There’s no need to jet to the Caribbean when an opportunity to snag a private island at a major discount lies much closer to home — provided you’re a billionaire.
Now listed for $100 million: Great Island, a roughly 60-acre private spread in Connecticut. The Wall Street Journal first reported the listing.
The roughly 60-acre spread first listed in 2016 for $175 million. Courtesy of Douglas EllimanGreat Island originally listed for $175 million in 2016, as The Post reported at the time, marking its first time up for grabs since 1902. What’s more, if the car-accessible estate had traded hands for that princely sum, it would have broken the record for the most expensive property ever sold in the US.
Perched on Long Island Sound, the listing has scenic views in every direction. Courtesy of Douglas EllimanUltimately, it met a different fate. In 2018, it lowered its asking price to $120 million; come 2019, it was taken off the market entirely.
The island, in Darien some 50 miles from Manhattan, has more than 1 mile of shoreline along Long Island Sound. It’s accessed via a causeway and includes a roughly 13,000-square-foot main house with views of the Sound from nearly every room. Its basement has a Prohibition-era wine cellar with bottles of whiskey from that time. This home has reportedly stood vacant for decades and may need a renovation.
Among the structures on the island: an equestrian facility. Courtesy of Douglas Elliman
Other perks include a strip of private beach. Courtesy of Douglas EllimanOther structures on the island include a 19th-century Colonial house that’s since been renovated and an equestrian facility with indoor and outdoor riding rings, plus a polo field, among its other inclusions.
The new asking price is “very realistic,” the listing agent, Jennifer Leahy of Douglas Elliman, told the Journal. “Although I’d love to say there are many buyers that can buy a $100 million property, there aren’t. This is for the 1% of the 1%.”
Accessed via a causeway, Great Island and its residential structures can be reached by car. Courtesy of Douglas EllimanGreat Island belongs to the descendants of the baking powder entrepreneur William Ziegler. Ziegler, a founder of the Royal Baking Powder Company, purchased it around the turn of the 20th century and used the property as a summer home, according to the Journal. He died in 1905, and ever since it has stayed in the family.
Today, it’s owned by a trust controlled by the Steinkraus family, who are descendants of Ziegler’s granddaughter, Helen. One of Helen’s sons, 56-year-old Philip, told the Journal that despite having lifelong ties to Great Island, he and his brothers have simply moved on. He added that the new asking price, in part, owes itself to several property lines being redrawn. For instance, a neighboring waterfront parcel was removed and is now under ownership by another part of the family.
That $175 million ask was also set by family members who have since passed away, and “there were no comps to compare it to and we were flying blind,” he told the Journal.
