A rare miss for Kaali-Nagy?

Maybe not — I haven’t seen it personally, yet — but his new listing at 293 Chapman Lane (293 Lake Avenue, but down a side lane, and well removed from Lake’s traffic noise) strikes me as overlarge, even for its 1.5 acres. This was recently the site of an obsolete old house on two separate building lots totaling 3.7 acres, but the house was razed by Kaali-Nagy and two houses are going up. This is the first to be finished.

At its full 3.7 acres, the land was really attractive, especially because it’s on lower Lake, very close to town, and i had clients who were tempted, but as a two-lot split, not so much. I can’t quite tell, but it appears that there’s a shared driveway leading to the under-construction house to the south, and that’s unattractive. Further, most of the acreage of this lot is down a steep cliff and inaccessible without a bungee cord. Bummer.

And to my eye, the house is just too damn big. Maybe not, and it could very well work for a buyer interested in a very large house three minutes from the Avenue, but this is a Kaali-Nagy design that doesn’t work for me. Of course, I felt the same way about his houses on Marks Road in Riverside a few years ago and, while they had to shed a million or so before they sold, sell they did, so I’m sure this will all sort itself out, if for no other reason than a Kaali-Nagy house is always, always built to the highest standard of quality, and good construction will always sell. Eventually.

Subject parcel, top. Tree line demarks 50’ cliff leading to swamp

Pending in Riverside — Update: sold

47 Carriglea Drive, asking $5.495 million [has sold for $4.7]. Brother Gideon represented the former owners when they sold it back in 2005 for $3.7. It was gut renovated after that, and put back up for sale with a new broker in 2015 at $6.995. That didn’t work out, so Gideon got a second bite of the apple (and a new price) and did the job.

UPDATE: This post is slightly garbled because the “pending” report was followed a couple of hours later by the sold. I’m guessing that, after paying to renovate this house, the sellers took a hit, but that’s real estate for you.

Gideon Fountain, dumb waiter

Back Country Blues

One Old Round Hill Road is back with its third agent and seventh price drop and can be yours today for $5.950 million. That’s down from its 2016 opening price of $8.495, but close to the price paid when all the world was new, or at least this house was, in 2004: $5,901,350.

I don’t think the listing’s pictures do it justice: this is a Kaali-Nagy design, with the well proportioned dimensions that Kaali-Nagy excels at, and despite its size, it works. Or it did — I haven’t been back to see it since it was on the market 14 years ago, and it’s possible that the “renovations” claimed in the current listing have compromised it. My guess is that it’s the location that’s hurting this home’s prospects, rather than the design itself. Who wants to live up here these day? Far fewer than before, according to recent sales records — just ask home owners in Conyers Farm.

And the price, of course, but that seems to be being addressed.

Won't somebody send a bulldozer up here and end the owner's misery?

The solution is child’s play

918 North Street, a monstrous mock Tudor built in 2006 has for the zillionth time cut its price and changed agents, again, and is now down to $4.999, a rather drastic drop from its 2009 price of $16.9. Even at the new number it’s probably still overpriced, because the past nine years have indicated — shouted, in fact — that there’s no market for pretentious, unlivable pretend castles in Greenwich. Maybe it would go in Westchester; I don’t know that market, but I pass through the area from time to time, and have seen similar homes, so someone buys these things, somewhere.

The owners paid $3.5 for the original house and its four acres in 2004, but I wouldn’t think that same land would fetch as much today. Scrape it and forget it, is my advice. The owner’s a car dealer, and he’s surely sold his share of lemons in his day, so I’d suggest he do the same thing he’s probably told disappointed buyers: suck it up, fella, and move on. Today’s price cut is a good step in that direction, but there are miles to go before this horror sleeps.

Regrettable house design, Vol. 1

Kozy Kitchen

Oh for Crissake, who needs a two-story privy, even with a virgin fireplace?

(Relatively) large sale up on Taconic Road

156 Taconic, last asking $5.350 million, has passed through the contingent contract stage to “pending”, and we should see a completed sale soon. Built in 2014 for the current owners (so it actually is a “custom” home), it encompasses either 9,000 square feet or 14,000, depending upon whether, unlike the tax man, you include the basement.

Not to my taste, in any way, any detail, but I’m not the market for this type of structure, so who cares?

Riverside price cut on Club Road

30 Club Road, now down to $5.499 million from its opening ask of $6.549 million, and substantially below the $6.453 these owners paid for it in 2012. It’s a beautiful, 1900 home completely renovated by the previous owners, and Club Road’s a popular location — the same house, in excellent, but unrenovated condition, sold in just 14 days back in 2007 at full ask, $4.350. My guess is that the 2012 purchasers was too high; I certainly thought so at the time, and now they’re getting down to current value.

Zebra combo, with orange tiger

Realtorese

There are lots of phony claims in real estate listings. “Renovated” is not necessarily completely false, but is certainly wide open for a particular agent’s interpretation, and can range from a complete, down-to-the-studs gut job and rebuild, to new kitchen cabinets, to sweeping the dust bunnies from out under the beds. But what really riles me is the description of a spec house as “custom built”. A bespoke suit is one thing, while an off the rack sack from Jos. A. Banks is another.

So today’s price cut on 12 Shore Road in Old Greenwich, from $3.199 million to $2.799 caught my eye, because it’s described as “custom built” — it was not.

A spec builder put it up in 2010, priced it at $3.495 (a silly price) and after giving up on that and renting it out, finally sold it to these owners in 2014 for $2.5. It’s a perfectly nice house on tidal waters bordering Stamford, but custom built it is not.

At least the description doesn’t claim that it’s been renovated since 2014, but that does raise the question of why it’s worth so much more today than what the sellers paid for it.

Going down

For $5.350, and especially $7.2 million, won’t you at least repave the drive? First impressions count.

32 Pecksland Road, priced at $7.2 million in 2017, has taken another price cut today and is now asking $5.350. The owners paid $5.2 for this 1929 home back in 1997 and some modernization attempts have been made, but the value has certainly not kept up with inflation, and given the market for tired old estates, the eventual sale -price will surely disappoint.

As an aside, the listing describes it as offering “external beauty south of the Parkway”. Is that a concession that the interior needs (a lot of) work?

Pending in Cos Cob

4 Holly Way (off Cat Rock), reports a pending sale, last asked-for-price $3.495 million. Decent buy, I’d say, even if its design is pretty much indistinguishable from so many of the houses that went up on Cognewaugh and Cat Rock in the 2000s — you build what sells, and this design sold.

It sold when new in 2005 for $4.295, just 27 days after hitting the market. New construction is just as attractive as a new car, I suppose, but once it leaves the dealer’s lot, ouch.0

Greenwich finally catches up with the federal government — or is it the other way around?

Way back in the enlightened 90s, HUD urged realtors to stop describing the principle bedroom in house as a “master” because it implied sexism, or racism, or whatever. Some folks thought that was about as silly as demanding that ads change descriptions from “ a short walk” to town, to “a few blocks from” — not everyone can walk, see, and implying that they can is disabilist.

Or whatever. Anyway, new construction at One Martindale, a good street, probably a nice house, listed today at $4.950 million, lists a “principle bedroom”, with nary a master to be found.

Too bad the architect slipped and labelled the lower, windowless nanny room in the basement “slave quarters”, but progress is made one step, or one turn of the wheelchair at a time.