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Hey say a boat is a hole in the water you dump money into, and Billy Joel has emptied his wallet many times. "It's a disease," he said last week from the deck of his 65-foot yacht, the Islander, moored in East Hampton's Three Mile Harbor. "I don't know how I'd kick it."

It's unlikely he'll ever try. Long before stepping into the recording studio and selling more than 100 million records, Mr. Joel began his nautical career by swimming out to other people's moorings off the North Shore and "borrowing" their boats. He has owned many since and now also lures other millionaires into the boater's morass with a high-end speedboat he helped design, called the Shelter Island Runabout - with a base price of $300,000. A stereo to blast Mr. Joel's sentimental song of the sea, "The Downeaster Alexa," will set you back an additional $1,900.

This day, under an extraordinary blue sky, Mr. Joel, 51, hopped barefoot about the deck of his yacht as though his true calling were the sea, not MTV. Peter Needham, who builds the 36-foot runabouts, had just roared across Gardiners Bay in one to take the singer to lunch. Mr. Joel busied himself catching lines so he and Trish Bergin, a 29 year-old Channel 12 news reporter who shares his stateroom these days, could board. Then he paused to smile down at the speedboat like a proud parent, admiring its celadon hull and upholstery white enough to blind a Modernist.

Mr. Joel's ideas for the boat's graceful lines were drawn from Long Island lobster boats. And the idea of keeping it fast came from the large commuter yachts that industrialists like JP Morgan used to speed from Great Neck to Wall Street in less than an hour. Mr. Joel, who has no training in design, began by sketching on the proverbial cocktail napkin, in consultation with Mr. Needham. A naval architect translated their ideas for a lightweight, fast boat into
detailed blueprints.

Mr. Joel owns the patent on the hull design, and collects a royalty on every runabout that Mr. Needham builds - about seven a year - at his Coecles Harbor Marina on Shelter Island. The first boat was christened in 1996. Now, the yard employs 14 carpenters and electricians. At midcentury, Long Island was home to dozens of mom and pop boat builders, but Mr. Joel can name only four other companies now in business. So he takes great pride in having revived boat building on the East End.

The same people who buy mansions buy boats. Recently, a buyer ordered a 50-foot version at $1.5 million. But most buyers are satisfied with the regular model, which can hit 48 knots (about 55 miles per hour). That's perfect for the mogul who wants to crack lobsters in Newport, followed by a swim off Block Island before heading back to East Hampton for the evening. At a mile a gallon of gasoline at top speed, the twin 415 horsepower MerCruiser motors would make an SUV owner feel saintly.

With Mr. Joel offering his hand, Ms. Bergin stepped gamely aboard Mr. Needham's runabout in clunky, heeled sandals, ready to cruise.

"I neglected to bring my boating shoes," she said, with a pronounced Long Island accent. With her puffy lips and sparkling eyes, Ms. Bergin appears to possess the same television-friendly genes as Deborah Norville. Mr. Joel, with his T-shirt, chinos and sun-baked cragginess, looks more like the guy who would clean the fish for you once you got back dockside. Still, they make a good pair.

As Mr. Joel took the helm, Ms. Bergin said, "I'm a good mate, aren't I, Billy?" He laughed and set the boat in motion.

Ms. Bergin and Mr. Joel met five years ago when she interviewed him for a news program. She's a South Shore girl and he's a North Shore boy - a few miles inland in Levittown, to be precise - and they got along well. But they didn't start dating until a few months ago.

"I got married first, and then I got divorced," Ms. Bergin said.

That's when Christie Brinkley, Mr. Joel's wife until 1994 and a friend of Ms. Bergin, called Mr. Joel to say, "Did you notice that Trish isn't wearing a wedding ring anymore?" Mr. Joel asked Ms. Bergin out.

Now, the two spend much of their free time out on the water, trying, often unsuccessfully, to escape notice.

"People come out of nowhere," Mr. Joel said. Pointing across the harbor to the house of the photographer Patrick Demarchelier, he added, "One day that guy came screaming up to us in his boat saying, 'Billeee, tout le bla bla bla.' I couldn't understand a word." His challenge one recent day was slipping past the crowds at the waterfront East Hampton Point restaurant. With its teak details and classic look, Mr. Joel's runabout is so distinctive that it's not
the boat for shrinking violets.

"Even sailboaters who look down their noses at all powerboats wave to this one," Mr. Joel said, as the restaurant came into view. Two other Shelter Island Runabouts were tied up near the restaurant, looking distinguished and serene in the ostentatious flotilla of fiberglass and chrome.

During lunch, a couple more passed in the harbor. Mr. Needham remembers the details of each one. He becomes so attached to the boats while building them, he said, that he cried the first time he had to ship one off to a Microsoft millionaire.

