HORROR IN THE HAMPTONS

"ONE of Oprah Winfrey's favorite designers, Edward Wilkerson, was recently the target of a terrifying home invasion at his East Hampton mansion, where he encountered a hulking figure in a slick black raincoat inching toward him with a crowbar. Wilkerson thinks the perp targeted his Hedges Banks Drive home the early morning of Dec. 3 because it's under construction, and appears to be empty from the road. "I live there alone and was staying in the guesthouse. It looked like no one was home," Wilkerson told Page Six. "Just before it happened, my neighbor's car was stolen. So I had parked my car in his driveway because there are always trucks in mine." Wilkerson, who is the talent behind design house Lafayette 148, said he was "startled" awake at 2 a.m. when he heard his door rattling, although there was no wind outside. "I was scared to death," he said. "It kept getting louder, so I get up and ask, 'Who's there?' " He then looked out the door and saw a man in the breezeway between the main house and the guesthouse, wearing a black raincoat with a hood pulled low over his face. The intruder slipped behind a post to hide. "Then he walks to the contractor's toolbox and grabbed a crowbar," the designer relates. "He walked towards me and I moved and shut the door." The prowler suddenly stopped and fled. Wilkerson called East Hampton Town Police from his cellphone but was so "freaked out" after they left, he drove around aimlessly in his car for two hours. The cops recently told him they have a lead in the case. Wilkerson said it's not the first time he's been targeted. Just prior to the break-in, $2,000 went missing from a bag he left in his living room while he was in another area of the house. "Of course I'm scared, but I have to go to the house," he said. Meanwhile, he's staying at his Brooklyn home and installing high-tech security cameras at the Hamptons mansion, which he can watch from the city. "The block association out there cares about how many trees you have in your lawn and street signs," he said. "You're on your own. It's like the Wild West out there." PAGE SIX...NEW YORK POST 12/17/07