175 Riverside Avenue
When I was a kid we called these “Murphy Houses”, in honor of the contractor who bulldozed his way through Riverside in the 60s, breaking up big properties and jamming them with these inexpensive ($69,000 then) built-on-a-slab creations. This one was listed in 2007 for $1.595 million and sold yesterday for $1.075. Even adjusting for inflation, I suppose that worked out well for the owner. Interesting factoid: one of the Meeker daughters. on whose property this particular development sprung up, told my brother that her family had tried to sell the homestead with it’s eight building lots to one buyer for $75,000 back in 1966. The only one interested was Mr. Murphy.
- 35 Chapel Lane
This house on Chapel Lane enjoys waterfront on Cos Cob Harbor as well as an unimpeded view of the railrod tracks and I-95. It was priced at $3.5 million last summer by what I presume is an out-of-town broker (Property Network? Never heard of it), dazzled, perhaps, by the “Greenwich” name, even if it’s in Riverside. That didn’t work out and so today it’s back as a new listing priced at $2.1 million. The assessed value, by the way, is $2.140.
Nightline had a segment on Jim the Realtor tonight.
No clip online (yet?) but here’s the story.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7346226&page=1
Is 35 Chapel Ln. in some stage of foreclosure? One of the URLs where the listing information can be found seems to suggest that.
I believe it was you who “found” Mr. Murphy’s wooden advertising sign posted on that property in the mid-1960′s near our house. Dad cut the sign up to be used as bases for our baseball games and I recall standing on 2nd, waiting to steal 3rd and looking down to note “New houses, starting at $27,500″.
I do believe you’re right.