New listing on Ledge Road, Old Greenwich

16 Ledge Road, priced at $4.250 million. I won’t vouch for that price — might be spot-on, might be a tad high, but this is a grand old (1899) summer house, converted to year-round use long ago, and a real prize. One of the previous owners’ daughters was, and still is, my Sarah’s best friend, and I had occasion over the years to come to know at least the public rooms, and was hugely impressed.

I’m not sure of its flood status — I suspect that at least part of the house may be included in that portion of the property included in the VE zone, in which case, per elevation certificate, there may be a compliance problem. Certainly something to investigate.

But everything good comes at a price. A year after beautifully renovating this house in 2007, a house around the corner on Indian Drive came on the market: direct waterfront, and the original owners sold Ledge and bought the waterfront. A few years after that, during one of our more significant storms a storm surge pushed its way through the Indian Drive home’s ground floor, causing damage that evicted the family for six months while repairs were made. The father of Sarah’s friend was philosophical: “if you can’t afford to take the hit, you shouldn’t live on the water” (did I mention that he’s got (a lot, lot more money than I have?). But the view, from the front door, through the living room to a glass wall framing Long Island Sound was, and now is again, awesome, and I both agreed with the owner, and envied his financial ability to absorb the calamity.

None of which applies to 16 Ledge Road, of course, which is somewhat inland; I’m just indulging in a bit of philosophical musing about life near the water. No fifteen-foot waves are going to smash through 16 Ledge, though there’s always the possibility of being marooned for a few days during the next major hurricane. That’s a risk I’d accept, could I afford it, to live on Ledge.

Nice house, excellent neighborhood.\

This is my shocked face

Western Middle School to drop its IB curriculum due to its complete failure to attract out-of-district students.

GREENWICH — Western Middle School will retire its IB magnet program in favor of a new theme that administrators will announce sometime next year.

Western adopted the IB magnet theme in 2013 in hopes of attracting students from other parts of Greenwich and balancing out the school’s racial make up.Students of color comprise 55.9 percent of the overall population at Western

Parents prefer local schools for many reasons, not least of which is that they afford their children to make friends with other students in their own neighborhood. Walk to school and, as was the case with my own children, walk home with classmates and play at their houses, or bus the kids over to the other side of town and drag them back at end of the day? No brainer: even the parents of children in the western side of town expressed their objection to busing their own children to other districts.

This entire IB program, concocted at great expense to Greenwich taxpayers, was always a mere charade, meant to get the state off our back with its demand that we bus children around town (or merge Greenwich schools with Stamford’s) to achieve racial balance. Almost everyone involved knew that it would fail, and many of us (ahem) advocating filing a preemptive suit against the state on constitutional grounds. The town in its wisdom chose to proceed with this ridiculous effort to kick the can down the road, and now we’re on to something else.

Tell the state to pound sand, afford parents who want their children to matriculate with white children the opportunity to enroll them in other districts, and end this circus.

Old Greenwich contract

22 Meadowbank Road, asking $2.195 million. Just there bedrooms, but still looks like a good deal for Meadowbank, 2007 construction.

Binney Park version of The Zebra

Submitted, with caption, by a reader who I’m positive wishes to remain anonymous, but does share my taste in dark humor.

HATE when that happens

Can't always get what you want

636 Riversville Road, across from the Audubon Center and aprox. 55 miles from town, cut its price today to $3.850 million, which is quite a price cut from the $7.590 it asked when it began this sales journey back in 2012. The owner, an experienced, successful rep estate agent, paid $3.995 for it in 2004, then expanded it and completely reworked it before returning it to the market six years ago. With luck, she and her husband took full enjoyment from those improvements, because it turns out, the market won’t pay for them.

No accounting for taste

9 Mountain Laurel, up on the Bedford border, is pending. Last asking price, $3.850 million. The owners paid $4.9 for it in 2005 and recently redid the kitchen — given the loss they’re absorbing, the money spent on the kitchen seems ill advised.

I’m not a fan of dark homes, especially those perched up there in the far reaches of town, but there’s obviously one set of buyers ut there who disagrees.

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?