Listed For $190 Million, This Is America's New Most Expensive Home For Sale

Greenwich, Conn. has long been known for its pricey ZIP codes, enviable proximity to New York City, and of course, a diaspora of wealthy Wall Street residents that has earned it a nickname as the hedge fund capital of the country. Now the tony town will be known for something else: as the location of America’s most expensive home for sale.

With an astounding asking price of $1

• Aerial view of the world's most expensive property

90 million, Copper Beech Farm has come to market as one of Greenwich’s last ‘Great Estates,’ a designation assigned by the Junior League of Greenwich in a 1986 coffee table book highlighting the town’s 46 most architecturally significant historic abodes. At that nine-figure price tag, Copper Beech Farm trumps every other U.S. residence publicly listed for sale, asking nearly 30% more than the country’s second most expensive home, the $135 million Crespi-Hicks estate in Dallas, Texas.

“There’s nothing like this and the second-to-last one that existed, on about the same acreage, sold in 1952,” says David Ogilvy of David Ogilvy & Associates, a luxury Greenwich realty firm affiliated with Christie’sInternational Real Estate, and the exclusive listing agent for the property.

• Two heptagonal pools that together stretch 75 feet and a spa amongst others

Named for the copper beech trees populating the property, Copper Beech Farm was first constructed in 1896. In 1904 Harriet Lauder Greenway (whose father, George Lauder, helped Andrew Carnegie create U.S. Steel) purchased the property, residing there for more than 75 years as a staple of Greenwich high society. When the current owner, timber tycoon John Rudey, quietly acquired the home 31 years ago, he did so in an off-market deal. The estate hasn’t been publicly listed for sale in more than a century.

Copper Beech Farm spans 50 prized acres that boast roughly a mile of water frontage on the Long Island Sound, thanks in part to two offshore islands included in the offering. The main house, a French-renaissance mansion, boasts 13,519 square feet of living space including 12 bedrooms, seven full baths and two half baths, a wood-paneled library, an ornate dining room with a tracery ceiling and oak columns, a solarium, a wine cellar, a third-floor staff wing, and a three-story, wood-paneled entry foyer. The original kitchen, equipped with a dumb waiter, sits in the basement, originally part of the staff quarters. Fireplaces adorn most rooms in the Victorian manse and sleeping porches, once used during summer months before the advent of air conditioning, extend off of bedrooms.

The secluded compound is tucked behind gates, situated at the end of a winding 1,800-foot-long driveway. The grounds encompass a stone carriage house with a clock tower, a three-bedroom gatehouse, a six-car garage, and multiple greenhouses. The pool area is comprised of two conjoined heptagonal pools that together stretch 75 feet, a spa, and an octagonal pool house with dressing and bath facilities. There’s a grass tennis court facing out toward a viewing pergola, formal gardens, terraces, even an apple orchard.

• The secluded compound behind a winding 1,800 foot long driveway 

 “The view and the sheer volume of being on 50 acres on the water is breathtaking,” says Ogilvy, noting that much of the acreage across the street from the estate’s entrance is protected, given to the town by the Greenway family as parkland decades ago.

Of Copper Beech Farm’s 50 acres, 45 are assessed as forestland by the town of Greenwich, which offers tax discounts for undeveloped open space. The property is assessed at $15 million, or 70% of its $21.3 million full market value, according to Greenwich Time; without that discount, the assessment would total $59.2 million, meaning a full-market value of $84.6 million.

Ogilvy says the $190 million list price is based on numerous comparables for the area, having crunched the average sales prices per acre for close to a dozen nearby properties — none of which offer even close to the same amount of acreage. The owners have also had appraisals of the property done that have yielded valuations at more than $200 million, particularly if the acreage was subdivided, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Greenwich, located about 45 minutes north of New York City, has some of the priciest property in the country, claiming four of America’s most expensive ZIP codes. The tony Fairfield County enclave boasts eight of the world’s billionaires, including Ray Dalio,Steve Cohen and Thomas Peterffy. Copper Beech Farm is located about five minutes off of 1-95 highway, down the street from Greenwich’s exclusive waterfront community Mead Point.

• A grass tennis court is also included

The $190 million listing is the latest in a series of nine-figure offerings. In the past year more than a dozen residences have graced (and in some cases, already departed) the sale block asking $95 million or more. Earlier in the year the Crespi-Hicks estate in the Mayflower Estates section of Dallas, Texas listed for $135 million. In March, the Pierre penthouse in Manhattan listed for $125 million. And just recently, the nearby CitySpire penthouse, debuting on the sale block with a $100 million price tag, came back to market asking the same hefty sum as a FSBO (for sale by owner listing).

More interestingly, since the downturn, a handful of homes have set sales records. Five U.S. residential properties have commanded $85 million or more in closed deals since 2011. Additionally, two penthouse properties in Manhattan’s up-and-coming One57 high rise are in contract for more than $90 million apiece, including a 75th/76th floor condo being purchased by an investor group led by billionaire Bill Ackman. Two confirmed sales have even cracked the $100 million mark, including a $117.5 million Woodside, Calif. estate that is now the country’s most expensive home sale on record.

Whether Greenwich’s Copper Beech Farm can top that price remains to be seen, however.  The area’s most expensive waterfront home sale was a 21,000-square foot mansion on roughly four acres of land that fetched $39.5 million in 2011. In 2004, an 80-acre horse farm in Conyers Farm traded for $45 million. And in 2010, the mansion of late real estate billionaire Leona Helmsley sold for $35 million. Helmsley’s  Dunnellen Hall, which includes 20,000 square feet of living space on 40 acres of land, had first listed in 2007 with a $125 million price tag.

[Forbes]