Sara Burack sold luxury homes to the Hamptons’ wealthiest buyers — and even appeared on the Netflix reality show “Million Dollar Beach House” — but at the time of death last week, the golden girl was “homeless by choice” and suffering from mental health issues, despite an outpouring of family support, sources told The Post.
“She was a real businesswoman. Savvy, smart. She was a really hard worker and a good person,” her close friend and former boyfriend Mike White, a builder from Southampton, told The Post.
But she was also, he added, a “workaholic times 10.” And while that meant that “she became one of the top agents here,” it also may have fueled a dangerous reliance on pills.
“She kept taking Adderall to stay awake and keep working,” White said, “She was trying to work longer and longer staying up for all types of hours.”
It’s unknown why Burack was walking on Montauk Highway, near Villa Paul restaurant in Hampton Bays, in the middle of the night when she was struck in a hit-and-run last week.
Police found her unconscious around 2:45 a.m. on June 19, and she was transported to Stony Brook University Hospital, where she died. Amanda Kempton, 32, was later charged with leaving the fatal scene, a class D felony punishable by up to four years in prison, according to the Southampton Town Police Department. She pleaded not guilty and was released on $100,000 bail.
White, who said he was by her side in the hospital, believes she was likely looking for a place to stay.
“She was staying in bank foyers,” he said, again stressing that it was by choice. Last year, Burack apparently sold her car and condo.
“She wasn’t driving anymore. She didn’t lose her apartment, she sold it. She didn’t have financial problems at all,” White said. “She just didn’t want to deal with anything anymore.”
Her family, he said, “never gave up” and were distraught over Burack’s state.
“Her mom was going to get her an apartment— she didn’t want it. She said it was bugged by the US government,” White said. “Her poor mother did everything. Her mom and her dad are the nicest parents in the world.”
A spokesperson for the Burack family told The Post in an emailed statement: “People say all kinds of things when someone dies. However, the fact remains that our daughter, Sara, was run over and left for dead by a 32-year-old woman who claims she thought she hit a cone. Our family is in deep mourning and we will not comment further as we try to digest the loss of our beloved daughter who was a loving sister and friend to many.”
White, 56, met Burack, who grew up in Westchester and graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Penn., at Hampton Gym Corp in Southampton around 2019. The two briefly dated, and he called her an “angel” who helped him rent out homes during the pandemic.
In 2020, she was a cast member on the Netflix reality series “Million Dollar Beach House,” which followed agents from the luxury brokerage Nest Seekers International as they sold mansions in the Hamptons. The show ended after one season.
But White started to notice that Burack’s behavior seemed off in early 2022, around the time that she was involved in a $200,000 commission dispute with her employer, Nest Seekers, and Douglas Elliman over the sale of a multi-million dollar property in Southampton.
“She was obsessed with losing her listing and not getting her commission,” said White, adding that he sold the home as the builder.
“We don’t comment on pending litigation and given the tragic events over the last week it should not be the focus,” Nest Seekers Hamptons area regional manager Geoff Gifkins told The Post.
The Post has reached out to Douglas Elliman for comment.
Burack, according to White, became suspicious of her colleagues and grew increasingly reclusive.
“She thought there were things going on … that people were trying to put anthrax in her food,” he said. “She wasn’t eating regularly.”
Consumed by the court dispute, Burack “began spending all her time at the library, constantly researching things for no clear reason,” White said.
Multiple sources also confirmed that Burack spent “hours” in the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton. (The library did not return The Post’s request for comment).
“She’d sit on a bench with me for an hour or so and show me all these papers and her business plan,” White said.
“She was needing mental health help for a very long time,” a Southampton source told The Post. “The last year or two, she was homeless. I would see her walking around with her bag. She was always at the library which was a sad place to go.”
White said that he and Burack’s family “tried to get her into rehab. We tried to help her. Her poor mother did everything to help her. Her mom tried everything … she got an interventionist.”
The Sunday before the accident that took Burack’s life, White said, she called him up and said she was in Hampton Bays and wanted to get food.
“I only gave her enough money for food and for the bus,” he said. “She wasn’t destitute. But she didn’t carry any money with her. I still don’t understand. Maybe she was just tired of it. Sometimes you become a slave to money and your career.”
The Southampton source was surprised to hear that Burack had been in an accident out of town. “When I saw that she got hit in Hampton Bays, the first thing that came to mind was ‘what is she doing in Hamptons Bays?’ I don’t know how she got there.
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“This was a tragedy – everyone knew what was going on and no one did anything,” the Southampton source added. “It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.”
White believes the tragedy began when people turned away from Burack.
“She had a million friends. She had material things, immaterial things. She had everything,” he said. But once things started going wrong for her, “They all scattered.”
