July 30, 2004
Let There be Light
Saw a very nice new listing last week that was well priced, even at four million plus. It has a great location close to town, seems to have been very well built and I liked it. But as I was wandering through the place I encountered Alice Duff, who knows just about everything worth knowing about Greenwich real estate and she pointed out that three of the bathrooms lacked windows. This is not a good thing. People like windows in bathrooms and builders ought to remember this. Especially if, as is the case in two of these bathrooms, fenestration could have been easily achieved merely by switching the position of the bedroom closet. I don’t know if the original builder was trying to save on the cost of two windows or if he encountered some structural/design hurdle when laying out his plans, but I think he’d have been well advised to have tried harder.
Byram Moves Forward
The Whaba brothers have finally received permission from our P&Z to build twenty luxury condominiums and a marina on the Byram waterfront. This after years of presentations, denials and lawsuits shrunk the original proposal for forty-seven units, but apparently the project still makes economic sense and will proceed. This is good news for Byram because the project had huge local support and will, everyone hopes, trigger a renaissance in the area. I don’t fault the P&Z for attempting to ensure that waterfront development proceed according to some grand master plan but, as I understand the situation, there is no master plan, and no particularly sustained effort has been made to develop one. The lack of such a plan, combined with a refusal to approve any waterfront projects until a plan is devised, inevitably invites a process of zoning by law suit. This seems like a peculiar planning strategy to me but then, I’m not a professional planner.
The Booboise Come Calling
A real estate ad I wrote recently drew fire from several (former, I hope) readers who, in a series of phone calls to both me and my employers branded as “racist” my observation that lawn workers in Greenwich speak Spanish. Why does pointing out a simple truth constitute racist behavior? I think my callers are conflicted. As Greenwich liberals (conservatives usually “view with concern” while liberals are “shocked and dismayed”; these were of the latter camp and by their cliches shall ye know them) it must be disquieting for them to realize that they could each sell off their Back Country homes, feed ten thousand African families for a year on the proceeds and go follow Jesus. They don’t want to do that, obviously (if you change your mind, ladies, be sure to call me) and they’re nagged by the uncomfortable feeling that they are exploiting the poor by employing them. This isn’t a feeling I share—as a free-marketer, I strongly support acts of capitalism between consenting adults—but our homeowners are more sensitive than I, so they have created a warm little fantasy in which their yard workers are their friends. The deeply-tanned people who show up to toil under a hot sun are actually their investment-banker neighbors, Yale grads all, gladly embracing the opportunity to hone their masonry skills in case there’s a downturn on Wall Street. They do a spot of work, relax under the shade of old elms while crooning their favorite Whiffenpoof songs and then stroll down the street to rejoin their families in time for poolside cocktails. A nice fantasy now spoiled by mean old me who had the temerity to point out that the yard workers speak Spanish. Spanish! They don’t do that at Yale! How cruel of me to mention it! Since all racists are cruel and I am cruel, I must be a racist. Angry phone calls demonstrating this incredible failure at Aristotelian logic shall be made. Will furious letters to the editor follow? Ones that will showcase our outraged employers as the enlightened, caring personalities that they truly are? The Citizen doesn’t carry any other funny pages, so let’s hope so. The saddest thing about this exhibition of reptilian brain-stem activity is that my callers will slither to a voting booth next November and cancel my vote with theirs. Too bad.
I do realize that this rant has nothing to do with the ostensible subject of this column but what the heck, it’s a slow month for real estate, it is my column and I really, really don’t like idiot people calling me the vilest of names. Say I’m ugly—I can live with the truth—but don’t dare smear me with your own guilty conscience.
Next week: signers for the deaf at rock concerts. If they sign the lyrics, why don’t they also have someone playing air guitar?
Saw a very nice new listing last week that was well priced, even at four million plus. It has a great location close to town, seems to have been very well built and I liked it. But as I was wandering through the place I encountered Alice Duff, who knows just about everything worth knowing about Greenwich real estate and she pointed out that three of the bathrooms lacked windows. This is not a good thing. People like windows in bathrooms and builders ought to remember this. Especially if, as is the case in two of these bathrooms, fenestration could have been easily achieved merely by switching the position of the bedroom closet. I don’t know if the original builder was trying to save on the cost of two windows or if he encountered some structural/design hurdle when laying out his plans, but I think he’d have been well advised to have tried harder.
Byram Moves Forward
The Whaba brothers have finally received permission from our P&Z to build twenty luxury condominiums and a marina on the Byram waterfront. This after years of presentations, denials and lawsuits shrunk the original proposal for forty-seven units, but apparently the project still makes economic sense and will proceed. This is good news for Byram because the project had huge local support and will, everyone hopes, trigger a renaissance in the area. I don’t fault the P&Z for attempting to ensure that waterfront development proceed according to some grand master plan but, as I understand the situation, there is no master plan, and no particularly sustained effort has been made to develop one. The lack of such a plan, combined with a refusal to approve any waterfront projects until a plan is devised, inevitably invites a process of zoning by law suit. This seems like a peculiar planning strategy to me but then, I’m not a professional planner.
The Booboise Come Calling
A real estate ad I wrote recently drew fire from several (former, I hope) readers who, in a series of phone calls to both me and my employers branded as “racist” my observation that lawn workers in Greenwich speak Spanish. Why does pointing out a simple truth constitute racist behavior? I think my callers are conflicted. As Greenwich liberals (conservatives usually “view with concern” while liberals are “shocked and dismayed”; these were of the latter camp and by their cliches shall ye know them) it must be disquieting for them to realize that they could each sell off their Back Country homes, feed ten thousand African families for a year on the proceeds and go follow Jesus. They don’t want to do that, obviously (if you change your mind, ladies, be sure to call me) and they’re nagged by the uncomfortable feeling that they are exploiting the poor by employing them. This isn’t a feeling I share—as a free-marketer, I strongly support acts of capitalism between consenting adults—but our homeowners are more sensitive than I, so they have created a warm little fantasy in which their yard workers are their friends. The deeply-tanned people who show up to toil under a hot sun are actually their investment-banker neighbors, Yale grads all, gladly embracing the opportunity to hone their masonry skills in case there’s a downturn on Wall Street. They do a spot of work, relax under the shade of old elms while crooning their favorite Whiffenpoof songs and then stroll down the street to rejoin their families in time for poolside cocktails. A nice fantasy now spoiled by mean old me who had the temerity to point out that the yard workers speak Spanish. Spanish! They don’t do that at Yale! How cruel of me to mention it! Since all racists are cruel and I am cruel, I must be a racist. Angry phone calls demonstrating this incredible failure at Aristotelian logic shall be made. Will furious letters to the editor follow? Ones that will showcase our outraged employers as the enlightened, caring personalities that they truly are? The Citizen doesn’t carry any other funny pages, so let’s hope so. The saddest thing about this exhibition of reptilian brain-stem activity is that my callers will slither to a voting booth next November and cancel my vote with theirs. Too bad.
I do realize that this rant has nothing to do with the ostensible subject of this column but what the heck, it’s a slow month for real estate, it is my column and I really, really don’t like idiot people calling me the vilest of names. Say I’m ugly—I can live with the truth—but don’t dare smear me with your own guilty conscience.
Next week: signers for the deaf at rock concerts. If they sign the lyrics, why don’t they also have someone playing air guitar?
posted by Chris Fountain at 10:28 AM
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