"I knew I'd never see it again," he said.

Most buyers add custom woodwork, upholstery, tuna towers and other extras that easily raise the price to $10,000 a linear foot.

Although the excess of tropical hardwoods makes the galley and cabin feel luxurious, the space holds little more than a microwave, a refrigerator and a sink, with room in the bow for two to sleep in a pinch. (Mr. Joel designed the head twice as large for comfort.) Some owners hire interior designers to tweak the teak, but the clean design doesn't take well to froufrou.

"Over the years, I've developed a pretty good idea of what a boat should look like," Mr. Joel said. "And it shouldn't look like you started with the screening room and designed out from that. It's also easy to overyacht a boat with too much nautical stuff. I see those curtains printed with anchors, and every light fixture designed like an old boat lamp, and I want to say, 'Hey, I get the point - we're on the water!' "

While Shelter Island Runabout owners will probably never drag a bleeding swordfish up over the transom, Mr. Joel likes that utilitarian illusion. It's all part of his workingman fantasies. For years, he's been identified as a friend to bay men on the East End. He's fought, unsuccessfully by and large, to preserve their fishing lifestyle, and he's done countless benefits for local causes. But the reality is that nostalgic millionaires are snapping up Mr. Joel's surrealistic versions of the old fishing boats just as the bay men are disappearing into history.

This partly explains why Mr. Joel recently sold his East Hampton estate, complete with a collection of boats on the lawn, to Jerry Seinfeld, after more than a decade of living year-round on the South Fork.

"Jerry asked me, did I want to sell the place," Mr. Joel said. "I threw out a number and he said OK So I asked my
daughter, 'Should I sell this house?' And she said, 'Daddy, change is good.' "

And she wasn't talking small change - $34 million. Mr. Joel is looking for a waterfront place on the North Shore.

"As celebrity spotting became a sport, it became hard for me to leave my driveway on weekends," he said.

A commotion in the restaurant caused him to look up. "Hey, there's Alexa," he said of his teenage daughter, his face brightening. Alexa and her mother's blond mane came into view across the room. Cameras flashed as Mr. Joel reminded Alexa to remember her passport for an upcoming trip. Two women nearby suddenly felt the need to videotape. Ms. Bergin asked Ms. Brinkley about her new yacht, a cute but respectable work boat she recently bought, which clearly shows Mr. Joel's influence. Alexa then took her mother off to the powder room for a makeup session.

A waitress appeared at Mr. Joel's side, looking nervous.

"I know people must say this to you all the time," she said. "But your music has been the soundtrack to my entire life. And I hope you'll keep making more of it so I can have something to get married to, to have my babies to."

"I will," Mr. Joel said kindly. "Although I don't know if you'll like it. I'm composing classical music now."

The waitress looked puzzled. She hadn't heard about this sea change.

In the distance, the Islander putted out of the harbor, heading for Connecticut, where Mr. Joel rents it out. Mr. Needham piloted the runabout to a pier, where Mr. Joel and Ms. Bergin's car waited. Then, Mr. Needham headed back toward Shelter Island, throttle wide open, waving to yachtsmen all the way. It was a Sunday, and his crew was working overtime. Another millionaire was expecting his new boat on Thursday, and the bow wasn't quite ready for a Veuve Clicquot christening.

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Joel, who sold his East Hampton estate to Jerry Seinfeld for $32 million, is rumored to be buying West Island, a 40-acre isle off Glen Cove - fictionalized by F. Scott Fitzgerald as West Egg in "The Great Gatsby."

The seller would apparently be Margo Walker, who has long been linked to Lazard Freres chairman Michel David-Weill. She owned three houses on the island even before 1993, when she bought the main house, a 45-room stone mansion built in 1925 by JP Morgan's nephew. Now Walker is said to be near closing on the last house she didn't own. She also applied to build a dock, which would increase the value of the island even more.

Patrick Mackay, a broker at the Piping Rock Association, confirmed he has been showing Joel waterfront property in the area. "I doubt Billy Joel would be interested in any property which didn't have a dock," Mackay told PAGE SIX.

Walker is said to want $35 million for the island. "Just thinking of all the years she has spent, waiting to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, I think she has a grander plan," said another realtor.

Joel's spokeswoman, Claire Mercuri, told us, "He is not buying that island."

Meanwhile, McCartney has apparently snapped up a tiny one-bedroom shack that borders his house in East Hampton for a whopping $650,000, say sources.

The East Hampton Star reports that local lawyer Daniel Voorhees, who has bid on properties for McCartney in the past, purchased the dainty domicile at a July 24th, 2000 auction after three and a half minutes of bidding.

Real estate sources predicted the house would not fetch more than $225,000 - but apparently money was no object for the super-wealthy former Beatle.

