Last chance for these guys, or they're back in the bait bucket

Fish or cut bait—we'll see.

I've tried to eat mackerel a number of times over the years, and hated it just as many times. But the young'ins are clogging the harbors, and I keep hearing that they can be delicious, so, although dubious, I've reserved two of the dozen I caught this morning and will grill them tonight,  cooking technique I haven't tried, while bagging and freezing the rest of them to use as bait for striped bass, which is delicious. 

Fortunately, I also stopped by the local farmers market while waiting on the tide, and I'll be putting up some peach chutney this afternoon. If the mackerel fails, peach chutney in a grilled-cheese sandwich is a meal in itself. I'll keep you posted (I know that Walt will be waiting with bated—or baited— breath).

UPDATE: This is for Walt

Mackerel fisherwoman

UPDATE II: Bummer! I marinated the fish in a combination of soy, ginger and vinegar, then grilled them, and for the first time ever, found the flesh to be tasty—very good, in fact. But I also discovered that mackerel is one of the few foods I'm allergic to (I assume I'd never eaten enough of it before for my body to discover this). My air path shut down, which was disconcerting, but this weird allergy happens from time to time, usually when some combination of foods attacks, so I simply stopped eating the fish, and the attack passed. But damn, who knew mackerel could do that? I looked it up just now and there is indeed a specific allergy to the fish but generally, it's considered one of the best bets for those with allergic reactions to our finned friends.

Go figure.

I sent this story to my girls, because they'll recognize it as something I so would have done

Professor from Houston, stranded in NYC after accompanying his daughter to her new campus, shows up in her class and stays, embarrassing her horribly.

Fathers are all the same. I once offered to wear a paper bag over my head with "I am not their father" written in magic marker when escorting them in public: they were tempted, but never accepted the offer, even when I slammed the side of a car that almost ran them down in the crosswalk across from the Apple Store—they came close to demanding a bag that day, I assure you.

Daughter's text, "Mommy, come get him": priceless.

• Kerubo Anassi's parents came with her to New York City to help her settle in before starting a graduate program at The New School
• Enock Anassi and his wife's flight home was delayed indefinitely so they've been staying in a hotel in the city
• Enock is a professor himself, so he decided to attend Kerubo's first class with her
• He proudly texted a selfie to the family a selfie of him sitting in the classroom after he got a syllabus
• Kerubo was mortified as her dad introduced himself to the class and quizzed her on the information

The dad proudly texted the entire family a selfie of him sitting in the classroom.

He introduced himself to the entire class, got a syllabus and periodically quizzed Kerubo on the information. 

'Kerubo told me to get out,' he said, 'but the teacher said: "he can stay."'

'The teacher loved me because I was very attentive,' he said.

Kerubo was absolutely mortified. Their dad was taking photos 'audibly' throughout class, 'never turning his phone on silent,' Omete said.

Enock even assigned his daughter extra homework afterward.

Omete was cracking up while listening to his sister's misfortunes, so he shared it on Twitter. The story has now gone viral. 

'We tried to explain to my father that he went viral but he had no idea what that means,' Omete said, laughing. 

The president of the New school, if not Kerubo, was glad to have him

Maybe $1.5? $2?

110 Glenville Road has hit the market at $5.695 million, with the promise that it can be subdivided into four lots, but what builder, witnessing the collapse of prices in Sherwood Farms next door, would pay $1.4 apiece for four building lots? Maybe we'll see some kind of resurgence in values here five years from now - maybe - but for now, highest and best use would probably be a single house, in which case you might want to pay $1.5 for the whole thing, spend $2 million to build a house, and hope that there's a market for a $3.5 house down the road.

Price cut near the high school

53 Hillside Road. Busy street, busy design (Out-of-town builders never do get these things right)

53 Hillside Road, now down to $3,995 million, from $4.395. This is not a horrible, horrible house, but Hillside Road, just a few hundred feet upstream from GHS, is not a tranquil lane, and the original price of $6.495 back in 2006 doomed it. Since then it's been ridden hard and put away wet as a rental, but despite a refreshing as it came off lease, the location hasn't changed, and neither have its basics. 

Still, now that it's broken the 3 barrier, perhaps there's hope. I like it in the high $2s, but the bank will have it long before that happens.

Master bath—WTF?!

It's always entertaining to watch Wall Streeters who can't admit that they made a bad trade in real estate

Stone-clad elephant

9 Sabine Farm, originally listed for $31.5 million with 19 acres, is, as of today, down to $20 million, but that's because the owner has carved up the property, and is now offering it as an aging mansion on just 9 acres, along with two separate lots of 7.5 acres and 4 at $7.5 and $4, respectively. In other words, $31.5 million, total, still. 

I guffawed at this listing when it hit the market in March, and I'm still chuckling. The billionaire owner, Stanley Drukenmiller, is a George Soros crony, and if anyone should know a down-market, he's the guy. But rather than admit that he overpaid for the property in the first place, and compounded his error by sinking millions in renovating the old carcass, he's playing investment banker, and trying to convince himself that he can unlock the "real" value of the property by splitting it into pieces. There are several problems with this strategy: First, he over-paid for the whole; second, a 19-acre manse is not the same as a mansion with two huge new houses crammed next to it; and third, building lots up here aren't selling for a million bucks an acre.

