New Houses

Janie Galbreath (Round Hill Partners) has just listed 3 Woodside Drive in Milbrook for $4.795. A fabulous house, built in 1930 and completely renovated, from wiring to baths and kitchen without losing any of its original grace. Sited on a huge (for Milbrook) yard of 1.65 acres.

Not in Milbrook but overlooking its golf course, Marshall and Mary Ann Heaven are building a house at 35 Morningside Drive that I thought was very nice. It’s on a half-acre lot and is being built to a top-end level of finishing. Four bedrooms, six thousand square feet of house which includes, I believe, the huge finished basement. It’s been withdrawn from the market but I assume it will return soon.
I also liked Carolyn Anderson’s $859,000 listing at 8 Kent Place in Cos Cob. This is a smallish older house in great shape with a decent yard and nice location (Kent is a dead end off of Orchard). Original doors and moldings from 1928, lots of light and, probably, room to expand on the third floor.

Gary Silberberg (Intriguing Realty) coaxed me into driving over to the west side of town to look at his listing at 8 Seton Lane and I’m glad he did. A confession: fifty years in town, and I’d never seen this particular subdivision. I like it. There is a series of quiet, lightly-trafficked streets, many of which, like Seton, are dead ends. Some of the houses back up to the Byram River and all are modest, but in good condition. 8 Seton Lane is priced at $875,000; if that’s representative of the neighborhood’s pricing then the whole area looks like good starter home territory. Obviously all this is not news to its residents but it was to me.

A Hunting We Will Go

A joke circulated through Wall Street years ago which, because this is a family newspaper, I can only paraphrase: the basic story line involves a bear hunter who keeps returning to the woods despite a worsening infliction of indignities by a bear. On the hunter’s final expedition Mr. Bear sneaks up behind him, taps him on the shoulder and asks, “you didn’t really come here to hunt bears, did you?” I’m reminded of this joke because we Realtors often encounter people who “bid to lose”. These are clients who, time after time, bid enough on a house that they look like serious bidders but always fall just short of submitting a bid large enough to actually buy the place. This quirk of human nature is not restricted to house buying. I observed the same thing when I was a trial lawyer – a case could be settled at a price that screamed out in economic sanity yet one side wouldn’t budge. Always, it was because there was some non-economic issue in play: figure out what that was, and, sometimes, the case could be resolved. Of course, legal cases had an obvious way to end these ambiguities: try the sucker and see what a jury had to say. In real estate, the matter usually dies a slow, whimpering death. The house goes to a higher bidder, the buyer is priced out of the market by rising prices and he disappears. So the moral of all this, I suppose, is that you’ve been trying to buy a house and keep getting shut out, do a bit of internal examination and determine if you’re really bear hunting or just out for a nice stroll in the woods.

Wall Streeters

At the risk of offending my core clientele, the worst offenders of the “bid to lose” game are Wall Streeters who are convinced, all evidence to the contrary, that the market will soon drop and fear that they’ll look like chumps for paying anything close to the asking price. I made a comfortable living for a decade inflicting financial punishment on these people for pushing high-tech stock companies on widows and orphans as “can’t miss” investment opportunities. Had I limited my practice to suing real estate agents who recommended Greenwich real estate as a good investment I’d have starved. Greenwich real estate appreciated 24% last year and has been going steadily up since approximately 1880. So when somebody who thought that companies with no earnings were worth fifty times the market value of General Motors now tells me that he’s too smart to buy Greenwich real estate, I don’t necessarily listen.

Fair is Fair

I enjoy poking fun at our town’s police department from time to time—a holdover from a rebellious youth, probably. But we recently had a medical emergency in my household and had to call 911. The responding officer and two EMTs couldn’t have been more competent, reassuring and caring. We’re fortunate to have such high quality people working in town and I am aware of that. But really, arresting a guy for cross-country skiing on a golf course?

211 Orchard Street

I was prepared to dislike this new house, even though its stuccoed exterior is a refreshing departure from the now almost obligatory pseudo-Victorian shingle style, because it seemed to be crammed in next to its neighbor. But once inside, all doubts departed. The house is sited and designed to take full advantage of the Pomerance property behind it, with the rooms all opening up to private, bucolic views of woods and fields. You’ll never notice your neighbors and can pretend they don’t exist. The quality of finish is exceptional (I might ditch the chandeliers, but that’s just a disagreement in taste). Built and listed by David Van Hoesen.

Tear Down or Renovate?

Almost every day sees yet another clawed machine ripping down a house and tossing it in a dumpster. The seeming wastefulness of all this offends my Yankee sense of thrift but, in fact, not many of the houses leaving town as landfill are going to be missed. Their small bedrooms, low ceilings and middling quality were fine in their day, but that day has passed. Having renovated two houses of my own, I don’t believe that there’s money to be saved by remodeling; it can cost more, actually, and you end up with such a mush of compromises that you’ll wish you wiped the slate clean and started from scratch.

