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| Great Island, on an island on Long Island Sound, Darien, CT |
DARIEN, CT -- The
Town of Darien, Connecticut is officially under contract to purchase one of
America’s last family-owned properties, Great Island, that includes one
of the area’s last Gilded Age mansions.
The property was
reduced from its 2016 price of $175 million and was most recently listed at
$100 million at the time the contract was signed, according to The
Darien Times.
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William Ziegler
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The purchase is subject to final approval by
the Board of Selectmen, the Board of Finance, and the Representative Town
meeting.
Located within the
boundaries of Darien, Connecticut on an island on Long Island Sound, the
60-acre Great Island is the largest private island ever to be offered for sale
on the East Coast, according to TopTenRealEstateDeals.com.
Built in 1902 and then purchased in the early
1900s by baking powder entrepreneur William Ziegler, the compound has
remained in the Ziegler family since William bought it.
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| Rafael Gustavino |
With its proximity
to New York City’s financial center, Connecticut was a hotspot for grand
mansions in the late 1800s and early 1900s, including the 15,000-square foot Lauder
Greenway Estate in Greenwich, built in 1896 for insurance executive John
Hamilton Gourlie.
Lauder Greenway was
the most expensive home in the United States when it sold in 2014 for $120
million.
Similar to the story
for many of the Gilded Age mansion owners, Ziegler bought the estate as a
summer home to escape New York City’s heat.
The massive
mansions, built for families such as the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and
Astors, were sometimes called “summer cottages” with owners who were often
competing to claim the largest and most extravagant homes.
Very few of the
Gilded Age mansions are still owned by private families, most have been
demolished for their land, burned down or donated to schools and non-profit
institutions.
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| William Steinkraus |
The
13,000-square-foot Great Island main house has 10 bedrooms and eight baths on
over a mile of Long Island Sound waterfront.
The estate has
multiple additional properties, including a guest house, 19th-century
farmhouse, caretakers cottage and a picturesque seaside cottage.
There is a long list
of amenities such as a pool and sand beach, a deep-water dock that can
accommodate a 100-foot-yacht, and equestrian facilities that were designed by Rafael
Gustavino - known for his work on the Biltmore Mansion, Grand Central
Station and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
Great Island equestrian features include an
18-stall granite stable, indoor and outdoor riding rings, a polo field, riding
trails and many paddocks.
One of the Ziegler family descendants is William
Steinkraus, who was an Olympic show jumping champion and Olympic gold medal
winner at Mexico City in 1968.
In the 1930s,
architect-to-the-super-rich, Addison Mizner,
did renovations to the home.
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Addison Mizner
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Darian has attracted
many actors, entertainers, authors, artists, designers, inventors and musicians
over the years, indicating its motivational vibe for creatives and thinkers.Author Anne Morrow Lindbergh and
her husband, Charles, lived quietly and privately there after the highly
publicized kidnapping and murder of their first son, Charles. Buckminster
Fuller, designer of the geodesic dome and the Dymaxion car lived there from
the 1930s until his death in 1983.
The listing is held
by Jennifer Leahy of Douglas Elliman, Greenwich, Connecticut.
CONTACT:
Genelle C. Brown
Content Manager, Media Division
TopTenRealEstateDeals.com
Phone: 336-459-3725
Twitter: @toptenrealestat
Facebook.com/toptenrealestat
Photo credit: Courtesy of Douglas Elliman, Gigi
Blanco
Source: TopTenRealEstateDeals.com
