Greenwich estate offered by Cleveland, Duble & Arnold and renovated by Austin Patterson Disston Architects.

Cross River House, designed by the late Richard Henry Dana and offered for sale by Houlihan/Lawrence (an exclusive affiliate of Sotheby’s International Realty).

Pool at Cross River House.

Château Lion du Lac: dining room and kitchen.

Château Lion du Lac: master bath and bedroom.

This past May, David Ogilvy & Associates
listed a property in Greenwich for $53 million. Although Fairfield County is well known for its costly real estate, 53 is a large – and intriguing – number. What would be the highlights of such a property?

The 80-acre Conyers Farm estate features 24-hour gated security, open meadows, and a ten-bedroom main house built in 1904 and recreated in 1982, complete with projection screens, “major” music system, two-story library, numerous fireplaces, exercise room, sauna and wine cellar. Also included are a poolhouse, guesthouse, caretaker’s cottage, stable with 22 stalls, “ruins” which have been turned into another guest area and “the original private fire department.” The structure has six garages and yet another guest cottage. Annual taxes are approximately $86,121.

“It’s your own island within the community,” remarks Dan Ginell, president and owner of Ginell Real Estate.
It’s also the sort of palatial spread that makes one wonder what’s doing in the rest of the Fairfield market. It turns out that elsewhere in the county, $10 to $25-million estates are far more common than $50 million plus (though according to Casey Jones, managing partner at Stamford-based William Pitt, the average sale in Greenwich is about $2 million). Perks of these properties are similar to the Conyers Farm estate, but on a smaller scale.

One such example is a spectacular 14,000-square- foot Greenwich estate listed by Cleveland, Duble & Arnold (see page 66). This Tudor-style residence built in 1908 sits on five and a half manicured and level acres with parklike views. It has 11 bedrooms, 13 full baths and 3 half-baths, eight fireplaces, a four-car garage, swimming pool, lighted tennis court and poolhouse.

Marjorie Rowe, founder and president of Greenwich’s Preferred Properties, has been working the highest ends of Fairfield and Westchester county real estate for 35 years, and has sold to Ralph Lauren, Edward Lampert and Donald Trump. She says there is no rule of thumb for what type of home can be acquired for $20 million. One of her current properties, listed at $37.5 million, “is not a mansion as you would expect but it’s in a prime part of Greenwich, overlooks a pond and is on 27 acres.” Whoever can meet this price will have five parcels of land, two access roads and Leona Helmsley for a neighbor.

According to Rowe, Helmsley will most likely be borrowing cups of sugar from someone with “old money or a young guy who has been successful in the stock market.” “Hedge funds and Wall Street are driving the market,” agrees Jones, who says that when someone suddenly becomes wealthy, buying property is the first thing on the agenda. A buyer is also, Rowe says, likely to put in millions of dollars beyond the asking price to move the pool around, change the location of the tennis courts and fix the landscaping. It is not unheard of for a new owner to tear down a main house entirely. Local brokers tell the story of a young man who bought a home on the water in Greenwich for $14 million a few years ago, knocked it down and built a 40,000-square-foot mansion with a 15-car garage. It’s next door to a country club, and many people turn into his driveway, thinking anything so large must be the club. Jones says it could now be worth $100 million. And it’s most likely not the owner’s main residence.

“Wealthy people from Manhattan always have a place in Greenwich because the tax burden is so much less,” says Rowe. Not surprisingly, many of Jones’s clients also have Manhattan, Nantucket and Palm Beach properties. Private jets and jet shares make this possible. “People also helicopter back and forth to Greenwich. They’re not worried about traffic on the FDR,” Jones says with a laugh. (If you’re considering a purchase in Bedford, however, note that helicopters are illegal there. Nearby White Plains is as close as choppers can get.)

