October 22, 2004
Homer Nods
My friend Nancy Fountain informs me that natural selection, not malice, is responsible for all those squirrels heading straight for our cars. Turns out the old model squirrel had a gene that caused it to zig-zag when fleeing, which was good for avoiding natural predators but caused a fatal indecision when dodging cars. Now that automobiles outnumber hawks and foxes, the Micheline Man’s been busy clearing out the zig zag gene pool, leaving the straight runners on our streets. Hmmm. Sounds reasonable, but if I spot any of them wearing tiny backpacks, I’m not braking.
My brother Gideon tells me that the house across the street from our alcoholic screen repairman belonged to the President of J.P. Morgan, not the Dime Savings Bank. Gideon’s my younger brother, so what does he know? But it’s possible he’s right – a stopped clock and all that.
And, finally, another reader informs me that the Arts & Crafts houses on Chapel Street were supplied by Monkey Ward, not Sears. I choose to adopt Dan Rather’s slogan as my own: “we report, you correct.”
18 Pintail Lane
I wrote about this house in a recent column, saying that I liked it but wondering if it would fetch its asking price of $2,850,000. It did, immediately, and went to contract within nine days. So much for the old adage to be wary of buying the best house on the street – a good house, in this town, will sell almost regardless of location. I don’t mean to disparage Pintail, which is a very nice, quiet street, but all the other houses on that road are far more modest than this one. There was a time when it was possible to over-improve on certain streets; the value of your neighbor’s houses served as a constraint on yours. It is harder and harder to find such streets these days. For instance, Riverside Lane, until a few years ago a neighborhood of $350,000 homes, has seen at least two new houses sell for nearly $2,000,000, with more going up. Similar examples abound throughout town, particularly in Old Greenwich. As an aside, while Pintail’s selling price is by no means the record for a modular home, those readers who think that modulars bring down a neighborhood’s value should think again.
Great Old House
Nancy Healy (Shore & Country) has listed an 1899 beauty at 251 Palmer Hill Road for $2,275,000.00. It’s huge (so large, in fact, that the present owners are downsizing to a smaller version built by the same Mr. Sawyer) and absolutely perfect for a family with swarms of kids. Almost an acre and a half, with swimming pool and pool house (with fireplace), the house itself has nine or ten bedrooms, three fireplaces (a nifty double one in the hall), high, high ceilings and room enough to entertain all of Washington’s staff officers – the Continental Army camped at the top of Palmer Hill on its way to New York a century and more before this house was built. That particular adventure didn’t pan out but, as you may recall, things turned out okay in the end. This is not a house for gerontophobics – a few floors sag at alarming angles, some door frames tilt a bit crazily, and so on, but a house like this did its settling long ago and isn’t going anywhere. A buyer might want to modernize the huge kitchen and perhaps update the bathrooms - I’d leave things exactly the way they are.
The Market
It’s been a busy week. Twenty properties went to contract (Jan Milligan’s listing at 500 Round Hill Road, twenty acres and a fine old mansion led the way at $16,900,000) and seventy-nine new listings came on. Two one bedroom condos at the Common (1465 E. Putnam Avenue) went quickly in the $375,000 range, for those of you tracking prices at that location.
A Word to the Wise
Saw a house the other day, nearly seventeen thousand square feet, asking price of twenty million plus. A nice enough place, I suppose, for those who need that kind of room to swing a cat in but in all those square feet I didn’t see a single book. The moral here is, I think, that if you want to get rich you’d better pull your nose from that book you’re reading and get busy thinking about money. Just as soon as I finish my current novel, I’ll crack to it.
My friend Nancy Fountain informs me that natural selection, not malice, is responsible for all those squirrels heading straight for our cars. Turns out the old model squirrel had a gene that caused it to zig-zag when fleeing, which was good for avoiding natural predators but caused a fatal indecision when dodging cars. Now that automobiles outnumber hawks and foxes, the Micheline Man’s been busy clearing out the zig zag gene pool, leaving the straight runners on our streets. Hmmm. Sounds reasonable, but if I spot any of them wearing tiny backpacks, I’m not braking.
My brother Gideon tells me that the house across the street from our alcoholic screen repairman belonged to the President of J.P. Morgan, not the Dime Savings Bank. Gideon’s my younger brother, so what does he know? But it’s possible he’s right – a stopped clock and all that.
And, finally, another reader informs me that the Arts & Crafts houses on Chapel Street were supplied by Monkey Ward, not Sears. I choose to adopt Dan Rather’s slogan as my own: “we report, you correct.”
18 Pintail Lane
I wrote about this house in a recent column, saying that I liked it but wondering if it would fetch its asking price of $2,850,000. It did, immediately, and went to contract within nine days. So much for the old adage to be wary of buying the best house on the street – a good house, in this town, will sell almost regardless of location. I don’t mean to disparage Pintail, which is a very nice, quiet street, but all the other houses on that road are far more modest than this one. There was a time when it was possible to over-improve on certain streets; the value of your neighbor’s houses served as a constraint on yours. It is harder and harder to find such streets these days. For instance, Riverside Lane, until a few years ago a neighborhood of $350,000 homes, has seen at least two new houses sell for nearly $2,000,000, with more going up. Similar examples abound throughout town, particularly in Old Greenwich. As an aside, while Pintail’s selling price is by no means the record for a modular home, those readers who think that modulars bring down a neighborhood’s value should think again.
Great Old House
Nancy Healy (Shore & Country) has listed an 1899 beauty at 251 Palmer Hill Road for $2,275,000.00. It’s huge (so large, in fact, that the present owners are downsizing to a smaller version built by the same Mr. Sawyer) and absolutely perfect for a family with swarms of kids. Almost an acre and a half, with swimming pool and pool house (with fireplace), the house itself has nine or ten bedrooms, three fireplaces (a nifty double one in the hall), high, high ceilings and room enough to entertain all of Washington’s staff officers – the Continental Army camped at the top of Palmer Hill on its way to New York a century and more before this house was built. That particular adventure didn’t pan out but, as you may recall, things turned out okay in the end. This is not a house for gerontophobics – a few floors sag at alarming angles, some door frames tilt a bit crazily, and so on, but a house like this did its settling long ago and isn’t going anywhere. A buyer might want to modernize the huge kitchen and perhaps update the bathrooms - I’d leave things exactly the way they are.
The Market
It’s been a busy week. Twenty properties went to contract (Jan Milligan’s listing at 500 Round Hill Road, twenty acres and a fine old mansion led the way at $16,900,000) and seventy-nine new listings came on. Two one bedroom condos at the Common (1465 E. Putnam Avenue) went quickly in the $375,000 range, for those of you tracking prices at that location.
A Word to the Wise
Saw a house the other day, nearly seventeen thousand square feet, asking price of twenty million plus. A nice enough place, I suppose, for those who need that kind of room to swing a cat in but in all those square feet I didn’t see a single book. The moral here is, I think, that if you want to get rich you’d better pull your nose from that book you’re reading and get busy thinking about money. Just as soon as I finish my current novel, I’ll crack to it.
posted by Chris Fountain at 8:59 AM
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