Connecticut

June 20, 2017

After 20 years, Harry Connick Jr. lists rustic Connecticut estate for $7.5M

Singer and actor Harry Connick Jr. and his wife, former Victoria's Secret model Jill Goodacre, bought this 4.6-acre Connecticut estate, a former dairy farm, in 1998 for $1.54 million. After a two-year renovation and nearly 20 years raising their three daughters here, the couple has decided to part ways with the rustic New Canaan home, listing it for $7.5 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The seven-bedroom main house, once a barn built in the 1890s, is joined by a heating pool and pool house, another former barn that serves as a gym and storage, and a third smaller barn where Connick writes music.
Take a tour

June 2, 2017

Buy this entire 62-acre ghost town in Connecticut for just $1.9M

By Devin Gannon

Johnsonville, an abandoned, small town in East Haddam, Connecticut, is on the market for an asking price of $1.9 million (Yes, the entire 62-acre town is asking less than $2 million). Founded in the 1800s, it includes semi-neglected Victorian homes, a general store, post office, restaurant, mill, and a covered bridge (h/t WTOP). The current owner is hotel company Meyer Jabara Hotels, who paid $2.5 million for the town in 2001. The property was previously listed in an online auction in 2014 and sold for $1.9 million, but the bidder was unable to seal the deal. It’s been a ghost town for nearly two decades.
See the abandoned town here

May 25, 2017

Here’s your chance to vacation inside a geodesic dome in the woods for just $46/night

By Emily Nonko

Airbnb offers no shortage of unique vacation rentals, but this geodesic dome is really something. The 165-square-foot hut is located on a farm in the woods outside Bethlehem, Connecticut, there's no power, heat or air conditioning, and the kitchen and bathroom are located about 100 feet away inside the property's main house—imagine it as a form of camping. While you may be "roughing it" during your stay, you'll also be surrounded by forest in a mesmerizing dome built of pine sourced right from the property. As the owners put it, it's a "very peaceful space where you can get in touch with nature and yourself." The vacation rental is asking $46 a night.
Take a peek inside the dome

Getting Away

May 12, 2017

Cyndi Lauper lists French Country Connecticut home where she wrote ‘Kinky Boots’ for $1.25M

By Annie Doge

“True Colors” singer-songwriter Cyndi Lauper is selling her Stamford, Connecticut home for $1.25 million. With three beds and three baths, the home at 250 Saddle Hill Road sits 45 miles outside of Manhattan and measures about 3,900 square feet on 1.58 acres of property. Lauper, who first purchased the home during the 1980s, has written several albums and much of the Broadway musical “Kinky Boots” in its guest house. As the Wall Street Journal reported, the home was renovated with French Country-style touches, seen in the hand-stenciled floral designs and French antique salon doors and bathroom fixtures.
See inside

May 6, 2017

For just $450K, a charming Connecticut cottage with a unique musical history

By Emily Nonko

This Connecticut home, which is beyond quaint and has been dubbed the "Sunset cottage," comes with a musical backstory dating from more than a century ago (h/t CIRCA). In 1900, the former farmhouse served as a summer dormitory and reading room for students at the Greene School of Music. Sixty years after the school shuttered in 1924--and after a full renovation into a home--musician Paul Fenick snatched it up. He often used the space to perform with his bluegrass band, The Still River Ramblers. The school's library was converted to a practice space, and framed album covers, concert posters, and artist photographs were hung on the walls. Now the cozy house, located in the heart of Brookfield’s Historic District, is up for sale asking $449,900.
Tour the house right this way

May 4, 2017

Connecticut Georgian estate where Harry Houdini hung out is up for auction for $4.75M

By Devin Gannon

An incredible Georgian estate in Ridgefield, Connecticut is up for auction at an asking price of $4.75 million. The 10-bedroom mansion at 162 Old West Mountain Road, also known as Sunset Hall, was owned 100 years ago by Harry Houdini’s brother, Dr. Leopold Weiss, and it's said that the magician practiced his underwater escapes in the pool. It's listed on the National Register of Historic Places and sits on nearly seven acres of land with sweeping views of the Long Island Sound and Catskill Mountains. As the New York Post learned, it also has quite the celebrity pedigree. It was originally built in 1912 for U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain James Stokes and was subsequently owned by the Brooklyn beer baron Samuel Rubel and famed actor Robert Vaughn; and after WWII, it was considered for an official site of the United Nations.
Find out more

