Fairholme Back on Market for $21 Million

That was fast.

After selling for $15 million in July and becoming the largest residential property sale in Rhode Island since 2013, Fairholme is back on the market — for $21 million.

The sprawling 1875 Tudor that sits on 4.3 acres of prime waterfront has been put back on the market by Doug “Papa Doug” Manchester, a California property developer.

Manchester told the Wall Street Journal that he sank a few million into renovations during the few months he owned the mansion, along with adding some putting greens and croquet and tennis courts. The decision to sell, he said, is based on the fact he has a sixth child on the way and the new baby will make it tough to come to Newport from the West Coast.

The house is considered an architectural masterpiece and includes a grand Horace Trumbauer designed ballroom, endless rooms, carriage house, greenhouses, tiled swimming pool and a cabana pavilion that overlooks the Atlantic.

Manchester bought the house from John Noffo Kahn of Palm Beach, Fla. — heir to the Anneberg publishing fortune.

His grandmother, Janet Anneberg Hooker, sister of the late Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg, bought the mansion in 1992 for $3.35 million.

Kahn lived in the house with his late father Gilbert S. Kahn from 1993 until Kahn’s death in 2010.

The property was remodeled in 1905 by John R. Drexel. Under the Drexel’s ownership the home had many notable visitors including The Duke & Duchess of Windsor, and President John F. Kennedy whose family would often use the pool in the summers. Robert A. Young and his wife Anita O’Keeffe, sister of Georgia O’Keeffe acquired Fairholme in 1955. They had one daughter, Eleanor “Cookie” Young, who became one of the much-publicized “Glamour Debutantes” of the Great Depression -era.