One new trend brokers are seeing in and around Fairfield County is extremely high turnover. Jones has sold one Conyers Farm estate five times in ten years, including to and from Rosie O’Donnell. “People love to buy houses,” he says. “But they like to change. What will work for three years won’t work for five. People renovate and are ready to move. No one lives in a house for thirty years anymore.” Says Rowe: “It’s a very active market. The old guard lives there forever but the younger people have a house and then jump when something comes on the market. They play musical chairs.”

House-hopping is less prevalent in New York State even though the towns in Northern Westchester are slightly less expensive than their Connecticut cousins. “Since 2000, only seven houses have sold for over $10 million in all of Westchester,” says Westchester specialist George M. Stone, co-owner of Julie B. Fee. “A $35-million waterfront in Greenwich is half the price in Rye.” Taxes account for a large part of this difference.

In late June there were only ten Westchester County homes on the market over $10 million, all with decent acreage. The hottest property in this area is either in “horse country” – Katonah, Bedford, North Salem – or on the waterfront. “Reservoir, Hudson or Long Island Sound,” says Stone. One of his current listings includes a $13-million 105-acre estate featuring a 1930s Art Deco main house with ponds, views and a boathouse on eight-acre Journeys End Lake in Croton-on-Hudson.

Listed for $13.5 million in Bedford by Houlihan/Lawrence, Cross River House (see pages 67, 68 and 69) overlooks the Cross River Reservoir. The property includes a 5,300-square-foot circa 1928 main house, 3,400-square-foot guesthouse, 1,400-square-foot gatehouse, 50-foot pool with spa, poolhouse and tennis court – on 17 acres.

Available for $13 million (represented by Coldwell Banker in Bedford): a 17,000-square-foot North Salem château reminiscent of a Newport mansion (see Cover, this page and opposite). It overlooks the Titicus Reservoir, has indoor and outdoor pools, many fireplaces and a six-car as well as a three-car garage.

Not only do Westchester buyers hold on to the properties once purchased, but they tend to tear down less here, too. Stone says recent buyers are “self-made middle 40s, 50s and some 60s. The celebrities we tend to see come into the market on a quiet basis – they send people in to do it for them.” Brokers note that this is true in Fairfield County as well. Often scouts, consultants and decorators do most of the house-buying legwork.

Still, there are a few higher end properties currently on the market in Westchester, including a $22-million 100-year-old Bedford Corners estate. The main house burned down and was rebuilt in the 1960s. It has 25 acres and is, according to Ginell, surrounded by land other families have bought and put into conservation. At least one “famous entertainer” has sent his scout to view the tennis and basketball courts, but Ginell won’t name names. There might be other properties nearby worth even more that are on sale but not listed: “We have people who have an interest in selling in the next couple of years but they don’t want to be officially on the market,” says Ginell. He’ll help broker a deal if the right person comes along at the right time.

Last year Ginell sold author Michael Crichton’s Bedford property for around $25 million after six months on the market. It’s on 70 acres with a large guesthouse. Before Crichton’s sale, the most expensive Westchester property ever sold was Ralph Lauren’s Bedford estate and this was, according to Rowe who brokered the sale, about 12 years ago. By all accounts Lauren has been steadily “accumulating adjoining properties” ever since. Rowe credits Lauren for “saving Bedford from having 10,000 little contemporary houses” by buying close to 300 acres. “Ricky [Lauren’s wife] is the nicest gal,” Rowe says. “Very low key. When they decided to buy she was standing in the courtyard. I think she had jodhpurs on and he said, ‘Now doesn’t she look just great there?’”

Home seekers and owners might want to know how these $20-million-estates measure up to the rest of the country. The waterfront is up there: “Even in Newport they don’t get prices like most prime waterfront in Greenwich,” says Rowe. Still, “Compared to

On the Cover Aerial view of Château Lion du Lac, a 17,000-square-foot North Salem, NY, estate. Photograph courtesy of Coldwell Banker Bedford.

California we have much less land,” she says. “They have all these fancy houses. I was hearing numbers the other day like $80 million for Silicon Valley and Hollywood.”

Anyone planning to pony up that $53 million can use Rowe’s words as the perfect purchasing excuse.