In New Canaan, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon

Married musicians Paul Simon and Edie Brickell are so eager to get rid of their country estate in bucolic (and posh) New Canaan, Conn., they’re willing to endure a bank account-brutalizing multimilliondollar loss. First listed in the spring of 2019 with a too-rosy price of $13.9 million, the sprawling 32-acre spread has been relisted at $11.9 million — a shocking 28% below the $16.5 million the long-married singer-songwriters paid for the spectacularly picturesque property coming up on 19 years ago. Hidden down a serpentine, gated driveway at the head of a circular drive on a high point of the pastoral estate, with panoramic views of rolling hills and dense woodlands, the Georgian-style mansion has a whitewashed brick exterior and is set amid towering specimen trees. The handsome, elegantly appointed and grandly proportioned (if somewhat dated) multiwinged manse offers six bedrooms and seven baths plus three powder rooms in a bit more t han 8,500 square feet over three floors. The grounds provide a parklike idyll with sweeping meadows, formal walled gardens and a swimming pool sited on a grassy plateau with serene views over a placid private pond. Just inside the main gates and a good distance from the main house, a 2,400-square-foot cottage, which the couple used as a recording studio, makes a perfect caretaker’s home or guesthouse. Leslie Razook and Anne Krieger of William Pitt Sotheby’s Intl. Realty hold the listing.