Back in March I predicted that this property would sit on the market for years, suffering a long series of humiliating price cuts. Nothing in today's events tempts me to change that opinion.

Cos Cob contract

15 Relay Place, new construction (2016), last asking $1.850 million. Nice house, and for new construction, not a bad price at all—certainly better than a year ago's price of $2.395—but I've never liked the approach to Relay, sandwiched as it is between Chicken Joe's and the Millpond Shopping Center, and this property has no yard to speak of. Then again, what is life but (except for principles) a series of compromises? 

Money makes strange bedfellows

Richard Cohen, SPLC. "Okay, sure, I do look a bit like Bernie Madoff, but that doesn't mean I'm  crook, does it?"

The rabidly left wing, George Soros-sponsored Southern Poverty Law Center turns out to be investing millions of dollars with Greenwich's Cliff Asness and his AQR hedge fund. Asness, Greenwich's own libertarian financial genius, would at first blush seem to be an unlikely person for SPLC to entrust its looted treasure to, but then again, ya gotta look at the bottom line. Or, as another civil rights warrior put it, "keep your eye on the prize". 

"I've never known a US-based nonprofit dealing in human rights or social services to have any foreign bank accounts," said Amy Sterling Casil, CEO of Pacific Human Capital, a California-based nonprofit consulting firm. "My impression based on prior interactions is that they have a small, modestly paid staff, and were regarded by most in the industry as frugal and reliable. I am stunned to learn of transfers of millions to offshore bank accounts. It is a huge red flag and would have been completely unacceptable to any wealthy, responsible, experienced board member who was committed to a charitable mission who I ever worked with."

"It is unethical for any US-based charity to invest large sums of money overseas," said Casil. "I know of no legitimate reason for any US-based nonprofit to put money in overseas, unregulated bank accounts."

"It seems extremely unusual for a ‘501(c)(3)' concentrating upon reducing poverty in the American South to have multiple bank accounts in tax haven nations," Charles Ortel, a former Wall Street analyst and financial advisor who helped uncover a 2009 financial scandal at General Electric, told the Free Beacon.

The nonprofit also pays lucrative salaries to its top leadership.

Richard Cohen, president and chief executive officer of the SPLC, was given $346,218 in base compensation in 2015, its tax forms show. Cohen received $20,000 more in other reportable compensation and non-taxable benefits. Morris Dees, SPLC's chief trial counsel, received a salary of $329,560 with $42,000 in additional reportable compensation and non-taxable benefits.

The minimum amount paid to an officer, director, trustee, or key employee in 2015 was $140,000 in base salary, not including other compensation.  The group spent $20 million on salaries throughout the year.

The SPLC, which claims to boast a staff of 75 lawyers who practice in the area of children's rights, economic justice, immigrant justice, LGBT rights, and criminal justice reform, reported spending only $61,000 on legal services in 2015.

The price of preservation

107 Meadow Road, Riverside, originally priced at $6.995 million, has closed at $3.7. We've discussed this property several times as it lingered on the market. It's an exceptional, 3+ acre property, but the house that sits on it requires a lot of work, and the late owner encumbered it with deed restrictions that pretty much rule out any exterior changes, let alone additions, and that obviously cut down its market appeal considerably.

The cynic in me wonders whether the buyer has earmarked his savings here for legal fees to be spent busting those restrictions, or whether he's content with getting a fine house at millions below what it might otherwise have brought.

Stay tuned.

Direct sale, $9 million. Nice work, if you can get it

24 Hendrie Drive Ext., Old Greenwich, has sold direct for $9 million, without having to ever sully its feet in the murky waters of our GMLS. Its location must lend itself to this because these sellers also bought it direct, for $1.2 million, in 1997. The current "listing" shows it as having been built in 1916 and renovated in 2000. but that was one heck of a renovation: the entire house is new, and jacked up high enough to block my own family's view of the Sound from further down the creek. Not that we were peeved—we weren't, but a bit jealous? Yes.

Couple of nice stories about the original place: it once served, as did Gideon's oyster house a bit further downstream. as a bootlegger drop-off, and there were bottles around: in the walls, in the attic, and even buried around the property to prove it. And, related, sort of, a previous owner was known to get a bit tipsy from time-to-time and when he did, he'd don a kilt and parade around the grounds at night, playing his bagpipes (and very well, too). Picture a full moon, high tide, and a lamenting Scot, and what else is necessary for a perfect evening?

UPDATE: Screw up a story badly enough and you may just manage to hear from old friends. From Susan Hastings, who grew up there:

It was a gambling casino as well as a rum runners drop off in the 1920's notorious for shootouts over various arguments. Prohibition liquor was stored in a "secret" room which had an escape hatch if needed. Liquor was found in the room by my father who immediately gave it away as he and my mother were teetotalers. He indeed played the bag pipes but I guarantee he was not tipsy! He is probably rolling over in his grave with your suggestion

I think the image of a moonlit tipsy bagpiper is more colorful, but I suppose accuracy should rule.

There's not too much of a mystery in all this

Last August 9th I complemented the owners of 6 Eggleston Lane, Old Greenwich, for dropping their price from $3.995 million to $2.7 in just one swell foop. Today it's reported as under contract. Well done.