The priciest listings in the burbs

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A round-up of the most expensive properties on the market in Nassau, Bergen, Fairfield and Westchester counties

December 01, 2013
By Julie Strickland

As the Manhattan luxury market continues climbing, pricey homes outside the five boroughs are seeing plenty of action of their own.
This month, The Real Deal brings you a roundup of the priciest listings in New York City’s toniest suburbs: Nassau, Bergen, Fairfield and Westchester counties. They may not break Manhattan records, but they have plenty of luxury cachet.
With new foreign buyers, Nassau’s luxury sales boom
Foreign investors are a growing presence in the luxury residential market in Nassau County. And the priciest listings those buyers have to choose from are all about the bling — including indoor basketball courts, home movie theaters, and the like.
Nassau’s five most expensive listings range in price from $15 million to $15.9 million, with several ties to boot.
Many of the buyers eyeing properties with price tags of $10 million or more are Chinese customers purchasing homes that can also serve as corporate retreats or entertainment venues for overseas guests, sources say.
“Foreign investors don’t know a great landscaper, who to call to put a pool in, who to call to furnish,” said Shawn Elliott, founder and CEO of Shawn Elliott Luxury Homes and Estates. “Because of the language barrier in most of these cases, they want it all there.”
Nassau County’s Gold Coast — which includes Sands Point as well as the Oyster Bay villages of Old Westbury, Muttontown, Centre Island, the Brookvilles and Mill Neck — is drawing most of the high-end buyers, said Elliott, who has the county’s priciest listing.
Long Island sales overall grew 4.1 percent in the third quarter, with median prices also up 6.6 percent since the start of the year, according to Douglas Elliman’s latest market report.
And like in the Manhattan market, inventory in Nassau County is tightening, feeding into the urgency to buy. Indeed, year-over-year, inventory shrank 13.5 percent to 15,652 homes countywide. Properties are also moving faster than they did a year ago, with listings spending an average of 102 days on the market in the third quarter, down from 116 days in the comparable quarter last year. Specifically, Elliott said that properties priced over $10 million are moving much faster than in the past.
Nassau County’s second priciest listing — a $15.8 million contemporary home finished in 1994 — belongs to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creator Mark Freedman.
Freedman purchased three adjacent, two-acre vacant lots in 1992 in a subdivision called Broad Hollow for $1.5 million. He then constructed a 15,000-square-foot home. The property is decked out with all the trimmings a youthful ’90s cartoon creator might want, from a movie theater to indoor basketball courts. (When reached late last month, the listing broker said the property was “in the process” of being taken off the market.)
Another quirky high-end offering is the so-called Twinight estate at 103 Centre Island Road in Centre Island. It is owned by the world’s foremost porcelain collector, Richard Cohen, and modeled after Versailles’ Le Petit Trianon. The home did not make the top five list, but does come with a hefty $14.98 million price tag. The home’s Napoleon room, decorated in the general’s favorite colors (purple and green) and accented with his crest, pays homage to the leader, who housed his mother at Le Petit Trianon after he came to power. Twinight spans more than 21,000 square feet and the porcelain collection housed there is itself worth $15 million, according to Elliott, the listing broker.

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