LOCATION: Greenwich, CT
PRICE: $27,500,000
SIZE: 17,200 square feet, 6 bedrooms, 5 full and 4 half bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: The property gossips at The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) announced today that child star turned internationally lauded and applauded blockbuster movie maker Ron Howard and his wife, Cheryl, hoisted their customized compound in swanky and semi-rural Greenwich, CT, up for grabs with an asking price of $27,500,000.
Listing details indicate the bucolic estate spans almost 33 acres within the gates of the high-fallutin' Conyer's Farm enclave where it butts up against scenic, 140-acre Converse Lake, about an hour from Midtown Manhattan. The Howards' secluded compound, their home for two decades, encompasses a 17,200 square foot neo-Victorian main mansion with seven fireplaces, six bedrooms and five full and four half bathrooms plus a separate 2,500 square foot two bedroom Craftsman-style guest cottage.
The grounds are roomy, well-equipped and expensively maintained and the three story, 23-room mansion is sumptuously appointed, unquestionably luxurious and carefully crafted with high quality materials. (Did you see the fully-paneled double-height library/office?) But, in all honesty, and with all due respect to Mister Howard who has more than earned his place in the pantheon of Tinseltown royalty, the day-core seems to this buttinsky property gossip on the grimly ordinary and even a bit stuffy.
Fer chrissakes, the (natural light flooded, step-down) formal living room has matching gold brocade sofas and a harp. A harp! This could easily be the formal living room of couple of pinch-fazed geezers. Nothing wrong we geezers, children. We know some and love some. Shoot, we practically are one. But high-nosed geezer traditionalism as a decorative style just does not vibrate positively with Your Mama or The Dr. Cooter or just about anyone else we know. But that's neither here nor there, so...
Other rooms include a formal dining room with mural covered walls, a den (or something) with a built-in aquarium next to the fireplace, the above mentioned double-height library/office, and a chef-friendly kitchen. There's also a billiard/game room, a gym, a yoga studio and, as one can and should expect of a deep pocketed movie maker, the Howard home has a home theater with a popcorn machine and modern versions of old-timey movie house chairs as well as bean bag chairs for the young and young at heart.
Set up on one of the property's higher points, an idiosyncratic and fully functional observatory silo with a professional grade telescope allows for stay-at-home stargazing. There's an indoor saltwater swimming pool—the Howards are a family of gingers, after all—plus a vast indoor sports complex with a full-sized tennis court, a half-court basketball court and a spa.
The there are formal rose and boxwood gardens, an organic kitchen garden, a greenhouse, barns and paddocks for the ponies and something called an "ivy-draped stone head house." Mister and Missus Howard also keep miniature horses, donkeys, sheep, alpacas, chickens, ducks, dogs, (more than a dozen) cats, fish, a bird and a tortoise, some of which, listing details indicate, may be available for adoption by the estate's next owner.
According to the WSJ Mister and Missus Howard have decided to part with their long-time primary home in Greenwich because all their children have moved out and because they're constantly on the move, shuttling between homes in Paris, Los Angeles—where they own a spacious, ocean view condo in Santa Monica, and New York City. In New York City—as one of the children kindly pointed out and which we did not previously know—the Howards own a spacious apartment in one of the towers of the spectacular El Dorado building on Central Park West and our research indicates they also own one bedroom pied-a-terre in a prime, pre-war building in the West Village that appears to have been offered for lease last year at $5,500 per month.
listing photos: Coldwell Banker
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