masonry vs. pre-fab
Up In Smoke
There is a new home going up in Riverside that, judging from its location and size, is probably destined to sell for about $2.5 million. Nice looking house, but I notice that they’ve installed a prefabricated chimney; too bad. I’m sure that, properly installed, a pre-fab chimney is every bit as efficient and safe as a masonry one so please don’t write to tell me so. But the same thing can be said for Anderson windows with plastic snap-on grids; they work just fine; I have them in my own home, in fact, but they look cheesy. Fine for a tear-down like my house, but not okay for multi-million dollar new construction. With masonry, you can depart from the standard firebox and be creative: build a Count Rumford fireplace, for instance, that’s shallow, wide, and actually throws heat into the room instead of sucking it up the flue. Or be creative with the chimney itself, designing with brick and enhancing the exterior. Go wild; the few bucks extra you may spend will only add to your enjoyment of your home and its ultimate resale value. Your neighbors will thank you (and members of the brick-layer’s union may thank me by sending suitable contributions to this paper).
And Speaking of Which
Can we agree that the neo-shingle style has run its course? The first few hundred of these homes were a welcome change from split-levels and the New Canaan style (pseudo-Georgian with stone and a fake balcony) but Greenwich is beginning to resemble Nantucket South and it’s boring.
Riverside Fluke?
If you attended college anytime after 1970, you probably read Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. To recapitulate for you fraternity boys, Kuhn posited that scientists create a paradigm in which to view the world: the sun revolves around the earth, for instance. If a new datum appears outside that paradigm (a planet doesn’t orbit the earth) it is dismissed as an aberration. Gradually, as exceptions accumulate, the paradigm is shifted to accommodate them and, when that becomes too unwieldy, the paradigm falls, to be replaced by a new one that encompasses all the data: the earth orbits the sun. And the process begins again.
Real estate pricing is similar. A house came on the market this spring at a price that I and many other agents felt was much too high. Two equivalent or better homes just around the corner were asking $350,000 less; a brand new home just a hundred yards away was only $100,000 more. Yet the house sold, and for 98% of the asking price. Right now, I’m inclined to dismiss the sale as a fluke; a crazy price paid by someone with either more money than sense or a steely determination to own that house on that street. But the other possibility is that I was dead wrong (perish the thought) and that this “aberration” is actually evidence that the market has suddenly lurched forward. Like Mr. Kuhn’s scientists, those of us who think this house was over-priced will not start adjusting our view of relative values until and unless more such “flukes” start occurring. But if it was not an aberration, then everyone in Riverside south of the Post Road can start notching up their house values by $300,000 or so.
Gilliam Lane
Ed Mortimer’s new listing at 7 Gilliam Lane looks interesting. Quirky, with a backyard devoted mostly to a very nice pool and bricked surround, I liked this house very much. Easy walk to the train and Riverside’s schools, Gilliam is a quiet (now that the Fountain boys have moved out), beautiful street with very nice people. $2,095,000.
Child Abuse
(A better man, seeing the following, would refrain from commenting on it in what purports to be a real estate column. I am not that man)
From the Greenwich Time advice column, “Ask Annie”:
"Dear Annie-my 4-month old daughter is emotionally abusive. When I get ready for work in the morning, she smiles and giggles and is so cute that I cry all the way to the office....How can I escape the house without seeing her?” Inglewood California.
Well. These clever, rotten Babies! Even at 4 months they know how to abuse us-SMILING! GIGGLING! Probably even COOING! I'm sure Ms. Inglewood will soon block this trauma from her mind but, living in California, she's bound to run into a recovered-memory specialist sooner or later and THEN won't she have a juicy lawsuit against this little monster! Perhaps our own Attorney Blumenthal can represent her.
There is a new home going up in Riverside that, judging from its location and size, is probably destined to sell for about $2.5 million. Nice looking house, but I notice that they’ve installed a prefabricated chimney; too bad. I’m sure that, properly installed, a pre-fab chimney is every bit as efficient and safe as a masonry one so please don’t write to tell me so. But the same thing can be said for Anderson windows with plastic snap-on grids; they work just fine; I have them in my own home, in fact, but they look cheesy. Fine for a tear-down like my house, but not okay for multi-million dollar new construction. With masonry, you can depart from the standard firebox and be creative: build a Count Rumford fireplace, for instance, that’s shallow, wide, and actually throws heat into the room instead of sucking it up the flue. Or be creative with the chimney itself, designing with brick and enhancing the exterior. Go wild; the few bucks extra you may spend will only add to your enjoyment of your home and its ultimate resale value. Your neighbors will thank you (and members of the brick-layer’s union may thank me by sending suitable contributions to this paper).
And Speaking of Which
Can we agree that the neo-shingle style has run its course? The first few hundred of these homes were a welcome change from split-levels and the New Canaan style (pseudo-Georgian with stone and a fake balcony) but Greenwich is beginning to resemble Nantucket South and it’s boring.
Riverside Fluke?
If you attended college anytime after 1970, you probably read Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. To recapitulate for you fraternity boys, Kuhn posited that scientists create a paradigm in which to view the world: the sun revolves around the earth, for instance. If a new datum appears outside that paradigm (a planet doesn’t orbit the earth) it is dismissed as an aberration. Gradually, as exceptions accumulate, the paradigm is shifted to accommodate them and, when that becomes too unwieldy, the paradigm falls, to be replaced by a new one that encompasses all the data: the earth orbits the sun. And the process begins again.
Real estate pricing is similar. A house came on the market this spring at a price that I and many other agents felt was much too high. Two equivalent or better homes just around the corner were asking $350,000 less; a brand new home just a hundred yards away was only $100,000 more. Yet the house sold, and for 98% of the asking price. Right now, I’m inclined to dismiss the sale as a fluke; a crazy price paid by someone with either more money than sense or a steely determination to own that house on that street. But the other possibility is that I was dead wrong (perish the thought) and that this “aberration” is actually evidence that the market has suddenly lurched forward. Like Mr. Kuhn’s scientists, those of us who think this house was over-priced will not start adjusting our view of relative values until and unless more such “flukes” start occurring. But if it was not an aberration, then everyone in Riverside south of the Post Road can start notching up their house values by $300,000 or so.
Gilliam Lane
Ed Mortimer’s new listing at 7 Gilliam Lane looks interesting. Quirky, with a backyard devoted mostly to a very nice pool and bricked surround, I liked this house very much. Easy walk to the train and Riverside’s schools, Gilliam is a quiet (now that the Fountain boys have moved out), beautiful street with very nice people. $2,095,000.
Child Abuse
(A better man, seeing the following, would refrain from commenting on it in what purports to be a real estate column. I am not that man)
From the Greenwich Time advice column, “Ask Annie”:
"Dear Annie-my 4-month old daughter is emotionally abusive. When I get ready for work in the morning, she smiles and giggles and is so cute that I cry all the way to the office....How can I escape the house without seeing her?” Inglewood California.
Well. These clever, rotten Babies! Even at 4 months they know how to abuse us-SMILING! GIGGLING! Probably even COOING! I'm sure Ms. Inglewood will soon block this trauma from her mind but, living in California, she's bound to run into a recovered-memory specialist sooner or later and THEN won't she have a juicy lawsuit against this little monster! Perhaps our own Attorney Blumenthal can represent her.
posted by Chris Fountain at 10:30 AM
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