But not always. Karp Associates is just about finished renovating 42 Owenoke Way in Riverside and they’ve done a beautiful job. They bumped out the back and added on a bit in front to allow for a new large kitchen and master suite but from the street the house looks almost unchanged. Listing agent Randy Keleher walked me through it the other day and I was impressed by the exceptional quality of the construction and the creative means Karp employed to blend old with new. Did they save money by not dumpstering the original building? Probably not, but Arnold Karp told me he tries to avoid angering neighbors when he can. I didn’t canvass those neighbors but I hope they’re pleased with the results.

Another point: 42 Owenoke is an over-sized lot, which allowed for expansion. Our town’s FAR regulations, I think, encourage tear-downs on smaller lots because there’s just no room to build around the original structure. So if you are one of those residents who objects to what’s going down, I suggest that you direct your comments to the P&Z (which is presently in the process of making up still-more-restrictive rules rather than demonstrating that they’ve learned anything from their FAR fiasco).

Changing Times

The late Tom Watson’s house on Field Point Circle came on the market the other day and, as I toured it, I was struck by the completely different sensibilities this man lived by. Although it sits on two acres of direct waterfront at probably the most prestigious address in Greenwich I’d still describe the house as modest. It’s a low slung, comfortable dwelling but that’s it. Mr. Watson was obviously quite at ease with who he was and with his place in the world and felt no need to shout his importance by building one of the big box homes so popular today. I was very impressed.

And I was impressed, too by the fact that, even though its asking price is $18,250,000, the listing agent, Ken Yorke of Shore & Country told me that his appointment book for showings was already overflowing. There’s a lot of money in this town, if you hadn’t noticed.

The Homestead Inn

Due to good fortune and the generosity of David Ogilvy I had an opportunity to dine at the Homestead Inn the other night with my daughter Sarah. Spending someone else’s money on myself was wonderful—I felt like Dennis Kozlowski buying shower curtains—but the meal itself was even better. The dining room was quietly lit, the service was perfect; completely unobtrusive yet there instantly when, say, a water glass is emptied. The food was every bit as good as I’ve heard and, for the value delivered, I thought fairly priced. Dinner for two, including appetizers but before tip was $112.00 (neither Sarah nor I are desert buffs or drinkers so your results may vary). I had expected a stuffy atmosphere but the entire experience couldn’t have been warmer or more comfortable. So thank you, David.

Crime Wave Halted in its Tracks!

In a startling display of heads-up crime busting Greenwich Police have arrested a New York State man for X-country skiing on the Griff Harris golf course, thereby preventing a non-resident planting ski tracks in the snow. No word of any progress on the string of burglaries hitting Back Country residents but with this dangerous miscreant safely locked away I’m sure the police will be turning their attention up there, any day now.

276 Otter Rock Drive

Barbara Wells new listing is an 1890 Queen (not that there’s anything wrong with that) Anne mansion that is exactly what a Belle haven house should look like: big, rambling and beautiful. There are seven bedrooms in the main house, most with views of Great Captain’s Harbor, more fireplaces than I could count, elegant rooms for entertaining and almost two acres of land. A carriage house and an asking price of $10,635,000 complete the package. A very, very nice house.

Moving Down a Bit

Hillary Mcatee (New England Land) has listed 29 Meadow Drive in Cos Cob for $995,000. Meadow is a quiet side street, this house is in beautiful condition and I imagine that it will be gone, for more than its asking price, by the time this column is published.

Scale

A lot of the huge new houses going up these days seem, to my eye, to lack any sort of human proportion. Master bedrooms resemble airplane hangers, “great rooms” could easily host the next Republican National Convention, bathrooms accommodate forty of your closest friends and so forth. I observed sad testimony to the cost of all this in one Back Country mansion: most of the house was barren of any sign of human activity but in an alcove off the great room the hapless family had assembled a normal-sized couch, a television and some chairs and books. It seemed obvious to me that this was the only room they felt comfortable in; what a waste of a house, and what a display of architectural ineptitude. Of course, these big boxes do sell like polyester leisure suits in the Seventies so perhaps the architects are just building to the market. But when was the last time you wore your leisure suit?

Alice in Blunderland

A fellow Realtor who I assume wishes to remain anonymous has asked that I advocate “bad driver school” for some of our clueless colleagues. It is certainly true that, were demonstrated driving competence a prerequisite for holding a real estate license, we would lose at least a quarter of our competition faster that a fender crumples. These people crowd into a car on open house days and talk among themselves, gab with their customers on cellphones, gesticulate, look at maps, and do everything except pay attention to their driving. They crash into our cars, park in the middle of the street, run over mailboxes and, in short, create havoc on our roadways. My friend would like to ban these duffers from public highways but I think that’s a bit harsh; why not have office managers conduct driving exams and, based on the results, assign designated drivers?

If it’s there, tax it!

Betsy Campbell, an RTM delegate, recently called for adding a second zoning enforcement officer and in support of her proposal said something to the effect that any town with a Grand List of twenty billion dollars can afford two zoning cops. For all I know we need a dozen additional compliance officers but I’m not impressed by reasoning that relies on “taxpayers can afford it” as its logical base. Needs and wants are endless; property owners’ money is not. I hope there’s a better argument out there before we add to the town bureaucracy.

