Regis Philbin must have been pulling out his hair over his posh Connecticut home. He finally unloaded the mansion for virtually half-price after five years on the market. Luck ‘o the Irish he sold it at all.
The luxury real estate market in suburban New York City has felt the shock of the recession like many other communities. With cutbacks on Wall Street, even the high-rollers are shopping for bargains. All the while, Regis was demanding top dollar.
Regis initially listed the property in 2008 for $5.9 million. But he’s progressively cut the price and finally found a buyer for $3 million. The retired TV veteran can probably afford to take the hit. But money is money, even when you’re Regis.
Check out the house; click to enlarge.
Raymond LaChance, who bought the house said Philbin’s celebrity was “kind of neat” but not a factor in the purchase.
The house sits on six acres with a pool, a tennis court, a gazebo, four bedrooms and six bathrooms. By Greenwich standards, it’s fairly modest. A typical Greenwich “mansion” is more than 10,000 square feet.
Stanley Cheslock put his 26,000-square-foot Greenwich “dream home” on the market for $17.95 million, more than a year ago and it’s still sitting. He’s since cut the price to $15.95 million. But for that you get a movie theater and 3,700-bottle wine cellar.
“It’s a steal,” Cheslock, a co-founder of an investment firm, told Wall Street Web site dealbreaker.com. He said cut the price by 50 percent since he first tried to sell the property five years ago.
The market is so slow it would take more than four years to sell all of the houses priced at $10 million or more; it’s the biggest backlog since at least 2004, Mark Pruner, an agent with Prudential Connecticut Realty, told the site.
Regis re-listed it last May shortly before announcing his retirement from his long-running talk show “Live With Regis and Kelly.”
Oddly, Philbin owns another Greenwich mansion nearby. Why he needed two is a mystery. He also has a posh Manhattan apartment where he spends most of his time. Check out the photos of his unloaded property.
