The cost to send a letter may have gone up again, but buyers in Greenwich know the price of a postage-stamp property (i.e., humongous house, tiny plot of land) has never been cheap. So all the more reason to appreciate the value of this estate, set on 4 "park-like" acres on a private cul-de-sac in "prime mid-country."
The renovated 8,180-square-foot Georgian Colonial is really something to write home about, too, with six bedrooms, 6½ bathrooms, traditional (but "huge") entertaining rooms, 10-foot ceilings, custom moldings, a home theater, a gym, a wine cellar and a wraparound terrace on the second floor.
First-class amenities include a heated swimming pool "enhanced" by flagstone patios, an elevator to all levels and a backup generator (in case of rain, sleet or hail).
ALSO:
Getting to the Bottom of a Russian's 26 Toilets: Michael Lewis
...In 2005 Valery Kogan, a Russian whom no one outside of Russia had ever heard of, turns up in Greenwich and buys a five- acre lot with a 20,000-square-foot house on it.Naturally -- he being Russian, this being Greenwich -- he expects to tear down this old house and erect his own new 54,000- square-foot place. Like me, Valery Kogan overcame great odds to become a capitalist success. (I went to Penn, for example; Valery was born in a police state, and given a girl's name, to boot.)
Having made it this far he clearly never imagined that anyone might try to stop him from going even further. But then he met the organized proletariat of Greenwich......His desire for a 26-holer is the thing no ordinary person, even in Greenwich, seems capable of understanding.
``Who needs that many toilets?'' one of the protesting nimrods of Greenwich put it to Bloomberg News, speaking for the whole miserable rabble.
Well, for a start, Valery Kogan needs 26 toilets. He also needs someone to explain the need. Allow me.
To begin with -- and it depresses me that I find myself instructing citizens of Greenwich on the special needs of the very rich -- the seriously wealthy don't use their houses as ordinary people do....
...Bowl Superiority
Put this way you can see the true genius of Valery Kogan. Virtually every other form of conspicuous consumption in America has been bought and paid for; in the brain space that ordinary people reserve for the obsessive contemplation of the rich, there was hardly any real estate left.
Cars, houses, animals, furs, jewels, islands: From the point of view of the ordinary person looking for something to envy all are ``been there, done that.''
``Toilets!'' I can imagine Valery saying to himself, late on one cold Russian night, ``I will buy more toilets than any man on earth and the American people will speak of me with wonder.'' And they do.
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