Richard Johnson

Richard Johnson

Celebrity News

O’Reilly’s Hamptons move?

Bill O’Reilly, real estate developer?

The Fox News Channel star has Montauk buzzing because he bought an oceanfront property on a 42-foot-high bluff that was listed last spring for $8.5 million.

O’Reilly was reported to have simply been looking for a summer rental when the impressive parcel caught his eye.

Since then, the locals have been fantasizing about the gruff O’Reilly, who is proud of his working-class roots in Levittown, rubbing elbows with such liberal neighbors as Dick Cavett, photographer Peter Beard and painter Julian Schnabel.

They shouldn’t hold their breaths. O’Reilly informed me he bought the Montauk property as “an investment,” not as a home base. He razed two bungalows and has hired the Farrell Building Company to erect a mansion on the site.

Joe Farrell, the busiest builder in the Hamptons, is known for huge shingled houses — derided as McMansions — with bowling alleys, double staircases and multiple dining rooms.

O’Reilly reported, “We are cleaning it up and have offered the historical society out there the wood from the two small buildings that were on their last pegs. All is low-key, as I am a Long Islander who only wants good things for the home team.”