where his neighbors include fellow billionaires-turned-politicians Silvio Berlusconi and Ross Perot.

[NYP]