2012 June | Landvest Blog

Jun

The Sailing World Turns its Eyes to Rhode Island
By LandVest

For the first time in 18 years, the competition for the oldest trophy in international sport (the America’s Cup) returns to the United States. This week Newport, Rhode Island will be the first American venue for the lead-up to the 34th America’s Cup. Prior to racing for the Cup, teams compete in the World Series. The America’s Cup World Series is a regular circuit of regattas, bringing Cup racing to top venues around the world. The America’s Cup World Series allows the teams and their sailors to prepare for the Louis Vuitton Cup (the America’s Cup Challenger Series) and then, if fortunate enough, the America’s Cup Finals in San Francisco in September.

This year the first America’s Cup World Series circuit champion will be crowned in Newport, RI, the town that hosted Americas’ Cup racing from 1930 to 1983. The nine-day event is scheduled to run between June 23 and July 1, 2012. This exciting set of races features AC45 wing-sailed catamarans racing on short, tight courses within Newport Harbor. The start/finish line will be just off the shoreline and will afford incredible spectator access along numerous points on the waterfront.

As the event is drawing teams, fans and sponsors from New Zealand/UAE, England, Sweden, France, China, Italy and Korea, LandVest has targeted this event as a cross promotional opportunity to expand its already industry-leading international outreach. The following listings could be perfect venues to take in this round of Americas Cup races, or make this part of the world home. LandVest looks forward to seeing old friends and making new connections at this truly international celebration of sailing!

This blog post was brought to you by Terry Boyle who assists buyers and sellers of distinctive and complex real estate transactions on the South Shore and South Coast/Buzzards Bay real estate markets of Massachusetts. Contact Terry Boyle (tboyle@landvest.com) in our Boston, Massachusetts office if you’d like to talk about this property or his other real estate listings in Massachusetts.

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Jun

North Shore Real Estate Price Reduction – 505 Summer Street, Manchester, MA 01944
By LandVest

Newly Priced: Luxury Oceanfront Estate and Guesthouse
in Seaside Village of Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA

Summer Street Oceanfront Estate

1.79± acres
505 Summer Street
Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA
$6,400,000

Located on Boston’s North Shore, this Manchester by-the-Sea picturesque estate is situated on the quiet inlet of Kettle Cove. With spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean, and direct access to Black Beach (a private, sandy beach), the property which was recently mentioned in North Shore Magazine includes a renovated main residence with a gourmet kitchen, ocean-facing dining room, and a first floor master bedroom suite with his and hers closets. The additional two-story carriage house completed in 2006 features two bedrooms, a magnificent great room with exposed beams and a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace, catering kitchen, and decks overlooking Lily Pond. There is a boathouse sited at the water’s edge. This new price reduction presents a rare value offer for waterfront within an easy commute of Boston.

For more information on this property, click here or contact Lanse Robb (lrobb@landvest.com) at LandVest in Boston, MA

Click here to view more North Shore Real Estate for Sale

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Jun

South Shore Golf Course Homes for Sale Offer More than a Round of Golf
By LandVest

“Don’t play too much golf. Two rounds a day are plenty” – Harry Vardon

For many, the game of golf is a lifelong passion and provides endless enjoyment and challenge. For others, it is a pleasant diversion from the pressures of everyday life. For ardent golfers, a home on a golf course is the best place on earth. They would seem to be the prime candidates to own on a golf course; however, in the US, only 15% of those who purchase homes on or close to a golf course play golf. If it’s not for the convenient access to golf, what is the attraction of golf course real estate?

Most buyers of homes in communities around golf courses appreciate the open space and natural beauty without the burden of maintaining it themselves. Often, amenities like pools, tennis courts, walking trails, fitness clubs or a private beach attract homebuyers to these locations.

In addition, community maintenance of the common areas contributes to home values. Golf is just one of the activities that encourage a sense of community. Considering all of these positive factors, a home on a golf course combines recreation, community and physical beauty regardless of whether the homeowners play twice a day or not at all.

LandVest, a leader in the marketing of luxury residential real estate for over 40 years, has the following golf course listings:

Round Hill Lot

Round Hill Lot in South Dartmouth, MA

ROUND HILL is an exceptional golf community on the South Coast of Massachusetts. Centered on the former Edward Howland Robinson Green estate (the only son of Hetty Green), a 1920′s granite mansion built on an extraordinary waterfront site, the Round Hill community offers golf, tennis, beaches, clubhouse and walking trails.

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Butler’s Point

Butler's Point in Marion, MA

Within putting range of the famous Kittansett Club at the tip of a long waterfront peninsula with fine views over Buzzard’s Bay, BUTLER’S POINT offers the best of waterfront living in a Marion, MA a classic New England coastal town known for wonderful golf, sailing, and sense of community.

