Different

We realtors all get a little bored (well I do, anyway) touring what is essentially the same house: massive new construction, identical floor layouts, etcetera so I took real pleasure from seeing Suzanne Wind’s listing at 250 North Street. This is a five-year-old house that has been on and off the market for almost all of that period but I somehow managed to miss getting inside it until now. It’s a neat house, carved into a steep hillside (with a perfectly adequate, flat back yard atop the hill) and completely different from ordinary new construction. Twenty-five-foot high floor-to-ceiling windows, sixteen different kinds of wood used for flooring and trim, a huge kitchen, fireplaces everywhere and a master bedroom shower that will accommodate forty of your closest friends. It is quite obviously a house designed to suit the tastes of its owners (one agent, who liked it very much, said it was “a guy’s house” and I suppose she may be right) and that may account for why it hasn’t sold before this. Another reason, of course may be that the original asking price was as steep as the cliff the house sits on but that has now been corrected and, at its new price of $4,750,000, I think it ought to go. The quality of the finishes in this house is astonishing and I doubt you could duplicate it today for anything close to this price. Close to town, totally different, go for it.

The Market Gets Ready for Bed

Buyers are still around (twenty-one listings went to contract last week) but the annual Thanksgiving-to-late-January lull approaches. There were fifty-eight price reductions last week, compared to fifty-five new listings and I suspect that that ratio will grow as the holidays get closer. It’s a good time to shop for bargains because, while many owners remain adamant that their pricing is correct, others don’t look forward to heating and maintaining a vacant house over the winter. So, in honor of the holidays, go shopping.


Alex Kaali-Nagy

Summers during college I worked for a Russian contractor who built miserable houses in Greenwich. My suggestion that he might improve his product if he used the services of an architect met total scorn. “Waste of money – I have plan book, cost me hundred bucks”. That builder’s long gone (although his houses, sadly, are not) but his spiritual heirs live on, building ever larger, ever uglier houses. So when I saw that one of my favorite architects, Mr. Kaali-Nagy, had completed his latest effort at 13 North Street, a brick Georgian, I was happy to tour it. This man does beautiful things. He consistently nails the proportions exactly right and every one of his houses is just exactly the right size. This one is no exception. $5,395,000, Ed Mortimer listing.

Thomas Sowell

“People who decry the fact that businesses are in business ‘just to make money’ seldom understand the implications of what they are saying. You make money by doing what other people want, not what you want.” Mr. Sowell was not referring to house sellers but his insight into how the marketplace works is nonetheless applicable to this business, no?

Boys & Girls Club

The Greenwich Board of Realtors sponsored a tour of the newly renovated clubhouse recently and I was thoroughly impressed both by the facilities themselves and by the club’s Executive Director, Bob DeAngelo. The club charges kids just $20 for an annual membership and provides in return a huge, brand new swimming pool, two gyms, a hokey rink, after-school homework assistance, tutoring, countless sports teams, and on and on. For that same $20 membership families can show up for weekly family swims and free-skating sessions. (Adults, by the way, can get an annual swimming membership for $250). This club does so much good in town that we might all want to support it. How? By volunteering, like Daniel Claroni – the club needs coaches, tutors, mentors, you name it; by financial contributions, like David Ogilvy (who spearheaded the $15,000,000 fund raising drive that paid for all these improvements); by renting the facilities for private parties- Bar Mitzvahs, say, or pretty cool corporate parties – here’s your chance to body check your boss off his skates and into the boards- or even donating used sports equipment (not junk, please, kids will be using it) like baseball gloves and skates. Presumably you know where the club is located (104 Field Point Road) but, if it’s easier, drop off equipment at Raveis’s 30 Milbank Avenue branch and we’ll deliver it the rest of the way. Here’s another thought: the club runs a summer camp, Camp Simmons, off of Riversville Road, and charges $50 for a week’s attendance. You could help a kid enjoy a unique experience for a pittance of what you’ll be spending to send your scion and heir-apparent to professional soccer camp.