Martha on the Move

By Stephen M. Silverman

07/03/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

Christopher Reeve, Ralph Lauren, Glenn Close and Richard Gere are about to have a new neighbor: Martha Stewart. The domestic diva has reportedly just completed the purchase of a sprawling 153-acre spread in New York's ritzy bedroom community of Bedford, outside of Manhattan. The estate is said to include a 1784 farmhouse, a 1929 Colonial-style winter house and a cottage dating back to 1897. Real estate agent Donna Reimer told the Associated Press that Stewart paid about $15.6 million for the property and pronounced the sale "a wonderful turn of events" for Bedford. Not that Stewart, 59, has the reputation for getting along with her neighbors. She left posh Westport, Conn. house because, she herself admitted to The New York Times last April, her fellow residents had created "an unfriendly neighborhood atmosphere." As for her neighbor in the Hamptons, real-estate developer Harry Macklowe, the two have maintained a headline-making litigious relationship for years.