Real estate trend

120 Hillcrest Park Road listed six days ago for $775,000 and has now reported as sold for $865,000. Almost certainly a tear-down, this property is located at the end of Hillcrest, next to River Road, and a few years ago would have been considered a non-starter for any new construction priced over, say, two million, and probably lower. But the entire area is being developed now, and $3+ houses are selling well.

Markets shift, and the Sheephill Road/Hillcrest neighborhood is shifting significantly upward.

Not related to anything much at all, but pretty damn funny

A French (of course) bulldog loses it when he discovers that his trip to the dog park has been cancelled. The priceless part: his mistress’s rebuke.

What is it about this property that inspires such delusion and incompetence?

Photoshopped sunsets and Thomas Kinkade window lights still can’t hide the ugliness within.

309 Taconic Road, a gross monstrosity of 23,000 square space that’s been seeking a buyer since 2005 has tried a variety of yo-yo pricing strategies over the years. The original owner started at $31 million, eventually dropped it to $23,750 in 2007 and $9.750 in 2012 before losing it to foreclosure. The new lender/owner raised its price to $13,750 in 2015, dropped it to $10.9 in 2016 and then to $9.399 in 2017. Since it wouldn’t sell at $9.4, the geniuses at the bank jumped it to $12 million earlier this year, and today dropped it to $10.750.

All of these strange price adjustments fail to acknowledge a basic fact: no one wants a huge, tasteless house that lacks a single livable room. The property’s 21 acres are comprised of a postage stamp of a side yard and a cliff that drops down to a swampy hollow across the driveway, far below. Did I mention that it lacks an outdoor pool and only offers an indoor lap wallow? The only “client” of mine who ever expressed avid interest in this place turned out to be — I kid you not — a penniless escapee from a lunatic asylum, come to Greenwich to wreak a fraud upon the owner of that institution. There’s a story there, but for now ….

The lender’s best bet here is to drop the price to its land value: maybe $3 million, maybe not, less a credit for the considerable cost of razing this horrible example of a failed financier’s megalomania. I’m betting that won’t happen for another five years.

The price, if not the house, is eye-catching

Simple courtesy towards guests, let alone esthetics, would suggest some kind of sheltered entrance here.

New today, 55 Old Stone Bridge Road, asking $895,00. Old Stone Bridge was a mid-70s development built on the former Chimblo property, which was a great place to camp when the Chimblo brothers opened it to local Boy Scout troops, but not prime building land: rocky, hilly and in other sections, swampy. A number of contractors built houses there nonetheless, of varying quality, depending on which builder was involved.

Current sales tend to cluster around $1.5ish, so this price seems attractive, depending on both the quality of the land it’s perched on and its condition. Listing agent Steve Archino is very experienced, and not known, by me at least, for giving houses away, and has both set the price and described it as being sold “as is”, so as always, I’ll trust Steve’s opinion, sight unseen.

It certainly doesn’t look like much, but if salvageable, this might be an opportunity to get into town at an affordable price. It reminds me of Pal Nancy’s and my own first purchase, when we moved from Greenwich to Bangor, Maine, long ago. I was fresh out of law school, and living on a Bangor, Maine associate’s salary, we had limited means, but we were just-married then, without children, and could devote evenings and weekends to rehabbing an 1835 farmhouse to good effect, at low cost. But that was then; today, I’m not sure how many young people have the skill to perform such work or, and more important, the inclination to do it.

But it could work. Old Stone Bridge is a very decent area, and this house might be worth the effort, though I’d certainly recommend a thorough inspection.

No a/c, certainly needs a new hvac system, including furnace, and this master bath is … unfortunate.

spacious terrace for entertaining your three closest friends

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.