An eye-popping price tag in Connecticut is a new test of the ultra-high-end property market
ALYSSA ABKOWITZ
Other
Named Copper Beech Farm, the Greenwich, Conn., estate sits on 50½ acres and includes a 12-bedroom Victorian, French-renaissance mansion, 4,000 feet of water frontage on Long Island Sound and two offshore islands. Natalie Keyssar for The Wall Street Journal
The most expensive home ever listed in America is up for sale at US$190 million – and it still needs some updating.
The 50.5-acre Copper Beech Farm estate at Greenwich, Connecticut, contains a 12-bed Victorian mansion and 4,000 feet of waterfront on Long Island Sound, as well as two offshore islands.
The exclusive property has 15,000 square feet of living space, 7,000 square feet of basement and attic space, and an 1,800-foot-long driveway, reports The Wall Street Journal website.
The property dates back to the 1890s and is owned by timber magnate John Rudey, according to records, who has lived there for more than 30 years and is selling as his children have grown up.
“While in good condition, the interior needs upgrading; Mr Rudey, for example, had plans drawn up to design a kitchen off the dining room, as the main kitchen is in the basement, which was part of the staff quarters. There are old speaking tubes from pre-electricity days and sleeping porches, which were once used in warmer months before air conditioning was the norm,” says the Wall Street Journal.
Most of the value is in the land, which contains a grass tennis court, gardens, a carriage house, apple orchard, two greenhouses, and a 75-foot-long heated pool with hot tub, says listing agent David Ogilvy from the Christie’s affiliate David Ogilvy & Associates.
The current most expensive home is a Montana Ranch which is believed to have been bought for $132.5million by property mogul Stanley Kroenke in November 2012.