One day last April, Randa Jaafar collapsed while running on the treadmill in her Manhattan apartment.
Until then, Dr. Jaafar, 42, an anesthesiologist-trained at Cornell University, felt in good health. She splits her time between her two homes in East Hampton, NY, and Manhattan, where she has a private practice for pain management. But within hours, she was ready for surgery. Her doctor told her there was a lump on her heart and it was malignant.
“I always knew life was short, but I realized it was even shorter than I thought,” Dr. Jafar said. “It started to make me really think about what really matters in my life and what doesn’t.”
Among things that are starting to become less important is her pain management practice in midtown Manhattan (she has a second in lower Manhattan). Another is her house in East Hampton, which is in constant need of repairs. She decided to sell it for $2.8 million. Right after she did so, doctors offered a second opinion: the mass removed from her chest was benign. She does not have cancer.
“I was born again,” Dr. Jafar said.
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She closed her downtown office and opened FILD Studio, a medical spa in SoHo that specializes in Botox and skin care. She started dreaming of opening a second location in the Hamptons, and while there were plenty of potential clients there, she hadn’t seen as many medical spas pop up.
“The Hamptons are not as saturated as the city,” she said. “And I think it elevates the brand in the East.”
But first, she needs a new Long Island home to use as a base. She started looking late last year, hoping to spend less than $4 million. Dr. Jaafar loves hosting friends and extended family from Michigan, so she wanted a place with at least four bedrooms.
She enlisted the help of Saunders & Associates real estate agents Peter Cook and Alba Jancou. “Randa has a lot of friends, and her close friends don’t have a home here,” Ms Jancou said. “Her family is in Michigan, and she’s very close with her nieces and nephews. She wants space to entertain everyone.”
Dr. Jaafar wanted to find a house with a swimming pool that didn’t require maintenance. While she’s not ready to give up her Manhattan apartment, she wants “a house that’s open year-round,” she said. So she’s targeting neighborhoods in the Hamptons that are vibrant in all seasons, not just summer.
Her agent has listed several homes for more than her $4 million budget, but she knows that while she remains in the city, she can rent out anything she buys for extra income.
Among the homes she’s considering:
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