When Connecticut’s Copper Beech Farm sold for $120 million in 2014, it was the priciest home sale the country had ever seen, but the buyer’s identity remained secret. Now the mystery owner of the storied 50-acre estate is putting it back on the market for $150 million.
With nearly a mile of private frontage on Long Island Sound in affluent Greenwich, Copper Beech Farm is considered among the most significant single-family properties in the country. Originally known as Kincraig, the estate dates to the 1890s and once belonged to the Lauder Greenway family—Harriet Lauder Greenway’s father helped Andrew Carnegie start what would become U.S. Steel. The centerpiece is a French-Renaissance mansion spanning around 13,500 square feet.
One of the listing agents, Leslie McElwreath of Sotheby’s International Realty, declined to comment on the current owners, saying only that they are “Connecticutites.” She said their identity has been a “closely guarded secret” in the community since they purchased the property from timber tycoon John Rudey. Records list the owner as the Connecticut-based The Conservation Institute, LLC.
f the property sells for close to its asking price, it will again be among the most expensive homes ever sold in the U.S., said Ms. McElwreath. The current U.S. record holder is a roughly $240 million sale from 2019, when billionaire hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin bought an apartment at 220 Central Park South in New York.
The eight-bedroom main house was recently restored, the listing agents said. It spans four stories, including a partially finished basement with storage, and has nine fireplaces. Two stone towers flank the front door and upstairs balcony. The main rooms have 12-foot ceilings. In the living room, french doors lead out to a large solarium with coffered ceilings. The formal dining room has a plaster tracery ceiling and oak paneling.
In addition to the main house, the property includes a three-bedroom gate house and a two-bedroom carriage house with a clock tower. There are two private beaches, an octagonal bathhouse, and a private island on the Sound. Ms. McElwreath said the children of the current owner have paddled out to the island and camped there. The grounds also contain greenhouses, a grass tennis court, and a 75-foot-long heated outdoor swimming pool and spa.
Ms. McElwreath said the owners updated the kitchen and bathrooms and did a lot of “unsexy” work to the house, like upgrading the electrical, plumbing, heating and cooling systems.
The property is divided into two parcels, one with 20 acres and one with 30. Ms. McElwreath said it could theoretically be subdivided into 10 or 12 building lots, but she believes the property is more likely to be sold as a single-family home.
The listing will be a litmus test for the Greenwich market, which the agents said experienced an unprecedented boom in ultraluxury activity in 2021, but has since slowed.
“This past year was not quite as robust because we had so much instability with the markets, rates going up and the war overseas,” said Ms. McElwreath. She and colleague Joseph Barbieri are marketing the property along with New York agent Nikki Field.
Ms. Field said she is seeing an uptick in demand for trophy U.S. homes from buyers in India and China, and predicted that the buyer would hail from Asia. “It is for someone that wants to arrive in Manhattan, and immediately have credibility,” she said.
The owners are selling because they feel it is time to move on now that their children have grown up and moved out, Ms. Field said.
“No one’s swimming in the 75-foot pool, no one’s paddling over to the private island,” she said. “They had their fun in it.”
Originally published on Wsj.com
