Shonah Kaplan Wagner, the beloved black poodle of the late antique dealer Barton Kaplan, died of natural causes in East Hampton last week.
She was 15 years old.
In 2002, after Kaplan was found dead in the swimming pool at his half-finished estate on Middle Lane — wearing nothing but red toenail polish — the dog was left to Kaplan’s boyfriend Sam Wagner “on one condition: that I would stay on at the estate and oversee its construction,” Wagner told me.
The house was finally finished three years ago and listed for $19.5 million.
But some buyers were afraid of the ghost of Kaplan — and possibly Montauk Indians who were massacred on the property — after reports of mysteriously blinking lights.
The property finally sold for $9.2 million to Canadian home builder John Daniels.
Wagner said, “Shonah has been my little doggie . . . [I always knew] that someday she would be with Barton once again. Well today, they are reunited.” Rest in peace.