(Another) mega-mansion proposed in Belle Haven, but who cares?
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At 15,288 square feet, the proposed house would boast an indoor pool and a paddle court. The underground fitness center would measure nearly 5,000 square feet. An internationally prominent architecture firm based in London is the lead designer on the project, which will feature a cantilevered roof at both ends of the structure.
Peter and Laurie Grauer sold two lots at 17 Smith Road and 23 Smith Road in the Greenwich enclave abutting Long Island Sound for a record price last year. Peter Grauer has been a top executive and chairman at Bloomberg, the media and financial data company.
The development scheme recently pitched to the town Planning & Zoning Commission would combine the two lots into a five-acre parcel and demolish the current home on the site. In its place would rise a vast new structure, 39 feet tall with a pitched roof.
First of all, as they say in New England about such things, “can’t see it from my back porch”, so we should leave this to the Belle Haven folx to worry about, if that’s their wish.
Second, the property comprises 5.6 acres in the one-acre zone, and according to our own experts at the P&Z who dreamed up the Floor Area Ratios that determine the ideal size for houses in each zone, a house of 32,931 square feet is appropriate here; this proposed house is less than half that.
I’m sure some Greenwich residents were upset to see large homes go up on what was then pastureland on this peninsula back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, just as many of us today are dismayed to see the relatively small houses in Riverside and Old Greenwich replaced by McMansions costing 10X as much, but there it is. Apartment towers like those proposed by Joey Pecora and his ilk should, in my opinion, be resisted, because they would change the character of the neighborhoods they want to build in; another mansion in Belle Haven? I ask again: who cares?