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This blog is brought to you by Terry Boyle , who specializes in unique properties on Boston’s South Shore and South Coast. For more information on luxury real estate on or near golf courses, please contact one of our brokers, or visit our website at www.landvest.com.

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Jun

Historic 24-Acre Maine Island for Sale, Included: Fort Scammel
By LandVest

Whenever I take a tour of one of our properties, I play the If This Were My House game. Usually, I begin by imagining where I’d pay homage to my favorite objet d’art and end with holiday decorating. However, when LandVest broker John Scribner took me out to his latest Maine real estate offering, my mind began to race, and the If This Were My Island game began.

House Island in Casco Bay is not our usual, extraordinary LandVest listing. You might call it extra-extraordinary. With its perfect, near-shore but private and protected location, it has the ingredients to make it an exemplary LandVest listing. An exemplary listing which includes the added bonus of owning your own Fort. Not a tree-house kind of fort, but, a circa 1807 Civil War fort with subterranean rooms, tunnels and stairways of granite and brick. The kind of fort thatsent my imagination into marathon mode. Even if, in the end, its best use is to leave it as is, how fun to say, “I am the proud steward of Fort Scammel.”

As with our other “private islands for sale”, how nice to never have to worry about who is going to buy the abutting properties, and how incredible it would be to start and finish your morning and evening commute by boat, or perhaps only leave the island when in need of a night out at one of Portland’s fine restaurants. And for those who are lovers of all creatures great and small, the abundant ocean life – seals, ospreys, gulls and the resident family of deer–are sure to cause one to stop and gaze. Yes, House Island with the included Fort Scammel, appeals on so many levels:

History – Circa 1808 Fort Scammel, was originally built as an eight-sided wooden blockhouse and intended to protect the harbor from the British. From the 1840′s to the 1870′s, the fort was modernized and enlarged with granite bastions and earthworks for the coastal defense of the United States. It was touted as one of the best-preserved Civil War era forts in existence. The Island also served as a quarantine station for immigrants.
So close but so far away – The privacy and quiet of a remote island, yet just a quick 5 minute boat ride to Portland, Maine, and all its rich cultural and epicurean offerings.
Family Compound/Corporate Retreat – Complete with three ready-to-renovate residences, and ample room to roam. It’s no wonder why, over the years, the island has hosted countless corporate events and private family celebrations.

If this were my island, my stewardship would begin with an extended friends and family grand lobster bake, including volleyball, badminton, and Wiffle Ball. I would ask my friend to bring his guitar for when we gather ’round the beach-side bonfire, and then with a gathering of the troupes we’d head out for a twilight tour through Fort Scammel to the room where they used to store gunpowder and where I have made one of the coolest wine cellars in the world! (Note, the wine cellar is purely imaginary).

If you missed all the talk about House Island, click on videos and news links below:

Peaksfest Backdrop for House Island Listing

Private Island in Portland Harbor is For Sale

What Does 4.8 Million Get You? Plenty of Privacy!

Opinion: House Island Sale Shows Need for Public Land Fund

For more information or to arrange for a visit to House Island , please contact John Scribner at 207-874-2057 or jscribner@landvest.com.

Click to view more extraordinary Islands and Island Properties for sale

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Jun

It’s the Perfect Time for a Tour of Vermont Farms for Sale – Part Three
By LandVest

Our next stop on the LandVest Vermont Farm tour is Uphill Farm. Uphill Farm is one of Vermont’s landmark properties because of its remarkable beauty, location, and rich sense of place. From Woodstock Village, the farm is a few miles out heading toward Barnard past the Billings Farm Museum and the Rockefeller Historic site.

The entrance drive to Uphill farm winds up through meadows with grazing cows, past one of the ponds and the kitchen/perennial gardens to the beautiful old farmhouse and red barns set into the hillside, shaded by ancient maple trees.

The best way to get a sense of the property is to walk up a short rise from the farmyard to where the hilltop views really open up to a huge expanse of meadow, with split rail fenced pastures, wildlife pond and winding farm lanes leading the eye to the hills beyond. (Cue the theme from “The Sound of Music”.)

Uphill Farm meadows, summer

The path to the upper meadows, autumn

On the far side of the meadow, the trails drop into the sugarbush, and if it were winter, and we were on skis, we would enjoy a wonderful quick run down the private ski hill. In fall, the hills blaze with the brilliant colors of the sugar maples.

The Uphill greeters
on a stroll

Returning to the farmyard and into the main barn, we are met by the official greeting committee, consisting of dogs, cats and two very friendly goats. The horses look out the stall windows with anticipation of treats. The barn, set into the hillside, is cozy in the winter and cool in the summer, with roomy stalls, automatic waterers, and, remarkably, hammered copper walls that make for very low maintenance. The barn rambles on multiple levels (perfect for exploring) including haylofts, shop, tackroom and office, more stalls, and a very cool old silo.