"He bought it for his own privacy, I'm sure," says a source who strongly suspects McCartney was the buyer.

The house, on a lush landscaped private acre opposite the South Fork Country Club golf course, was used as a studio by former owner and architectural designer Michael Strada.

Sources are buzzing that McCartney may bulldoze his pint-sized pad, but right now Sir Paul is keeping mum. Neither Voorhees nor McCartney's representative could be reached for comment.

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Billy Joel looks like a kid in a candy store. The 51 year-old rock star is sitting at the piano at his home on Long Island, giddily running through one of several instrumental pieces that he has been writing.

"What I'm really doing here is re-creating a mid-19th century style of Romantic composition," Joel says. "That's my favorite era of classical music, from Beethoven up until the 20th century. I love that stuff!"

To which fans of Joel's noted pop repertoire might respond: Huh?

But Joel says that he hasn't written a pop song since 1993, when he released "River of Dreams," his last album of original material. "That doesn't mean I'm not going to write pop songs in the future if I get ideas," he says. "I'm just not interested in it right now. I've always maintained that I'm a classically trained musician, and as a composer, I can create all kinds of styles. What's great about writing classical music is that there are no restrictions - no radio formats to worry about, no considerations like, 'Are the little girls gonna like it?' I can do anything."

Though some of his classical selections have been performed publicly, Joel hasn't decided when or in what fashion he'll release recordings of this new music. "I don't know what I'm going to do with it," he says. "What's important is that I'm writing it. It's exciting and it's empowering."

Joel is among a growing number of baby-boomer pop icons who, having sustained commercial and critical success over two or three decades, are exploring new terrain and embracing new challenges. Some, including Paul McCartney, who has been writing orchestral and chamber music since the early '90s, also are composing in a classical style. Others are contributing songs and instrumental music to film and theater projects. In recent years, Elton John, Phil Collins, and Sting have worked on animated feature films for Disney and DreamWorks, while Randy Newman, Mark Knopfler and members of U2 are among those who have worked on scores and soundtracks for live-action movies.

John and Newman also have penned original musicals for the stage, as have Paul Simon and Pete Townshend, who helped forge a synergy between popular music and films with "The Graduate" (which prominently featured Simon's songs) and The Who's "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia." Elvis Costello's latest projects paired him with collaborators ranging from the Brodsky Quartet, a neo-classical string outfit, to pop bard Burt Bacharach and jazz saxophonist Roy Nathanson.

Perhaps these forays make more sense when viewed from a purely musical perspective. For all their differences in style and image, the above artists all became pop stars in the first place largely because of their ability to craft the sort of catchy, engaging melodies that appeal to mass audiences - essentially, the same gift that has distinguished composers from Mozart to George Gershwin to the Beatles and Stevie Wonder.

"Gershwin wrote pop songs," Joel says. "Then he decided to write what was called serious music - "Rhapsody in Blue," the opera "Porgy and Bess." And he eventually went back to writing pop tunes again.

"If you're a musician, you must continue to pull new things out of the hat. People like Elton and Sting and McCartney and myself all like different kinds of music, and none of us got to where we are by being one-dimensional artists. Sting was a jazz musician; Elton was a blues player, and he played gospel piano. We all have different facets."

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Though Billy Joel has no firm plans to release a recording of his classical compositions, he generously offered to lend us a CD featuring some of his works in progress, performed by Korean pianist Hyung-Ki Joo and the "Piano Man" himself. He even suggested that we ask a couple of authorities to comment on his still-tender oeuvre.

"I've already prejudged and predamned a lot of this material myself," Joel says. "I think the biggest criticism that I'm gonna get is that my classical stuff is too derivative of other composers. I'm expecting that."

Never ones to turn down a dare, USA Today turned the CD over to Amazon.com music editor Tom May and classical pianist Bruce Brubaker, a faculty member at The Juilliard School in New York. Here's what they had to say about the rock veteran's first stabs at developing a classical repertoire.

May: "Unlike Paul McCartney, who took a basically naive approach to composing in a 'classical' vein, Joel draws inspiration from classical masters, attempting to assimilate the vastly different styles and idioms of Bach, Chopin, Liszt and others to achieve a more intricately structured form of self-expression.

"The results are often charming rather than pretentious. And when the "Piano Man's" own voice begins to emerge, on pieces such as the Lisztian Reverie or the wide-ranging Suite, you sense the knack for emotional narrative that made his early ballads standards. But here pop formulas don't constrain his artistic freedom."

Brubaker: "On the outside, you could say that (Joel's material) is a work of appropriation; it adopts a lot of different styles. It goes everywhere from Bach to Chopin to British music hall. That raises the question of whether there's some connection between these styles and the musical content. There are some very interesting composers working right now, like John Zorn, who utilize disparate styles deliberately. But there is a great amount of irony in Zorn's music. I don't think that's Joel's intention. He seems more earnest, and it doesn't strike me that there's much of a connection between what he's expressing in the pieces and the styles he's adopted to do so. But I'm sure the material I heard, even without any further modification or editing, would be of huge commercial interest."