March 28, 2017

Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater lookalike asks $3.5M in Greenwich, CT

By Michelle Cohen

Designed by local architect Dimitri Bulazel, this 4,675-square-foot four-bedroom home at 51 Pecksland Road in Greenwich, CT was clearly inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house in rural Pennsylvania (h/t Curbed). While the listing calls it "reminiscent" of the 1935 architectural icon, we'll just say it's very, very reminiscent. Which is a good thing, because Fallingwater isn't for sale, but this remarkable custom-built, privately commissioned modern house with its cantilevered design, walls of windows, hand-cut Tennessee limestone walls, rock gardens and rooftop terraces can actually be yours, right now, for $3.5 million.
Tour the home and grounds

February 22, 2017

Developer will turn Connecticut lighthouse into a giant playroom for his grandkids

By Dana Schulz

In 2004, New York-based developer and builder Frank Sciame paid $6 million for the 3.4-acre waterfront Connecticut estate of the late Katharine Hepburn. In late 2015, he also dropped $290,000 at auction for the Old Saybrook Breakwater Lighthouse, which is within walking distance to the estate. The 131-year-old lighthouse was built in 1886 to mark a sand bar on the west side of the Connecticut River, but it will soon see a new life as a giant children's playroom. The Post reports that Sciame asked yacht-design architects Persak & Wurmfeld to redesign the structure as a clubhouse for his grandkids, complete with the original cast-iron windows and portholes, watch room and lantern room, and upper wrap-around deck.
Get the full scoop

Architecture And Design

January 13, 2017

Own Frank Lloyd Wright’s horseshoe-shaped ‘Tirranna’ home in New Canaan, CT for $8M

By Dana Schulz

For the first time in 20 years, Frank Lloyd Wright's "Tirranna" home in New Canaan, Connecticut is on the market. The Wall Street Journal reports that the home, which Wright built just before his death in 1959 on a 15-acre wooded estate, has been listed for $8 million by the estate of its long-time owner, the late memorabilia mogul and philanthropist Ted Stanley and his wife Vada. Though the couple renovated the horse-shaped home, they maintained its original architectural integrity, preserving classic Wright details like built-in bookshelves, cabinets and furniture, as well as other unique features such as a rooftop observatory with telescope, gold leaf chimneys, and sculpture paths that wind through the woods.
See it all right here

November 30, 2016

This Connecticut pyramid designed by mid-century architect John Black Lee asks just $750K

By Emily Nonko

Just outside of New York City in New Canaan, Connecticut is the incredible home of the late John Black Lee, a renowned mid-century architect. He designed this glass and concrete pyramid for himself into the hill overlooking the Silvermine River in 1990, and lived there until his death this April. A striking open floorplan surrounded by the glassy pyramid walls embraces the surrounding wilderness; Lee had said that "this house is the only one in New Canaan that you enter through a skylight." It's now on the market for $750,000 after a recent price chop of $249,000.
Take a look inside

November 23, 2016

‘Sex and the City’ Writer Candace Bushnell lists Victorian farmhouse in Connecticut for $1.4M

By Annie Doge

Though she created a vision of Manhattan that made an entire generation want to move to the big city and sip cosmos, "Sex and the City" writer Candace Bushnell also has experience in a more laid-back country lifestyle. The Journal recently toured her historic Victorian farmhouse in Roxbury, Connecticut, which is currently listed for $1.365 million. Bushnell said she's an old house lover who grew up antiquing, so when she saw the circa 1830 home in 2005, she couldn't help spending $661,500 on it, even though she admits she "could barely afford it." Clearly a good investment, the three-acre property has an apple orchard, barn, salt water pool, and pool house, as well as original moldings and floorboards.
See the entire property

November 18, 2016

This 1755 Connecticut cottage is asking just $360K

By Emily Nonko

For the same price as a modest Manhattan apartment, this adorable 18th century Connecticut cottage could be yours. The cedar-sided home was constructed in 1755 in the town of Clinton, at 11 Pearl Street. More recently, the interior got a full renovation, meaning that the inside is surprisingly modern. Best yet, its located in a quaint town just outside of New York Side, and is only a five minute walk to the MetroNorth Railroad. Sounds appealing? It's hit the market for $360,000.
Here's a look inside

