62 Ridge Street Open House
So they opened this place up to brokers' inspections today and, after commenting yesterday on the curious logic that prompted its builder to increase its price to $7.5 million, I thought I'd go see what he was selling. Hmmm.

If this place were to have replaced my father's old Brownstone on 233 West 11th Street, I'll bet he would have been delighted at the exchange. It's a very nice city house and in the city, views and proximity to neighbors are pretty much irrelevant (or at least I think so - I was ripped from the bosom of Greenwich Village and transported to the rural wastelands of Greenwich when I was just a few months old, so my memory of the view from that Brownstone is dim). But this is not a city house, and the view of the Honda dealership and the old warehouse where I used to grind up horsemeat after school is certainly interesting, but not necessarily what someone expects when he moves to Greenwich.

Or I wouldn't think so, anyway. The house itself is grand, although I wish Greenwich's spec builders would stop outfitting their creations with the same Viennese crystal chandeliers that some supplier obviously got a deal on - I've seen the identical fixture scattered around three houses now (this one has three of them!)and while the builders obviously love them, they bring to mind General Patton's comment when someone mistook the ivory grips on his Colt .45 with pearl: "Only a pimp in a New Orleans whorehouse or a tin-horn gambler would carry a pearl-handled pistol"; I think he'd feel the same way about these bits of glass. Price isn't everything, guys.

So is there a buyer for a $7.5 million house in this part of our "downtown"? I'd have advised any client of mine against gambling that there was but I wasn't asked. And considering those chandeliers - well, it was Patton who used the phrase, "tin-horn gambler", not I.