The curse continues up at Leona's old haunt

Say goodbye to all that

521 Round Hill Road currently asking $16.5 is under contract, years after it started at $65 million in 2014. The friend who brought that news to me this morning called it “haunted”, and that’s indeed been the case. Everyone who’s owned this place since it was built has suffered tragedy or misfortune: the death of children, bankruptcies, two imprisonments, divorce, and according to my friend, one owner who escaped arrest by fleeing to Latin America faking his death by stuffing his chauffeur into what was supposed to be the owner’ coffin. And, of course, Leona’s woes, including her stay in Bedford Women’s Prison. Now the current owners are being hit with a loss in the tens of millions of dollars.

That kind of loss has happened before: after Leona’s death, David Ogilvy listed it at $125 million (a ridiculous price, set for the publicity it garnered as the highest-priced home in Greenwich before it sold to these owners two years later in 2010 for $35 million. Naively believing thay’d scored a bargain, the put it up for resale a year later for $42.9 million; worse, when it failed to sell, they spent three years and God knows how much money restoring the wreck and, as noted, put it back on the market at $65 million in 2014. Three dumb moves: buying it in the first place, especially for $35 million; wasting money trying to restore it, and grossly mispricing it in 2014.

And I doubt the final selling price will be anything close to the current ask of $16.5 unless, of course, the greater fool principle is in force. The house is 17,630 square feet — a size that almost no one wants, and if this buyer is one of those rare egotists who like palaces, the chance of finding another megalomaniac billionaire when he goes to sell will be slim.

There are 40 acres here, and the GIS map shows six lots. Even assuming you can build six new homes (freeing up the sixth lot by razing this pile of bricks), I’d peg the value of the lots to range between $1.5 - $2 million, with only the highest lot, which offers a wonderful view down to the Sound, approaching that $2 million. Final sales price prediction: $6.5, and that’s only if the town and zoning regs permit six lots. We’ll see.

UPDATE: That same friend sends along this 1988 AP article that recites the history of the curse. Fun read.