October 14, 2016

Go ghost hunting at Mark Twain’s haunted and historic Connecticut manor

By Dana Schulz

Edgar Allan Poe may be the American writer most closely associated with all things eerie and spooky, but surprisingly, the lovable Mark Twain has a haunted past of his own. The pristinely preserved Gothic mansion in Hartford, Connecticut where Samuel Clemens lived with his family between 1874 and 1891 (and where he wrote "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer") is said to be haunted by ghosts of Twain himself, his daughter Susy who died in 1896 of meningitis, and George Griffin, a freed slave who worked for the family. And if the paranormal activity associated with these spirits wasn't enough to give you goosebumps, just take a look at the dark, ominous house itself through these haunting photos by Imgur user Reacher that give us a taste of the hair-raising home.
Creepy photos and stories ahead

Architecture And Design

September 19, 2016

63-acre Connecticut island could be the country’s most expensive residential property at $175M

By Emily Nonko

Could this insane Connecticut property break the record for the most expensive residential property ever sold in the country? Now on the market for $175 million, Great Island spans 63 acres and holds a mansion, beach cottages, a polo field, caretaker's house with a greenhouse, yacht basin with docks, and a cow barn to boot. Such an impressive estate is owned by the family of the 19th-century industrialist William Ziegler. He acquired it in 1902 to use as a summer destination--one that rivals any other "summer house" we've seen. And according to The Real Deal, if this sells for its full asking price it would beat the record for priciest house ever sold in the U.S., which belongs to the 2014 sale of a $147 million home in the Hamptons.
Now, time to tour the grounds

August 17, 2016

Connecticut Lighthouse up for Auction Could Be Transformed Into a Home

By Emily Nonko

There are just a select few opportunities to live in a lighthouse outside of New York City—$1.5 million could get you a red lighthouse upstate; $425,000 buys a lighthouse and tugboat in West Haven, CT. It's not everyday these properties come around, but the government is currently auctioning off six of its lighthouses and one, the Penfield Reefer Lighthouse, is located just 60 miles away from Midtown Manhattan.
It was built in the 1870s

July 1, 2016

Own a Collection of Eight Private Islands off the Connecticut Coast for $78 Million

By Michelle Cohen

Hey, big spender...before you close on that trophy penthouse condo or townhouse duo, take a look at this extraordinary listing. When you've got billions–or even lots of millions–your real estate options are many. From a penthouse in the sky in a Billionaire's Row skyscraper to a townhouse or two on the Upper East Side or a Hamptons manse with acres of beachfront property, modern-day palaces await. For that eight-figure outlay, this listing is unusual even among the real estate deals of the superrich. The Post tells us of a private archipelago off the Connecticut coastline, owned by Christine and Edmund Stoecklein, on the market for $78 million. Known as the Thimble Islands, this surprising collection of eight islands boasts beautiful restored 19th century mansions, pools, guest houses, docking for yachts both small and large, a commercial-level greenhouse facility, tennis courts and a golf putting green and tees designed by Jack Nicklaus. The property is at most a ten-minute boat ride from the Connecticut shoreline or a twenty minute helicopter jaunt from Manhattan.
What you'll find on these secret island enclaves

May 10, 2016

First Mansion Donald Trump Ever Owned Now Selling for $45M

By Dana Schulz

When Donald Trump was rising up in the real estate ranks in the early '80s (and when he was still a Democrat), he and then-wife Ivana were looking for their first "trophy mansion." In 1982, they found it in this 5.8-acre Greenwich, Connecticut estate, paying $4 million for the home on its own peninsula. At the time, Trump was busy refurbishing the Plaza Hotel, so he and Ivana infused their new home with the same ornate style of gold leaf, massive chandeliers, and moldings galore. When the couple divorced in 1991, Ivana got the mansion (among many other properties and cash), but she sold it seven years later for $15 million to owners who made the property even more opulent, adding an indoor lap pool, sauna, tennis courts, and a 4,000-square-foot guest suite addition. These owners listed the property back in January for $54 million, but it's now gotten a price chop to $45 million, according to Top Ten Real Estate News.
Live like the Donald

December 21, 2014

North Haven’s Peconic Residence Is Made from an Assemblage of Volumes in Harmony with Nature

By Ana Lisa Alperovich

Nestled amongst mature cedar, sycamore and black pines, this beautiful residence is made from an assemblage of different volumes. Featuring a mix of brown shades on its exterior, the Peconic Residence by Martin Architects in New York's North Haven was created in harmony with nature. Designed using passive house standards and sustainable materials, this beautiful dwelling also has a waterfall edge reflecting pool and a Japanese stone garden.
Learn more about this sustainable woodland home

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