895 Lake AvenueI mention below a new condo on Suburban Avenue that seems to have been disposed of at or near cost. Here’s another builder who is apparently having second thoughts. BSF Builders, a very successful firm in town with a great track record paid $3.1 million for this place on August 25. They’ve now put it back on the market for $3.495 million, although why someone else would pay $395,000 extra for the opportunity to pick up BSF’s discard is a bit of a poser.
This location has an interesting background. It was part of the Martin R. Frankel compound – he of the insurance fraud, diamonds, international manhunt and all that. Our police ignored many complaints about activities here – they did show up once when the nude body of one of Frankel’s Russian sweeties was discovered hanged but, as demanded by the Greenwich Police Manual, labelled the death a suicide and returned to headquarters. Only when Mr. Frankel set fire to the place in preparation for flight did anyone take official notice of the goings on here and even then it was the Fire Department, not the police.
Oh well. Someone bought the house, out of foreclosure, I believe, and did a very nice job renovating it. He listed it for sale in June, 2005 for $3.765 million and eventually sold it for $3.187 a year later. The next owner was not so fortunate and resold it to BSF this August for, as noted, $3.1 million.
And now it can be yours, for the seller’s cost and a wee finder’s fee.
The real story here may be kind of interesting – Rick Rowland builds the same basic “Georgian” spec house everytime – it’s hard to believe his buyers fall for this and actually keep buying his houses – although he has one on the market for $7.5 million that’s just sitting and probably will for sometime since it’s way overpriced – and yet he goes out and pays over $3 million for an eighties contemporary sitting around other 80′s contemporaries – doesn’t fit his building profile – too high a base price for his usual spec house and its location doesn’t fit his typical traditional house style.
Then, he tries to flip it almost immediately – could Rowland have been diamond hunting in the walls of his new house – looking for something of value left over from Frankel?