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"This time, he doesn't want to be on the ocean or in East Hampton," says our source. "He also wants a place to dock his boats."

He wants to buy property without an existing house.

He wants to build his own Piano Mansion.

And he wants privacy.

Joel's acreage requirement is somewhere in the 10 to 20-acre range.

In a much-publicized transaction earlier this year, Joel sold his 12-acre oceanfront home to Jerry Seinfeld for $32 million amid reports he had grown disenchanted with the swelling social scene.

Since then, he's been renting a place in the Glen Cove area. Joel's rep was not aware of the musician's alleged East End search, but said he's continued to keep a presence in the area. "His daughter lives there; he has an office and boat-building business out there," says Claire Mercuri.

"We all knew his exile wouldn't last," says a social insider. "One breakup (with Carolyn Beegan), one new girlfriend (Trish Bergin) and a couple of Hamptons parties later, and he wants back in."

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"Billy Joel Is Back?"
By: Steven Gaines
(August 30th, 2000)

Is Billy Joel back in the Hamptons?

Several real estate sources claim that on Tuesday, August 29th, 2000, Mr. Joel paid just over $14 million for "Marshlands," a 29 acre waterfront estate in the North Sea area of Southampton.

That night Mr. Joel dined at Saracen restaurant in Wainscott with his former girlfriend, artist Carolyn Beegan, and his daughter, Alexa, whose mother is supermodel Christie Brinkley.

Mr. Joel's reported new house came on the market in June for $16.5 million, and was reduced in price to $14.5 million at the end of July. It was listed exclusively with the Allan Schneider Agency.

The white and blue-trimmed, three-story, traditional house was built in 1937. It has six bedrooms and seven and half baths. There is also a four-bay detached garage, plus two separate cottages for staff.

The bulk-headed house faces a inlet of Peconic Bay, and overlooks a small, privately-owned island named Ram Island.

It features a deep-water dock, part of which is incorporated under the house, so Mr. Joel can pull one of his several boats right inside.

In February Mr. Joel sold his Further Lane estate to TV star Jerry Seinfeld for $34 million.

He has repeatedly said that as long as his daughter continues to go to school in East Hampton he will live nearby.

When asked for comment, Mr. Joel's representative at his record company, Claire Mercuri, said that Mr. Joel "did not make a purchase" and that some of the details of the purchase he did not make were incorrect anyway. Ms. Mercuri sited the acerage as an example.

None of Mr. Joel's friends contributed to this report.

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"Looks Like Joel Isn't Movin' Out Of The Hamptons"
By: Jared Paul Stern & Bill Hoffmann
(August 31st, 2000)

Looks like Billy Joel is making a big comeback in the Hamptons - reportedly shelling out a cool $14 million for a sprawling waterfront estate. The "Piano Man" bought the well-known "Marshlands" property in the North Sea section of Southhampton, overlooking stunning Peconic Bay, according to the iHamptons.com web-site.

But a spokeswoman for Joel denied any deal had been completed for the white and blue-trimmed, three-story house built in 1937.

The new digs would afford the 51 year-old pop superstar plenty of privacy - it's on 29 acres of lush field and woods.

The purchase also would be a big relief to Long Island fans of Joel.

They feared their hometown boy was quitting the area for good after he sold his stunning East Hampton spread to funnyman Jerry Seinfeld for $32 million last February.

The web-site says the deal for the new house was inked Tuesday - three months after it went on the market for $16.5 million. When the house hadn't sold by the end of July, it was reduced to $14.5 million.

The new buyer managed to knock another half-mil off the price before he signed on the dotted line.

The bulk-headed Marshlands home overlooks small, privately owned Ram Island and features a deep-water dock under the house, so Joel could pull his boats inside.

There is also a four-bay detached garage, plus two separate cottages for staff.

The multi-millionaire musician has repeatedly said that as long as daughter Alexa - who lives with mom Christie Brinkley - continues to go to school in East Hampton, he'll remain a presence in the area.

While Joel is said to have paid for his new digs less than half of what Seinfeld forked over for Joel's old place, the Southhampton home is actually bigger than his former residence.

It has six bedrooms and 7½ baths. Seinfeld's East Hampton estate only has three bedrooms, and sits on just 13 acres.

But the North Sea spread doesn't have a separate guest house like Seinfeld's place.

After closing the deal, iHamptons.com said, Joel celebrated by dining at Saracen restaurant in Wainscott with his daughter and his ex-girlfriend Carolyn Beegan, an artist.

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