In the chaotic, tabloid-fever aftermath of Alec Baldwin’s accidental shooting and killing last year of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, on the New Mexico movie set of the western film “Rust,” he and his family quickly decamped their sprawling, multi-unit combination penthouse in lower Manhattan and headed for Vermont. (The film’s writer and director, Joel Souza, was also injured in the shooting.)
The family of eight — Baldwin also has a seventh child, 26-year-old Ireland, with ex-wife Kim Basinger — initially holed up in the town of Manchester, where they rented a former bed and breakfast. They occasionally went out for coffee and a nosh, posted Instagram pics of their children on Halloween, and gave a strange roadside interview that endeared them to few of their critics.
They also went house hunting in the area and among the places they are said to have scoped out was a comfortably appointed 14,000-square-foot mansion set on 13.5 pristine and secluded acres near the Southern Vermont Arts Center, on the hilly outskirts of Manchester. They settled, however, on another far less expensive property in nearby Arlington, one with much less square footage but a lot more land. According to local reports and confirmed by a local broker whose brokerage was involved in the transaction, the $1.75-million purchase of the pastoral 55.3-acre property went down off market. The sellers were repped by Vicki Wilson of Maple Leaf Realty, while the Baldwins were handled by Sean Dillon at Rhodes Real Estate.
The rural escape’s roughly 3,600-square-foot main house, a fully restored antique farmhouse that dates to the late 18th century, includes three bedrooms, three baths, a fireplace-warmed tavern room and, for those especially cold winter days, a sauna. There’s also a charming four-bedroom and two-bath guest cottage, a horse barn, and a huge, postcard-perfect red dairy barn. Presumably some renovations will be needed to house the entirety of the Baldwin clan, which includes a retinue of nannies and assistants.
-
Image Credit: Redfin While the property was not available on the open market, online listings from when the country estate was last sold, in 2015 for $550,000, indicate there are additionally, “numerous outbuildings, updated horse stalls, several pastures, expansive landscaped lawn areas, pleasant views and a pond with picturesque waterfall spillway.”
While itty-bitty and little-known Arlington is home to only about 2,500 people, it certainly has had its fair share of influential residents, including British loyalist Samuel Adams, Americana painter/illustrator Norman Rockwell, and Montessori education pioneer Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Michael J. Fox and Tracy Pollen, who once maintained a farm property about an hour away, were married in Arlington’s West Mountain Inn more than three decades ago. -
Image Credit: Redfin While it makes sense the Baldwins would be drawn to Vermont in general and Arlington specifically — Hilaria’s grandfather was a prominent long-time resident of Arlington — they certainly have a couple other plush residential options to choose from in their small but impressive property portfolio. In addition to their 4,100-square-foot penthouse, at the tony Devonshire House in New York’s Greenwich Village, which they bought in a series of transactions between 2011 and 2019 for a total cost of more than $16 million, they can also retreat to an 8-plus-acre compound out in the Hamptons that includes a huge main house, a vast swimming pool, and a couple of outbuildings.