BUYER: Anderson Cooper
LOCATION: Bantam, CT
PRICE: Unknown but last listed at $2.595 million
SIZE: 10,127 square feet, 10 bedrooms, 6 full and 3 half bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: As was revealed by the lady property gossip over at the New York Post, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and his well-built bar-owning man-friend Benjamin Maisani shelled out a very vague sounding “mid-to-high seven figures” for an historic, 210-acre estate two hours by car from New York City in pastoral Litchfield County, CT.
Your Mama’s research on the internets shows that in 2009 the property in question was listed for $8.495 and by August of 2011, when it was taken off the market, the price had plummeted to $3.995 million. In March of this year (2014) the property popped back up on the open market as a short sale with an asking price of $5.3 million and we found loads of digital evidence it was last listed for $2,595,000, a price that did not, it should be noted, include an adjoining 160-acre parcel. As of today, digital listings show the property is pending sale.
The 18-room stone and stucco Tudor was designed by Wilson Eyre, a founder of “’House & Garden” magazine originally and built in for wealthy heiress Isabella Douglas Curtis. The estate is being sold by Marc and Karen Kopins Shaw, the former a custom home builder and the latter a former Miss Connecticut who later appeared on “Dallas” and “The A Team.”
Listing details Your Mama dug up on the internet show the dignified if dour, 10,00 square foot pile has 10 bedrooms and 6 full and 3 half bathrooms on three fully renovated and restored floors. (There five principal bedrooms have en suite facilities and, in a separate wing, four staff or guest rooms share a single bathroom.) The elegantly proportioned living and entertaining spaces include a 39-foot living room, a 28-foot dining room, a library/den, family room, office suite, and a cook friendly kitchen fitted and kitted all the latest hoozygoozies and gadgets.
Well-preserved architectural elements include original oak and fir floor boards, hand carved chestnut boiserie, plaster tracery ceilings, nine hand-carved limestone fireplaces, and a carved marble staircase so decadent it very well might be perfectly at home at the Vatican.
The gated and landscaped grounds that surround the mansion include a cobblestone forecourt, a detached four-car garage, a 75-foot long swimming pool and nearby spa, a garden house, a tennis court ringed by stone walls and columns, and vast lawns that stretch out towards rolling pastures.
Mister Cooper, a Vanderbilt by birth, is hardly a stranger to luxury living. In Manhattan he owns an 8,240-square-foot converted firehouse in Greenwich Village that he picked up in 2010 for $4.3 million. He also owns side by side properties in the sleepy Hamptons community of Quiogue, one of which is bought in early 2012 for 1.7 million, fixed up and flipped back on the market in April 2014 for $2.99 million.
Listing photos: William Raveis Real Estate