The house at Uphill Farm looks like a modest Cape style farmhouse, but underneath the understated style is a high level of luxury and totally up to date systems designed to make the place run seamlessly. A trip down to the basement reveals German boilers and enormous hot water tanks; hot water is never going to be an issue after a cold day skiing. The pool and spa, designed to look like an organic hillside feature, is surrounded by a heated stone patio, pleasant on the toes on a winter visit from the house to the spa.

Uphill Farm pool
set into the hillside

Master suite and spiral staircase to sleeping porch

The house is light, comfortable, and tastefully done in Vermont vernacular. It is set up nicely for family gatherings with a huge kitchen and family room, dining room perfect for Thanksgiving, separate guest suite downstairs, family bedrooms upstairs, and a cathedraled master suite (with the best sleeping porch, ever) privately set in a separate wing. Other toys include an outdoor fireplace and grill, gym, and a cherry coffered ceilinged billiard room. We hear all the time that people just want to curl up with a book and never go back to the city.

The best part about Uphill Farm is that it is so perfectly Vermont. It is the Vermont farm, idealized.

Until you can join us at Uphill Farm in person, you can be there virtually..

This blog was brought to you by Jon Weber and Story Jenks of LandVest’s Woodstock, Vermont office, and by Ruth Kennedy Sudduth, Director of LandVest’s Residential Brokerage Division. For more information on wonderful Vermont real estate, equestrian properties, farms and Woodstock, Vermont homes for sale, please contact any one of us. Click here for Vermont Real Estate for sale.

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Jun

Shingle-Style–Always In Style
By LandVest

Red Oaks in Cohasset, MA is an up-to-the-minute interpretation
of an early 20th century Shingle Style classic

The Shingle-Style is a uniquely American architectural style that evolved in the last quarter of the 19th century, in part as a renewed interest in Colonial American architecture following the 1876 centennial celebration, and, in part, as a reaction to the highly ornamented and colorfully painted Queen Anne-style. The Shingle-Style adopted the visually taut plain-shingled surfaces of colonial buildings, with the exterior simply mirroring the interior spaces. In contrast to the equally sized cross-gables of various Victorian-style buildings, Shingle-Style houses often use a single large roof, such as a gambrel or hip roof with smaller often-irregular gables. Ornamentation is kept to a minimum and aims for the effect of a complex shape enclosed within a smooth exterior. Arches, covered porches, and towers that blend into the house are common features. The style reached its highest expression in fashionable summer destinations such as Cape Cod, coastal Maine, Newport, and Long Island. Some of the more famous architects were Henry Hobson Richardson and William Ralph Emerson in Boston, John Calvin Stevens in Portland, Maine, and the firms of Peabody & Stearns in Boston and McKim, Mead & White in New York. Shingle-Style is unusually free form and variable and has inspired modern traditionalists such as Robert Venturi and Robert A.M. Stern who put their own unique spin on this versatile form.

LandVest, as one of the leading brokers of luxury real estate on the New England coast, relishes opportunities to showcase great Shingle-Style properties. Some of our current and recent Shingle-Style listings include:

RED OAKS, 63 Nichols Rd, Cohasset, MA
A complete rebuild by Robert A.M. Stern of a 1906 waterfront manor house

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FAIRVIEW WATERFRONT COMPOUND, Church St,Woods Hole, MA
A magnificent elevated 7.5 ± acre site with nearly nine hundred feet of waterfront with spectacular views of Vineyard Sound and the Elizabeth Islands and a 1918 Shingle-Style house and two renovated three-bedroom guest houses.

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29 SMITH’S POINT, Smith’s Point Rd, Manchester-By-the-Sea, MA
Originally designed in 1882 by Peabody and Stearns as the carriage house for “Kragsyde“, one of the most famous Shingle-Style houses built in America and the summer home of Bostonian G. Nixon Black.

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For more Shingle-Style homes for sale or to see other New England Coastal and Waterfront listings, you can contact one of our brokers or visit the LandVest website at www.landvest.com.

This post was brought to you by Stewart Young, expert in Cape Cod and Boston MetroWest Real Estate. Click for Stewart’s current listings including Cape Cod Private listings not available on the public market.

