$19M Redding property joins state’s luxury listings
The Redding estate once owned by film director Barry Levinson has joined the ranks of the state’s 20 priciest listings.
The owners of Maple Hill Farm are seeking $19 million for the property that encompasses nearly
50 acres on Umpawaug Road in Redding. Levinson, who counts “Rain Man” and “The Natural” among his directing credits, sold the property in
2012 to a limited liability company called Escape from Connecticut. Its chairman, Greg Young, lives in Redding and runs the SpreadMusicNow foundation, which supports nonprofits such as Stamford’s Intempo and New Haven’s Music Haven, which provide instruction to kids.
Maple Hill Farm represented Redding’s record sale until 2016, when financier Jerrold Fine got
$13.6 million for his 300acre Deer Run estate, less than half what he sought originally.
Maple Hill Farm becomes the second Danbury-area property listed among the highest-priced in Connecticut, alongside Ridgefield’s Double H Farm, which is priced at $28.5 million. Located on Old Stagecoach Road in Ridgefield, the equestrian estate was built in 2009 by Hunter Harrison, a railroad executive who was CEO at varying points for three major railroads. Harrison died in December 2017.
Connecticut’s real estate market reportedly went into overdrive in May, an apparent effect of the coronavirus pandemic as affluent New York City denizens have reportedly sought to escape city living.
Since the start of May, several Connecticut estates have hit the market, including some, like the Peninsula at Mead Point lot in Greenwich, that have failed to sell in prior years. The Peninsula at Mead Point is now split into two lots that front a lagoon which opens up onto Long Island Sound. The combined property is priced at nearly $46 million.
Greenwich continues to dominate Connecticut’s luxury market, with longlanguishing properties like the Vista Drive estate once owned by President Donald Trump ($34.9 million, down $19 million from its 2015 price) competing with newly constructed options like a backcountry manse on Lower Cross Road that came on the market last week for nearly $14.9 million.
While Double H Farm has been listed on and off for the past several years — in 2017, an agent described the barn as “the Four Seasons for horses” — Maple Hill Farm has been available only once since 1995, with William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty describing it as “a working farm” in promotional materials.
Maple Hill Farm includes its own barn that SpreadMusicNow has used for performances and fundraisers, with a bar and mezzanine level with seating overlooking the stage, as well as pullout cots for overnights.