Tch Tch

One of the chain store Realtors held a public open house the other day and advertised it with at least four signs, including one on the Merritt Parkway, all bearing its corporate name and logo. That’s a violation of both the Greenwich Association of Realtor’s rules and our town’s sign ordinance. I’m not certain that a generic open house sign is any less offensive to people upset by signage than one that also advertises the real estate firm but rules are rules, laws are laws, and even large firms shouldn’t unilaterally exempt themselves from them.

Power to the people!

A Brunswick student recently appeared in Greenwich Time wearing a Che Guevara tee shirt. Now, he could have been indulging in irony, an attitude not unknown to kids his age, but I did laugh. Brunswick tuition costs, what, Twenty-five thousand of a parent’s after-tax dollars? It reminded me of my favorite quote from the Sixties, made by a student radical to a reporter: “you don’t know what Hell is, man, until you’ve grown up in Scarsdale” (he was probably right, albeit unintentionally). Oh well, Churchill is supposed to have said, “if you aren’t a Progressive at twenty you have no heart. If you’re not a Conservative at forty you have no brain.” There’s plenty of time for young Che admirers to discover “Atlas Shrugged”.

Feeding Frenzy

The annual ritual of January sales has descended on the market, with bidding wars breaking out all over town. Houses that languished for months, unloved, are being snapped up at astonishing (to me, at least) prices. If past history is a guide, all this fun will continue until late March or early April when some form of sanity will return.

New to the market

Several unique properties have been listed recently, including Reynwood Manor, Tamar Lurie’s listing on North Street. It’s a castle built in 1935 and completely renovated in 2001, filled with gracefully-sized rooms, winding corridors and, one hopes, secret passageways. It feels like a fun place to live, especially for a family with lots of kids. But those kids better have rich parents because the asking price is $15,900,000. For less fortunate children, Jean Ruggerio is offering 297 Round Hill Road for $6,525,000. I loved this house when it was on the market two years ago (for $2,000,000 less, but the present owners have done an enormous amount of renovation) and I still like it. It’s set way back from the road and has great views of its own pond. Seven bedrooms, eight baths, heated pool, all in a 1930’s mansion. Neat.

How Much Was that Dog in the Window?

Mention of the past selling price of Jean’s listing brings to mind a somewhat annoying tendency of some buyers (and even some agents) to focus on what a seller paid for his house some time in the past. There is nothing more irrelevant. I was showing one of my listings the other day when the buyer’s agent, in front of her customer, told me that the price was crazy “because I know how much they paid for this house”. I was a little taken aback, both because I think it unprofessional to disparage a house in front of the seller’s agent – we’re duty bound to either defend it or, at most, remain silent, so what’s the point? – and because I can’t imagine why a nine-year-old price has anything to do with a house’s current value. I won’t tell you what my grandmother paid for her house in 1957 (I don’t want your tears staining this column) but, if it ever comes time to sell it we’ll set its price by comparing it to similar houses then on the market and recent sales. What a seller paid for his house and even the size of the profit he’d like to make has no effect on the market value. Get over it.

Little Princesses

As I stroll through some of the larger offerings of the builder’s craft I’ve been struck by the elaborate suites being built as kiddie bedrooms. The rooms are positively palatial and the en suite, marble bathrooms match them in expensive detail and size. Children who grow up in such rooms had better be very, very successful as adults or marry someone who is because otherwise they’re in for a disappointing adjustment in living standards. My own children will be happy to tell you that they have no such worries, alas.

Watch your Step

Herbie Salamon, the fierce-looking but genial policeman who held down the intersection of Greenwich Avenue and Havemeyer Place since kids Lt. Tommy Keagan’s age trooped off to Woodstock has retired. I’m delighted for his sake that he won’t have to endure another February at his post but how will we ever cross the street without his orchestration? I also regret that the town didn’t install an electrified grid in the crosswalk during Herbie’s tenure. Operated via foot pedal, it would have given him another tool to deal with witless pedestrians and kept the rest of us amused while we waited for his signal to cross.

Diasaster Relief

Officer Salamon didn’t retire in time to avoid our recent blizzard which dumped fourteen inches of snow on our roads. The cost of cleaning it all up exhausted Greenwich’s budget for snow removal but that’s normal; we set the budget based on average snowfall, and some years the town has a surplus, some years not. So I’m distressed to read that Greenwich, along with the rest of the state, is applying to the federal government for emergency relief from those costs. I realize that we’ve become a nation addicted to keeping our noses in the trough but really —when is a snow storm in New England a “disaster” that justifies putting our hand in our fellow taxpayers’ pockets?

Four wheel brakes
And finally, for those drivers who slid through stop signs during that blizzard and plowed into their townsmen, here’s a reminder: cars have always had four-wheel brakes. Your new Range Rover will stop no more quickly than your father’s Oldsmobile. The only difference is that the Rover’s four-wheel drive will allow you to go out into snowstorms and get in trouble. Take it easy out there.