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Jun

Nautilus Island Selected as Architectural Digest Extraordinary Homes for Sale
By LandVest

Amanda Friedman, of Architectural Digest, selected Nautilus to be featured in her column, “ON THE MARKET: JULY 2012 Extraordinary Homes for Sale Around the World“. Nautilus Island is a 37-acre island, with ample amenities; Nautilus boats its very own pool, tennis court, barn, game room, vineyard, sugar shack, and organic garden – not to mention watersports, and lodging to support a family compound or corporate retreat. It is also perfect for the family that enjoys entertaining. The property does come with one warning, however: once your guests come to visit the island, they may never want to leave. This is especially true once they make their way to the boathouse bar, through which gentle summer breezes blow through to cool, and, in the winter, the fireplace warms the night air. Nautilus Island truly is extraordinary.

For more information on Nautilus Island, or for more information about buying or selling Maine Real Estate please visit the Nautilus Island website or contact John Saint-Amour jsaintamour@landvest.com
Click to view more Maine Island Real Estate for Sale
Click to view more Maine Waterfront Real Estate for Sale

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Jun

LandVest Photo Gallery: Shingle-Style Homes for Sale
By LandVest

Shingle-Style homes evolved following the 1876 centennial celebration in reaction to the highly ornamented and colorfully painted Victorian-style houses of the time. With the Fourth of July around the corner, LandVest looks at this uniquely American architectural style. Click on photos to see these LandVest listings.

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Jun

LandVest, Christie’s International Real Estate and Christie’s Auction House Announce Restyled International Magazine
By LandVest

LandVest, an exclusive Christies International Real Estate (CIRE) affiliate representing New England luxury real estate, is pleased to announce the launch their new magazine, available online at www.christiesrealestate.com/magazine and in a luxury print edition.

Christie’s is a globally-renowned brand synonymous with luxury and glamour, and is the only real estate company owned by an auction house. This tightly intertwined relationship provides unique access to our clients. The new Christie’s magazine offers fascinating auction house editorial in the updated publication. The magazine features insights into the homes, passions, and lives of our international clientele.

One writer, designer, and model who knows well that “home is where you make it” is India Hicks, who moved from Britain to the Bahamas 16 years ago. Hicks talks about life on an idyllic island, where people walk barefoot and commute by golf cart. She also explains how leaving home means one can experience the joys of returning home. This issue also highlights vineyard owners who enjoy the benefits of living and working on their properties, while creating award-winning boutique wines. If you like this story you may be interested in Nautilus Island in Maine, a unique angle on Maine’s Vineyard living.

You’ll also read about how New York’s urban park, the High Line, is blazing a trail of residential regeneration through Manhattan’s West Side.

Are you currently thinking about purchasing an international property? Would you like to receive the new Christies International Real Estate Magazine? If so, we would love to send you a copy of the magazine and answer any of your questions (magazine supply is limited). Email us at info@landvest.com

Enjoy!

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Jun

Why Nautilus Island is a “Best Place to Live” – The Owner’s Perspective
By LandVest

What Makes This Place Special -
An Island Owner’s Perspective

When we bought Nautilus Island, we were the first new owners in over a century, and we set out to restore the farm and estate which had been essentially self-sufficient since the 1800s. Our top priorities were upgrading and installing all of the available utilities, amenities, and conveniences – things that we all take for granted on the mainland.

The island is more than beautiful; it always has been. One tends to move at a slower pace out here. It is only natural to find your days more and more in tune with the sunrise and sunset, the weather, and the passing of the seasons. We grow all of our own vegetables in the raised gardens. We have a flock of chickens with an 18-egg-per-day habit, pigs and meat animals for the freezer, fruits for preserves and the root cellar, maple syrup from our ancient island trees and wine from the vineyard.

We even distill our own bio-fuel which, when placed in oak barrels, has a strong resemblance to bourbon, or when left alone has a strong resemblance to good vodka. Last week, we had 6 guinea hens arrive; they eat a thousand ticks and fleas daily, and sleep in trees. Yesterday they walked around the island with a flock of wild turkeys chatting and eating bugs. There were two wood ducks in the swimming pool and Canada geese in the pond.

I now live on the island year-round with my two black labs. Last winter a Nor’easter came through with sixty-knot winds and over a foot of drifting snow. We were hanging out in the kitchen next to the wood burning stove watching the news on satellite TV and checking the high speed internet satellite emails, when suddenly the power went out – a tree must have fallen on the lines on the mainland – a moment of panic in the darkness. The “abandoned-on-an-island” fear was building, and then suddenly the automatic generators came on and Nautilus was lit up once more. Even the lampposts along the paths outside were glowing. I decided to bundle up and brave the storm with the dogs. We trudged through the snow, down to the barn, and shut off the generators. Nautilus was plunged back into darkness. We walked back to the kitchen, lit a few candles, and put some more wood in the cookstove. The dogs laid on their blanket underneath the kitchen table and I opened another bottle of wine. The storm raged outside, and I wondered: what was it that I really needed to do on the mainland tomorrow anyway?